If Cats Disappeared from the World - Genki Kawamura (trans. Eric Selland)

This is such a wholesome and life-affirming little read. It took me a whole two hours to devour this on a train journey, and not a minute wasted! This Japanese novel tells the tale of an unnamed narrator who, at the beginning of the story, is given the news that he has an incurable illness and potentially only months to live, if he's lucky to even live that long. As he starts thinking about his bucket list, in a bizarre turn of events, the Devil (who looks identical to himself - yep, it's bizarre!) appears to him and tells him that in actual fact he only has one day of life remaining. But there is a special offer on the table: in exchange for making one thing in the world disappear, the narrator can have an extra day of life.

This deal is pretty much valid for as long as the narrator chooses - if he loses one item from the world, he gets one extra day... and it continues for as long as he decides to remove things. So of course, he accepts the offer and the first thing he loses is his phone (surely you'd pick something useless like fruit flies?!). This disappearance is valid for everyone in the world - so phones no longer exist. I guess that's not such a bad thing really. But as the days go on and he begins to exchange more and more, things start to unravel. The point of this charming and strange little story is to highlight what is worth living for, and what you would gladly give up. It isn't until the narrator is faced with the decision to either live, or risk losing his beloved little cat Cabbage, that things get really poignant. What started off as quite a funny and quirky novel (the Devil's name is Aloha?!), becomes really hard-hitting towards the end. 

I think the only thing that let this book down for me was the clunky translation. No disrespect to the translator, of course, but I think reading it in the original language would have been more enjoyable. It just felt disjointed and slightly awkward in places, but then again, this did certainly add to its innocence and charm - although it was reminiscent of a teen novel at times! In reality, the moral and message of the book were the selling points, when did a little clunky translation ever harm anyone? For a short read, it is certainly an uplifting and witty book, as well as a gripping read - and above all, the message and sentiment is really sincere. If you've got an hour or two to spare and are feeling a little down, definitely pick this up and enjoy its unique quirkiness!