The Calico Cat at the Chibineko Kitchen- ARC Book Review

Follow the bank of the Koitogawa river until you reach the beach. From there a path of white seashells will lead you to the Chibineko Kitchen. Step inside, they’ll be expecting you.

Nagi Hayakawa is facing an impossible choice. Should she agree to marry her boyfriend, despite being ill and not knowing how many years she has left to live, or should she protect him from future heartbreak by refusing? Desperate for advice from the one person no longer there to give it – her mother who died years before – she reserves a table at the Chibineko Kitchen.

When she takes her first bite of the miso-marinated tofu and rice, prepared for her by the restaurant’s young chef, Kai, the gulls outside fall silent and the air grows hazy.

Deliciously heart-warming, The Chibineko Kitchen is about savouring every moment.

This is a unique story about the characters meeting their loved ones who had died by eating remembrance meals prepared by the Chibineko Kitchen. We have Nagi, who only has a few more years to live because of her cancer and she had broken off with her boyfriend, meets her mother through eating remembrance meal. We have other characters who are also facing similar situations like Nagi, who are missing their loved ones and remember and meet them by having meals at the Chibineko kitchen.

This is the part 2 of the Chibineko Kitchen series. I enjoyed reading about the characters who faced many issues and problems after their loved ones die and through eating remembrance meals, they get encouragement and courage to live their life to the fullest. I also liked how there were recipes of those remembrance meals at the end of each chapter–so that we could try out those meals at home! Overall, I feel this is an emotional, heartbreaking and tear-jerking novel and I do like that there are cats mentioned in the story as I am a cat lover 🙂

Overall I give this book as 4.5 stars.

Many thanks to Netgalley and JMP for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.