The Nine Lives of a Bookshop Cat by Kentaro Utsugi

Publisher: Quercus Publishing UK

On Sale Date: August 27 2026

Pages: 256

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

The saying goes that a cat has nine lives. Nobody knows for sure, but in this novel, the main character and narrator, a black stray cat named Kinnosuke, has them and as the story starts, he is already in his ninth live. Due to things that happened connected to humans in his previous eights lives, he now has his figurative belly full of humans, completely distrusts them and wishes nothing with them to do anymore, and he avoids them now at all costs. But he doesn't have his  real belly full al all, so he goes out in the city on his own, looking for food and a place to stay and stumbles upon the Hokuto-do Bookshop. It seems a lot of cats hang around the run-down bookstore wich makes him curious. The store is run by a woman who also takes care of the four cats who have make the store their home. The cats seem very happy to Kinnosuke, and slowly on, the woman of the bookshop and the other cats win his trust and he slowly moves in. He still distrusts them though and also wonders what kind of mysterious thing is going on in this bookshop where hardly any customer buys something, and the mysterious woman who runs it but never orders new books, but the shelves seem to fill themselves with new books constantly. Another mysterious thing is the four cats, who where all seperately living at the house of an author in one of their previous lives, just as Kinnosuke in his third live. He also makes friends with a human, Madako, who loves reading and writing stories, they truly become close friends and Kinnosuke finally trusts a human again. We see Kinnosuke grow as a cat through his nine lives and follow all his adventures with a little hint of magic realism trough the bookshops and its self-filling shelves.

The Nine Lives of a Bookshop Cat is one of the many translated Japanese novels that is set up around a cat character. It was very enjoyable and entertaining to read about Kinnosuke and all his adventures in his nine lives and all the cats and people he met along the way, with a red line of Japanese mythology and culture and magical realism. It was sometimes a bit confusing though and not explained clearly in which live of Kinnosuke the story took place in every specific part of the book, as it sometimes switched back and forth in between one his nine lives. Some of the things he experienced where nice, other where just cruel, and it explained why he distrusted people so much and why his narrating voice was a bit sour and cynical through the book. It was very sweet when he bonded with Madako, who gained his trust again as a human.

Overall, I found this another Japansese cosy ''cat'' novel, the story and characters where very fine, and it all stayed very sweet and kawaii that I recommend reading!