When I finished reading Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, I found myself jealous of the main character. Not because her co-worker boyfriend took her out to dinner and confessed he was getting married, or because she discovered she had been the other woman all along. Not because she quit her job to avoid facing him, or because her dwindling savings loomed ahead. I was jealous of what came after: an invitation from her estranged uncle to live rent-free above a used bookstore in Tokyo.

Right now, I had to move out of my apartment because the rent was too high. I wished I had a relative or friend who would’ve offered to let me stay with them until I restored myself. But life doesn’t always work out that way. I wish I could have laid my head down and not have to worry about anything—no bills—and just sleep in, restoring my soul and my energy, the way Takako does in the novel.

Sometimes I reach for a book over the Bible because for me, God can speak to me through a story. We learn something about ourselves or about life in a story. Lately, I’ve been doing research into spatial theory as I prepare my PhD applications, and I learned about the liminoid phenomenon: basically, a person gets to escape from their reality. When we read books, we enter a liminoid state, where we escape our life and step into another world and get to live vicariously in that world. The idea isn’t something new to book lovers who read books to escape. 

Reading the book made me want to visit Jimbocho. To walk through the streets and explore the hundreds of second-hand bookstores, to make friends with the regulars at the coffee shop. 

Takako observes how special secondhand books are, how an underlined sentence by a previous owner connects them. I think that God works the same way too. He is working through the pages. Helping words and parts jump and touch me. Like the scene where Takako wrestles with her aunt, who fights off her embrace before finally surrendering to it.

It reminded me of myself, how I keep my guard up too, and it can feel like a struggle to receive an embrace from someone who loves me, including my own children.

I needed a hug too, and in that moment, I felt it.

I’ve been going to the library to check out books or to write in a quiet space, away from the one-bedroom apartment I’ve had to move into with three kids, looking for some quiet space to think. I’ll even reach for the library app late at night when my kids are asleep to browse new titles.

While a book lover like me might never get the chance to live on top of a bookshop or spend her days wandering a book town, reading this novel helped me find rest for a little while. It reminded me of Jesus’ invitation: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). More than that, it gave me the embrace I was fighting off. God reaches for us, wrestles with our defenses, and does indeed show up like that estranged uncle, extending an invitation to refuge when we need it most.

copyright 2026 Janet Tamez