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There are currently 21 member reviews
for The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World
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Susan W. (Leesburg, VA)
Wonderful
This book presents grief and healing and love in a wonderfully delicious words and imagery. For anyone who has known grief, the wind phone shows a way out of darkness. The storytelling takes the reader on a quiet yet powerful journey. I highly recommend that you take TBE ride.
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Jana G. (Houston, TX)
God is the Wind
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It had a lovely ethereal flow. I loved all the characters and the development of each one in their grief and the impact of Bell Gardia had in their healing. A wonderful book!
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Mary Anne R. (Towson, MD)
The Phone of the Wind
This is the best novel I've read in a long time. I felt the spiritual message of the story and thought of it more spiritual versus fantasy. From the beginning I was touched by Laura Imai Messina's poetic manner of writing. She developed her characters in a delightful and loving way. I cared about the many characters and wanted the best for them including Tora the cat and,of course, the phone booth.
Yui's story is developed in many dimensions; physically, emotionally and spiritually. This tension propels the story.
I found this a very hopeful novel. In this time of so much tension Yui's story is needed. We need to go to the phone booth and hear the wind.
I can't think of another novel where place is so important to the story. I agree with the author that readers need to go to the bell-gardia website and see the healing place that Sasaki Itaru and his wife have created.
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Elyse R.
Wind telephone carries hope
This story is based upon a true story of the wind telephone in Otsuchi, Japan, built by a gentleman upon the loss of his cousin as a way to deal with his grief. The location of this phone booth is a windy piece of land, thereby lifting your words off into the wind. The cover art and the story premise had me from the beginning and I was not disappointed.
This was a very quick read and I very much appreciated the extras thrown in to give more texture to the story, such as the playlist for the radio show, where Yui worked , on the night the gentleman called in to share about this phone booth, or what Yui’s mother and daughter were wearing on the day of the tsunami.
This story is basically about loss and coping, caring for others, finding one’s way out of grief into love and hope again. Dealing with loss is so very personal and having the wonderful phone booth as a healing device was very special for so many of the characters in this story.
This book was exactly what I needed at this time and I do think it will touch so many as we all deal with loss in many ways throughout our lives.
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Ed R. (Colorado Springs, CO)
Hope Reigns
I was moved to tears on more than one occasion as I read the phone booth at the edge of the world. I needed the reminder that after the storm, after the wind, after the loss, there is still room for love, room for hope. It's one of those beautiful reads that ended too soon!
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Mary W. (Altadena, CA)
the phone booth at the edge of the world
When the tsunami of March 11, 2011 swept Japan's coast it left behind tremendous grief in the forms of lost lives. The title of this book is what caught my interest immediately. I was not disappointed in choosing and reading this book. It addresses the questions we all have how to deal we our personal grief. But it opens our perspective that there is no one right way to grieve. Relief and a degree of solace is attained for all who trek the mount that has the telephone booth connected to nothing but what the caller says and receives in their conversations with their dear dead loved ones.
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Joan R. (Chicago, IL)
A Book for our Pandemic Times
This book tells a gentle and powerful story that is still with me days after finishing it. Set in Japan after the 2011 tsunami, it centers around a real phone booth with an unconnected phone in a Japanese garden. According to an introductory note, every year thousands come to use the phone and speak with those they have lost. The main characters, Yui and Takeshi, each grieving the loss of loved ones, meet at the phone booth and come to know others who are grief-stricken. The book asks fundamental questions: how is it possible to live with joy when everything comes to an end? How can we learn to live with those we loved who have died? The answers suggested by the story are profound, deeply moving and, perhaps most importantly, hopeful. This is a perfect book to read during our current and tragic times.
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