Sweet and pleasant to read and wonderfully timed with the current Moo Deng hysteria! Her books are all so different and this is a favorite.

A woman reminisces about her childhood and remembers when she stayed with her uncle and his family for two years. Her uncle was a very wealthy executive. Her cousin is sickly and travels to and fro on a hippopotamus. Thus begins this surreal and endearing chapter in her life. Her cousin collects matchboxes, and with each unique book (collected by the driver who delivers soft drinks), she imagines the story behind the pictures on the matchbook.

Endearing story, but it is interesting that the popular book The Memory Police is unique. However, all her books talk about memory and has this wistful appeal to it.

this is a very simple, plodding rendition of a time in a girl's life when she lived with her cousin mina. the match-lighter mentioned above.
not much happens in this, and by the halfway mark i was tired of the idyllic perfection this whole book had in it: mina is perfect, and her house is perfect, and their time together is perfect, and pochiko the hippo is perfect, and nothing changes and nothing is complicated. you have kind of a sneaking sense that something bad might happen, but that doesn't change how one-note everyone's characterizations are.

A lovely little book about the joys and consolations of reading and writing to know and interact with the world. Recommended.

First off, my belated thanks to Knopf/Pantheon and NetGalley for an eARC of this novel.
I have not read Ogawa in a long time.
This is a lovely story, a 12 year old girl from a poor family spends a year at her aunt's home. The aunt has married well (unlike the narrator's mother, now a widow), and the house, and all the accoutrements of wealth, are life changing for her. And then there is her cousin (Mina), one year younger, sickily, and taken to school daily on top of a pygmy hippo! Which was a childhood gift to her father (half German, his elderly German mother lives with them), and lives in the vast grounds of the house, in an otherwise abandoned private zoo.
This is a sweet/bittersweet novel, written decades later from the first person POV of Tomoko. Occasionally her current self will comment on the story, set in the early '70's.
Sort of her sitting down and remembering that year with the family, as she is about to travel to Europe and see Mina for the first time in decades.
Again, it is a rather sweet/bittersweet story, filled with enjoyable stories and empathy - but in the end I did not feel like I had really learned anything new here. I did not feel like I gained any new insight into the human condition.
Yet I am looking forward to reading other titles by Ogawa, something I have been meaning to do for some time now.
3 out of 5.
A pleasant "feel good coming of age for a young girl" read, I suspect great for Book Clubs.

I loved this book. Although there isn't much that happens plotwise, the introspective nature of the book and how life-altering it is for the characters is what makes it for me. That nuance is beautifully done and so is the imagery. Thank you Yoko Ogawa, Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Pantheon for this ARC!

Mina's Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa is a poignant exploration of childhood, narrated through the eyes of Tomoko, a 12-year-old girl who goes to live with her wealthy extended family. The novel beautifully captures the bond between Tomoko and her sickly cousin, Mina, as they form a friendship rooted in imagination and storytelling. The novel's setting, 1970s Japan, is both nostalgic and filled with subtle complexities. Ogawa masterfully weaves vignettes of childhood innocence while hinting at the darker realities behind the characters’ lives. The delicate balance of youthful wonder and underlying melancholy creates a captivating, introspective narrative. Overall, Mina's Matchbox is a charming, introspective read that feels both light and profound.

Author Yoko Ogawa finally brings reader's and fan's a new title! "Mina's Matchbox" is coming-of-age story following the life of Tomoko. After being sent to live with her Aunt and Uncle, Tomoko quickly befriends her cousin Mina and they quickly bond. Reader's get to look over Tomoko's shoulder as she navigates her new life and experiences. Oh and there is a pygmy hippopotamus!

"Mina's Matchbox" is a quick and enjoyable read for many reader's!

Thank you author Yoko Ogawa, Pantheon, and Netgalley for bringing us this title!

Mina's Matchbox is the follow up to Yoko Ogawa's The Memory Police, a devastatingly good piece of speculative fiction.

Mina's Matchbox is very different from The Memory Police, it's a quiet contemplative story. Not much happens plot-wise. Tomoko leaves her small village and goes to stay with her wealthy aunt and uncle in the city for a year. I love coming of age stories and this one was top-notch. It sat with me long after I was done reading. If you're interested in character driven stories and coming of age novels, you should pick this one up.

I picked this because I read The Memory Police and really liked it and wanted to read another novel by Yōko Ogawa. I liked this book, it was an enjoyable and cute little story, but not a lot really happened in it. At the end there was an afterward that described how this was originally published serially, and that made the whole thing make a little more sense. I probably wouldn't read this book again and it wouldn't be something I suggest to any of my friends, but it wasn't a bad read and I did like the story.

Thanks NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I loved Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police, so I was eager to read her newest English release, Mina’s Matchbox. What I read was incredibly different than her previous novel, but I may have loved it even more.

Mina’s Matchbox is the slow, peaceful and quirky story of a young girl (Tomoko) who goes to live for a year with her wealthy aunt and uncle, her German grandmother, her younger cousin (Mina) and their pet Pygmy hippocampus.

Coming from a working class home and town, Tomoko is initially enamored with her aunt and uncle’s large house, paid for with the money made by her great uncle in the soda business. More enchanting than the seemingly forbidden rooms and remains of an on-site zoo, however, is her younger cousin Mina, with her seemingly endless imagination.

Much of the story focuses on the girl’s budding friendship and adolescence. Told exclusively from the perspective of Tomoko, we see how she begins to understand signs of growing up, like first crushes and first bras, while her cousin is still held firmly in the childhood world of the domestic and her own imagination.

There are so many subplots in this story, like Mina’s illness, the uncle’s mysterious disappearances, Grandmother Rosa’s sisterhood with the live-in maid and, of course, the hippo Mina rides to school. Slowly but surely, readers are made privy to the intricacies of this quirky family through Tomoko’s observations as an outsider welcomed into the home.

Mina’s Matchbox isn’t so much plot driven, and the various sub-plots serve less to contribute to an overall theme, but rather to build an overall mood in this slice-of-life novel. Because I could never tell where it was going, it felt like the story progressed slowly and peacefully. It was a nice break from some of the stranger, more unhinged fiction I tend to read 😅

If you’re looking for a lovely pallet cleanser of a novel, with restrained storytelling and heartfelt characters, I’d recommend Mina’s Matchbox.

This was a pleasant glimpse into the main character's one year away from home. Tomoko gets to experience a whole new world at her cousin's side. She is enamored with her aunt and uncles mansion, her new best friend, and the family pygmy hippo. It's a pleasant read, fairly light in topics, and the character stayed with me for a while after.

Yoko Ogawa? She writes it, I WILL READ IT. When I read The Memory Police, that absolutely changed the trajectory of my journey as a reader. Whatever Ogawa put in that novel, I wanted and NEEDED. When I found out that a new book of hers was coming out, Mina's Matchbox, I ran my happy little fingers over to netgalley to beg for an ARC. I got it, I read it and ...... I LOVED it!

Mina's Matchbox is a coming of age, tale of girlhood at it's finest. Tomoko is a twelve year old girl who leaves Tokyo and travels to Ashiya to stay with her aunt's family. Her aunt's family and home are full of interesting people and this is a whole new world for our main character. At first everything seems so enchanting, but as time passes, Tomoko realizes that there are so many secrets in his new world she has entered. I think its a delightful story. Thank you so much for this ARC.

Make no mistake—Yoko Ogawa has a beautiful prose. Her descriptions, the care in every detail, and the way she stacks information and bits about these characters were so beautiful. Using Tomoko, who is reflecting back on her 11 year old self, was the perfect balance of child-like innocence and wonder, combined with the fleeting commentary from her older self.

While I found the novel beautiful, I did struggle a bit with how slow I felt it was. Ultimately, my rating has more to do with my own personal preference of wishing for a bit more *something*. If you are someone who is okay with a slower, meandering walk-through about an interesting family, I think you'll really enjoy it!

True rating: 3.5 stars

I need to preface this review with this: I struggled initially with this book, even with its outstanding writing, and I couldn't understand why [and I cannot even blame it on the book being literary fiction, which I typically dislike, because again, the writing is superb]. Then epiphany! - it was actually ME [go figure, LOL] and my current reading preferences. I have been reading so much that is filled with action [war NF, mysteries, etc], that to read a book that is simply [but in no ways simple] a story was just so jarring that it completely threw me off; once I figured all this out, I settled in and just enjoyed the story. And it is a very lovely story.

This is a slow, quiet, luminous story of two little girls [cousins] who are so dramatically different, yet love each other in spite of that [as often happens within families AND friendships], secrets that bind family together all while threatening to tear them apart, and surprisingly, a pygmy hippo who is an unexpected character that plays a bigger part in the story that your would think, and often moves the story along in ways you would not expect. It is just a lovely way to spend two days with a book.

If you are in desperate need [and you may not even know it until you start it] of a slow, languid, lovely story, this book may just be for you, I know it was for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, Yōko Ogawa, Stephen B. Snyder - Translator, and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Mina's Matchbox was an excellent read. I loved Ogawa's capturing one year that was so formative to the protagonist. I loved the sense of playfulness with the hippo and her cousin Mina. I appreciated her depiction of Tomoko being an outsider at first but then coming to be a part of the close, somewhat zany family.

This is the first book I have read from this author and I very much enjoyed it and want more. It was a coming of age of sorts where Tomoko goes to live with her cousin Mina for a year and becomes part of her unique existence. I am not going to offer a lot of description as I do not want to ruin it for anyone. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.

I genuinely wish that I had a more positive review for this one because I remember loving the Memory Police; however, because Mina's Matchbox was missing the speculative fiction aspect, I felt like it fell a little flat. Ogawa's writing is still introspective and soothing, but without a doubt the matchbox tales and the pygmy hippo were the highlights of the novel, and their page time was too few and far between. There was not a lot of character growth in this character-driven story, and while some other characters were given more depth on page, the titular Mina remained pretty elusive throughout the story.

Thank you to Pantheon for the opportunity to read and review!

This quiet tale is told by Tomoko, reflecting back 30 years to 1972 when, as a twelve year old, she went to live with her aunt’s family in Ashiya, an affluent coastal town, while her widowed mother pursued a course of study in dressmaking in Tokyo. Tomoko’s dashing uncle was the president of a beverage company founded by his father, and he and his reserved wife had two children, an 18 year old boy, Ryuichi, studying in Switzerland and a daughter, the titular Mina, who was a year younger than Tomoko. The household was rounded out by Mina’s German grandmother Rosa, the power-wielding housekeeper and Rosa’s best friend, Yoneda-san, the gardener, Kobayashi-san, and Mina’s pygmy hippopotamus, Pochiko, the sole survivor of a family zoo that was closed after World War II.

Mina was a lovely, asthmatic, bookish girl who carried matchboxes with whimsical drawings on their covers which were like her “talismans.” Tomoko recalls that Mina, the “darling of the family,” “gave me so much and asked nothing in return” other than to collect books for her from the library. As the girls grew closer, Tomoko learned that the family had secrets. Among them were the fate of Rosa’s twin sister who appeared in old family photos, her aunt’s secret drinking problem and her uncle’s prolonged absences, during which household items would accumulate on his desk in need of his attention.

“Mina’s Matchbox” lacks the intrigue of the author’s acclaimed surrealist American debut, “The Memory Police,” although Ogawa’s idyllic setting is interrupted by real-life tragedies, including the suicide of the Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata, a Nobel laureate in Literature, and the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Ogawa’s unadorned prose elegantly evokes the secret crushes and crushing secrets of girlhood. Thank you Pantheon and Net Galley for an advanced copy of this unique coming-of-age tale.

Not for me. The primary issue I had was the pygmy hippopotamus. The initial poo-spray scene is so ridiculous and it made me instantly invest less in this novel. If everything in the novel was equally unlikely as that meant-to-be-lovable hippo-pet I would have been ok with it but instead the hippo was just another weird quirky choice, along with the matchboxes, and the elaborate baby strollers, and the many other quirky choices that seemed there just to provide quirky color. I liked the writing, I liked the tone, I liked the substance of the story and the idea of two girls having the relationship described in the novel.,,but then the story would be undermined by something that seemed absolutely arbitrary and just added to provide a level of cuteness, I guess, that didn't work for me.