Review: "Hanami" by Julia Cejas

Hanami by Julia Cejas
Published August 2024 via Life Drawn
★★★★

Sometimes a dream is just a dream—but sometimes we get to live it. When Spain's economy took a downturn and Cejas's partner lost his job, the couple took a leap of faith—they moved to Japan to learn Japanese and explore their creative options for a while. It wasn't permanent (and was never meant to be permanent), but that meant that they could really lean into exploring and enjoying the nuances and quirks of their temporary home.

Hanami is structured more as short vignettes than as a fully linear story. For that reason it's a more of a 3.5-star read for me (personal preference for longer stories rather than smaller things stitched together), but the vignettes do work really well both on their own and as part of a longer story. (There's one about sleeping on separate sleeping mats and Cejas insisting that her partner still suffer her cold feet—and, well, for apartment reasons my partner and I temporarily have two twin beds shoved together, and he still suffers my cold feet. So I showed that page to him, and it made us both laugh a lot.)

I've never been to Japan and have no immediate plans to change that, but I love reading about this sort of long travel—the sort where you have enough time to feel the rhythms of a place rather than just blasting through the top tourist spots. It's not all sunshine and cherry blossoms: finances are tight, doldrums loom, language barriers persist, and at some point they'll have to think about what comes next. But for the duration...this was well worth the read.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.