Book Blog #363: We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida

 

Title: We'll Prescribe You a Cat

Author: Syou Ishida

# of Pages: 297 (hardback)

Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: Tucked away on the fifth floor of an old building at the end of a narrow alley in Kyoto, the Nakagyō Kokoro Clinic for the Soul can be found only by people who are struggling in their lives and who genuinely need help. The mysterious clinic offers a unique treatment to those who find their way there: it prescribes cats as medication. Patients are often puzzled by this unconventional prescription, but when they “take” their cat for the recommended duration, they witness profound transformations in their lives, guided by the playful, empathetic, and occasionally challenging yet endearing cats. Throughout these pages, the power of the human-animal bond is revealed as a disheartened businessman finds unexpected joy in physical labor, a middle-aged man struggles to stay relevant at work and home, a young girl navigates the complexities of elementary school cliques, a hardened handbag designer seeks emotional balance, and a geisha learns to move on from the memory of her lost cat. As the clinic’s patients grapple with their inner turmoil and seek resolution, their feline companions lead them toward healing, self-discovery, and newfound hope.

Review: 2025 has come full circle - I started my year off reading a cozy (as many of these popular translated Japanese novels are) book called Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, and the last book I finished on the last day of the year is a similarly cozy We'll Prescribe You a Cat.

Unlike Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, I actually really enjoyed reading this book; not sure if this is credit more to the original author vs the translator, but the writing flowed in a way that was easy and quick to read. The magical realism aspect (aka what is up with the Nakagyo Kokoro Clinic for the Soul?) actually made the book less cozy and more mysterious and at times unsettling (some characters can't explain mysterious behavior and attribute it to a building being haunted). 

The book at first appeared to be 5 separate stories of different people's experience going to the mysterious clinic. However, the reader will realized all these stories are peeling the onion on understanding how and why this clinic is operating.

Of course, as common with magical realism in Japanese literature, there's a lot of "magic" aspects that could have been easily proven/disproven if they used modern technology (why don't they just pull out their cell phones and take some pictures??), but these characters like to be aloof and just go with the flow. 

I'd recommend it as a quick read if you're already familiar and enjoy Japanese literature and the cozy style. At the very least, readers will enjoy the 5 mini cat drawings at the start of each chapter.