Catfish Rolling

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Magic-realism blends with Japanese myth and legend in an original story about grief, memory, time and an earthquake that shook a nation. Her overseas adventure brings great wonder, but Luki soon discovers a darker side, of racism and inequality. I'd say it's the kind of soft and emotional sci-fi that reminds me of Lars von Trier's Melancholia (2011) and Mike Cahill's Another Earth (2011).

The honour of my first 5-star of the new year goes to Clara Kumagai’s phenomenal debut, that blends magical realism and sci-fi elements into a haunting tale of grief, family, time and the earthquake that shook a nation. Personally, it was the depiction of grief, and the intersection of grief and time, that resonated with me the most.

This book did also have such gorgeous writing which fit the magical realism/scifi genre really well. You have to be okay with a slower pacing and not expect a flashy, plot heavy sci-fi novel, but if you surrender yourself the currents of this story, you’re in for an absolute treat. Meanwhile, her father seemed to be lost in his own memories and grief, and Sora felt that she was losing him.

So don't decide whether or not to read this book based on my review since we all experience this differently. Slowing it down, speeding it up, making entire chunks of it go missing, or trapping characters to get lost in times gone by. I found myself feeling pretty confused on the timelines and locations of everything, particularly any flashbacks. Kelly's particular interest in language acquisition and vocabulary development has led to the publication of her first book, Word Power: Amplifiying vocabulary instruction (2019) - full of ideas for building a language-rich environment and top tips to Power-Up explicit vocabulary instruction.It is an incredibly well written story, which I gather was at least partly inspired by the Tōhoku earthquake in 2011. A father and daughter are left puzzled and intrigued by the unusual and mysterious shaking, which causes the mother to disappear.

But dwelling in the time-zones isn’t without danger, and when Sora’s dad travels too far, Sora must venture into uncharted territory to bring him back to now. Not aimed at middle grade as I thought but an excellent sci fi choice for young adult and adult audiences. I think I first read about this Japanese mythology when I was reading Ruth Ozeki’s “A Tale for the Time Being”.There are a few examples of how different people experience these emotions and their reactions to them. The family drama drew me in, the dystopian element had me intrigued and the sci fi/fantasy was captivating. I was drawn toward Catfish Rolling due to the amazing cover (the UK variant I find slightly better), and took a dive on a story about a young woman dealing with the long term aftermath of an earthquake so enormous that it broke time itself (which happens in the prologue). The slow pacing mimicked her internal struggles; every page oozing with the pain people only know if they have lost a loved one. I loved how Sora's relationships (with her father, her missing mother, and her guy friend) are messy and complicated.

Coincidentally (or not), that was also the moment when Sora stopped being a one-dimensional character and started to feel like an actual, relatable human being with a fully fleshed out and wide array of emotions.I had quite a hard time digesting the philosophical and scientific arguments and discussions of Sora’s personal monologues. While most of the story takes place in the present, we have occasional flashbacks, mostly in the first half of the story, going to earlier parts of Sora’s life. All of this is important to the story, as it all begins with a massive earthquake that not only shatters the life of our protagonist, Sora, but also time itself. The way the zones warp time is very similar to the effects that grief can have on our perception- and memory of time. When her father goes missing, she sees no choice but to hunt him down because she suspects he's slipped into another time.