Hot Chocolate on Thursday
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Date published:- Translated version published 17th February 2026
Author:- Michiko Aoyama
Translated by:- Madison Shimoda
No. of pages:- 208 pages
Genre:- Japanese fiction
Quick Review:- a collection of short stories that deals about emotions and how to overcome them
Rating:- 4/5
Michiko Aoyama was born in 1970 in Aichi Prefecture, Honshu, Japan. After university, she became a reporter for a Japanese newspaper based in Sydney before moving back to Japan to work as a magazine editor in Tokyo. What You are Looking for is in the Library was shortlisted for the Japan Booksellers’ Award and became a Japanese bestseller. It is being translated into more than fifteen languages. She lives in Yokohama, Japan.
Across a bridge in a quiet neighborhood in Tokyo, a seasonal cherry blossom sits on the river. Nearby is the Marble Cafe, where a woman writes in a notebook and a young waiter prepares her favorite hot drink. Both wonder about each other and about the other lives of the clientele who frequent this charming little cafe behind the trees…
Without even realizing it, we may touch and change someone else’s life.
Taking a walk along the river, cooking the best tamagoyaki, ordering hot chocolate, forgetting to remove our nail polish… The small, everyday acts that we do can lead to unexpected encounters and reverberate far beyond your own circle and ultimately make a difference in the world.
Hot Chocolate on Thursday is a tapestry of slice-of-life moments that each open and close with a woman ordering her regular hot chocolate at the mysterious Marble Cafe. What happens in between will touch and swell your heart, as we connect with a community of untold unfolding lives.
There is an infamous cafe named Marble cafe in Tokyo where a woman writes in her notebook, sitting by her usual seat that faces the cherry blossoms. The young waiter who is working at the Marble Cafe notices the woman who writes by the window and always prepares her favorite drink, hot chocolate. As the story folds, the story mainly is the people around the cafe and their lives spanning from Japan to Australia.
This was a good healing fiction and each short story begins with the color and tells about their emotions and feelings that they are dealing in their lives. This was well written short story, under 300 pages and good for readers who are looking for a quick read.
Overall this is 4 stars.
Tropical Girl Reads 