While author Mai Mochizuki says Dreamers of the Full Moon Coffee Shop is a standalone, she does bring back a minor character from the first book, The Full Moon Coffee Shop. It doesn’t hurt to have read the earlier book, but it isn’t necessary. Mochizuki and her translator, Jordan Taylor, do an excellent job introducing characters in a slightly different format.
The Full Moon Coffee Shop is still a pop-up with no fixed location. Cats still bring desserts, meals and drinks that are selected just for the person who can see the shop. While the servers take the form of cats, they are actually the planetary gods whose astrological influence is important to life. This time, Neptune is introduced, a powerful figure, neither male nor female. The Master, the tortoiseshell cat who operates the coffee shop, gives Neptune a new name, Sala. And, Sala is interested in people’s dreams, and the possibility that lives could go another way.
Satsuki Aykawa hasn’t been home to see her mother in three years. She’s an actress in Tokyo, and it’s a journey to get to her mother’s home by the sea. Now, though, after a costly affair that she publicly apologized for, she’s bringing home the man she wants to marry. However, she arrives in time to see her mother put in an ambulance. Satsuki isn’t the main character, though.
Fujiko Kawata knows she blacked out, but doesn’t know how she woke up at a cat cafe. Sala brings her a drink, and talks about Fujiko’s past life. Fujiko remembers befriending a boy who was bullied, Wataru Ayuzawa. For years, she was his only friend because she was an honest, kind person. Years later, when they’re in their forties, he shows up at her house. She denies, though, that Satsuki is his daughter.
As a writer, Wataru took the pen name Futakigusa. He was a famous author whose loneliness overtook him and he walked in front of a car. But, the cats at the Full Moon Cat Cafe know lives can change.
Mochizuki cleverly weaves together these stories, emphasizing Fujiko and Wataru’s younger lives. It could have been boring to hear the same stories from the point of view of both characters, but it works. It allows the reader to feel the emotions of both characters, and to understand what happened and why they separated. They may have thought the Full Moon Coffee Shop was just a dream, but readers who believe will trust that the cats can help people realize those dreams. Dreamers of the Full Moon Coffee Shop is the third in the group, but this storyline is my favorite. Mochizuki brings them together skillfully in a story with a happy ending, just what the cats want.
Dreamers of the Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki. Translated by Jordan Taylor. Ballantine Books, 2026. 224p.
FTC Full Disclosure – I received a galley from the publisher, through NetGalley, with no expectation of a positive review.
