“A movie that shows my whole life would include comedy and tragedy.”
What would you do if you were approached by the devil with a deal that gets you more time to live? In If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura, we follow the week of a young mailman who has made a deal with the devil himself after hearing devastating news that same day. We witness each day’s struggle as he comes to terms with his life ending, figuring out what his life meant and what he has accomplished. We read about his regrets and things he wished he did differently.
A headache turned tumor brings this mailman’s life to a stop, at least until the devil who looks a lot like him, who he named Aloha because of his semi-terrible fashion taste appears with a deal that he can’t resist. Each day an item disappears from the world, ceasing to exist and bringing forth an extra day of life for the beloved mailman. Clocks, movies, phones, cats—the devil chooses the items and it’s up to the mailman to decide whether his life is worth more than each item. How far does it go? No one knows besides the devil, the mailman, and the reader.
“If my life were a movie, I’d want it to be memorable in some way, no matter how modest the production was,” says the mailman. Making deals with the devil is a thought many have contemplated, whether for money or love or in this case an extra day of life. I personally would not make the deal—I can’t even imagine a life without cats. This thought-provoking book leaves you on edge, wanting to read more to find out how exactly life would be affected by the missing things. It makes you question things you normally wouldn’t think about, like, who would you call if phones were to disappear and you could only make one last call? If Cats Disappeared From The World is an amazing book for anyone looking for a short but interesting read that will have you questioning things about your daily life.
Get the book Check out If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura at BMCC’s Library, the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Public Library, or the Queens Public Library.
About the author Mj is a lover of psychological thrillers, young adult fiction, and poetry and a psychology major at BMCC.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
