Pirate Patty Reviews

The international bestselling novel sold in 21 countries, about grief, mourning, and the joy of survival, inspired by a real phone booth in Japan with its disconnected “wind” phone, a place of pilgrimage and solace since the 2011 tsunami

Yui has lost her mother and her young daughter to the March 11, 2011 tsunami that ripped across Japan causing terrible fatalities and missing persons as well as loss of complete villages. Yui marks every day as relative to that date. When she is on-air at the radio station or at home, she is struggling with her loss and grief.

One day a caller to her show talks about an old disconnected phone booth that sits in a garden. People come from all over to “talk” to their loved ones. Whispering their questions to the wind. Hoping for a connection. Yui is skeptical but soon she takes her own trip to the garden with the phone booth.

But she just can’t bring herself to go to the phone booth. Instead, she meets Takeshi, a man with a young daughter whose mother has died. The little girl has not spoken a word since. Yui can relate. And soon they strike up a friendship. But Yui is afraid of anything more.

This was a beautiful and heartbreaking story. How we handle grief is very personal. No two people grieve the same way.

Thank you to Overlook Press for this lovely read.