A sweet shop tucked away in a town. This store, run by a bear and a salmon, is only open at night.
All they serve is hot tea and a sweet dish. Tonight, too, people who are tired and want to cry wander into this store.
The night they gave up on their dreams,
The night they think of their loved ones,
A night when you hate yourself.
-On those nights, it’s okay to shed a tear in this store.
In addition to 52 pages of newly illustrated stories from another point of view, unknown to the main characters, 11 recipes for sweets are included.[/details]
A free version of the book is available which doesn’t include the recipes or extra side stories.
We’ll all read the main chapters, and those who have access to the full version have the option to read the extra content every week if they want to.
Week
Date
Chapters (free version)
Chapters (full version)
Extras
1
Feb 26
1, 2, 3, 7
prologue & all three 第一夜 chapters
第一夜 additional stories
Chapter titles
Part
Full version
Free version
プロローグ
第１話 プロローグ
第一夜
会社を辞めたOLさんといちご大福
第２話 会社を辞めたOLさんといちご大福
落ち込んだ新人さんが干し柿を拾う話
第３話 落ち込んだ新人さんが干し柿を拾う話
夫を亡くした奥さんと梅酒ゼリー
第７話 夫を亡くした奥さんと梅酒ゼリー
3x Another Story
第二夜
私だけのパフェ
第６話 私だけのパフェ
ギャルとばあちゃんとマフィン
第４話 ギャルとばあちゃんとマフィン
がっちゃんのココアクッキー
第５話 がっちゃんのココアクッキー
3x Another Story
第三夜
心配性なお母さんとバナナケーキ
第８話 心配性なお母さんとバナナケーキ
緑のライオンと栗きんとんのパイ
第９話 緑のライオンと栗きんとんのパイ
３人の青春とプリン
第10話 ３人の青春とプリン
夕暮れのチーズケーキ
第11話 夕暮れのチーズケーキ
4x Another Story
エピローグ
Discussion Guidelines
Spoilers should always be hidden using spoiler blur.
When discussing a specific section, please mention where you are in the book, ideally by chapter so people reading different versions have a clear point of reference.
Feel free to read ahead if it’s exciting, but please refrain from spoiling ahead of the appropriate week.
If you have a question about grammar, vocab, cultural things, etc - ask! That’s a welcome part of the discussion too, and other readers will be happy to help.
Ah, another question: since I’m reading through the free version, I wanted to confirm the chapters. Week 1 is reading just these with the free version?
Oh, I didn’t realise the free version included the prologue - in that case, it’ll be the first four chapters (prologue & 3 main chapters). I’ll update the reading schedule to make it clear.
One more question: it looks like the third chapter in the published book is 夫を亡くした奥さんと梅酒ゼリー, but that’s listed as chapter #7 on the free version’s website. Might be worth listing out chapter names for each week’s reading if they diverge quite a bit.
Question for ppl reading the free version:
How are you planning on logging pages on Natively? I was thinking of maybe using the week’s total pages (and maybe editing the total pages of the book so that it doesn’t count the extras in the physical version ) but curious what others were planning.
I’ll probably read ahead since next week is booked with non-book commitments.
The chapters are short but sweet (literally, and I’m getting hungry reading them, seriously I crave a good cheesecake ).
About the page issue I’m not sure either, but I’m not a huge perfectionist (not like all the graded readers are messing with my stats anyway) so I’ll just do it whatever how
I’ve just been taking the easy way out. I divided the # of pages shown for the book on Natively by the number of chapters, and just add in that many pages as I read each web chapter. I’m not technically reading that many pages, but there’s not going to be any other good way to log reading the book at the moment, so .
Ahh, I like this so far. I think most people have had the experience of being so busy/stressed/tired/whatever else they either forget to eat or start treating food as just a thing you have to do to make your body keep working, instead of the nourishing moment of self-care that it can and should be. These stories are a nice reminder.
Also don’t ask me why but I love the salmon’s perpetual pacman face
Just finished week 1. The story about the woman leaving her basically exactly what I’m going through irl right now, so this one poked me right in the feels.
Overall, I love the full color watercolor illustrations and the color palette and the fish’s stupid face
I know I’m late to this since I’m terrible at following along book clubs but I read the first three chapters and while I got most of it I had a hard time understanding what the fish was saying about the timing of drinking 梅酒. I think he’s basically saying “It’s good if you drink it when you feel like, or it’s good if you drink it when the person who makes it says its okay” and I think the general metaphor of the story is “sometimes you can’t force when something you want happens but it’s nice if it does”, but the lack of a も or something similar made the sec similar made the second half of the fish’s statement feel a little janky coming
納得がいく is a set phrase that means, among other things, “to be satisfied with”, and that’s what I read the 納得のいく here as. So for the last bubble: “It’s alright to eat [the jelly] when the person who made it is satisfied with the timing [i.e. is happy with how long it’s fermented/set/however this kind is dessert is made]”. And from there I guess I assumed that the 自分 and 作った人 in the second panel are the same person; the fish was just repeating his general sentiment for emphasis.
A free version of the book is available which doesn’t include the recipes or extra side stories.
) but curious what others were planning.
).
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