JANUARY 2023 - AudioFile
Andrew Grace finds the humor in a narrative that is progressively unreliable yet always relatable. At Tokyo University, a college junior lives in a messy, cramped space, a “four-and-a-half-tatami room.” He seeks the perfect college experience, preferably one that includes a “raven-haired beauty.” Several alternate timelines unfold, each with subtly divergent details involving different college clubs but the same recurring characters who seek to sabotage the student’s ideal journey through higher education. Grace’s nimble, light touch keeps the proceedings buoyant as the protagonist faces deep questions about the nature of opportunities and choices. Grace’s performance captures the audiobook’s theme of personal growth and reflection. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
09/12/2022
Morimi’s delightful campus novel follows the quixotic adventures of an unnamed student dreaming of the perfect college experience. As a freshman, the narrator is presented with four potential extracurricular activities: the Ablutions film club, a vague organization posting “Disciples Wanted” ads, the softball club, and a shady group called Lucky Cat Chinese Food. Each deceptively promises the student—and the reader—a different narrative. However, over four sections in which the student chooses a different activity, he stumbles, à la Groundhog Day, through the same circumstances over and over. He develops a love-hate relationship with the devilish Ozu, has his fortune told by an old woman in the nightlife district, and one way or another falls in love with the intellectual yet beautiful Akashi. Other objects of repetition include castella cakes, fish burgers, a luxury scrub brush, and the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In their recurrence, Morimi instills comfort in the familiarity of his hero’s routine. Light and sweet in its confection, this satisfies like a spongy piece of castella. (Dec.)
From the Publisher
"This is not your ordinary campus novel or another Groundhog Day. In magical, irreverent, and often humorous prose that calls up both Murakami and Moshfegh, The Tatami Galaxy repeatedly reimagines the existential crises of a college misfit in a kaleidoscopic display of imagination, character, and genre. There is no question why this mash-up of multiverse adventure and philosophy has already become a new classic." — Sequoia Nagamatsu, national bestselling author of How High We Go in the Dark
"The team of Tomihiko Morimi and Emily Balistrieri is unbeatable: this novel vibrates with a voice that is sharp and funny, wacky and winning. It's a perfect slice of contemporary Japanese pop: a tangle of fates, simultaneously cosmic and comic. I loved my voyage through The Tatami Galaxy." — Robin Sloan, New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough
"Rich, unusual, and surprisingly profound, The Tatami Galaxy is a gorgeous application of the fantastic to celebrate the precious parts of life that we often forget." — Ada Palmer, award-winning author of Too Like the Lightning
Tomihiko Morimi’s novel of burned out gods and misanthropic students jumping between alternate dimensions as they face their regrets proves to be just as touching and hilarious as the anime series it spawned. A surprisingly timely mash-up of Catcher in the Rye and Russian Doll, The Tatami Galaxy will resonate with anyone that’s found themselves too often stuck in looping isolation. — Tim Maughan, Locus Award-nominated author of Infinite Detail
“Morimi’s delightful campus novel follows the quixotic adventures of an unnamed student dreaming of the perfect college experience…Light and sweet in its confection, this satisfies like a spongy piece of castella.” — Publishers Weekly
"Beautiful and satisfying...Pick it up when you have the chance" — Tor.com
"Translator Balistrieri meticulously deciphers the protagonist’s ' "rotten" university student voice' for English readers...anime aficionados will greatly appreciate the prose original that inspired the award-winning celluloid series of the same title." — Booklist
“Who can deny the pleasures of a good time-loop narrative?... there’s a memorable payoff to several ongoing threads when the novel reaches its climax; you also may never look at moths the same way again.” — Words Without Borders
"[The Tatami Galaxy] is a frolicking novel packed with slacker hijinks and escapades. At its core lies pithy wisdom about choice and destiny... Morimi’s sci-fi fusion of fun and the unfathomable offers a light touch that makes a lasting impression." — The Japan Times
"[A] treat better left unspoiled." — The New York Times Book Review
New York Times bestselling author Robin Sloan
This novel vibrates with a voice that is sharp and funny, wacky and winning…I loved my voyage through The Tatami Galaxy.”
Library Journal
07/01/2022
Having challenged the bossy, glossy president of the film club, an unnamed junior at Kyoto University and his icky, misanthropic sort-of friend find themselves shunned by pretty much everyone on campus and vengefully plan a wrong-headed disruption of a forthcoming club event. Then a self-proclaimed god pops up with a way to turn his life around, and time rewinds. From multi-award-winning Japanese Morimi; with a 75,000-copy first printing.
JANUARY 2023 - AudioFile
Andrew Grace finds the humor in a narrative that is progressively unreliable yet always relatable. At Tokyo University, a college junior lives in a messy, cramped space, a “four-and-a-half-tatami room.” He seeks the perfect college experience, preferably one that includes a “raven-haired beauty.” Several alternate timelines unfold, each with subtly divergent details involving different college clubs but the same recurring characters who seek to sabotage the student’s ideal journey through higher education. Grace’s nimble, light touch keeps the proceedings buoyant as the protagonist faces deep questions about the nature of opportunities and choices. Grace’s performance captures the audiobook’s theme of personal growth and reflection. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
