Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this fantasy eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . . .

The stunning cover and premise led me to this book.  In Tokyo there is a magic pawnshop that cannot be found.  Some people enter a popular ramen restaurant only to find themselves transported to the pawnshop.  In this pawnshop, you can't pawn belongings but regrets.

I read this book expecting to read about the people visiting the pawnshop, giving up their regrets, and how that impacted their lives.  I also expected to get more about the owners of the pawnshop, what living in the pawnshop was like, and what they did with the regrets they collected.  But instead there was a romance with a love triangle and a mystery of a missing father.

The highlights of the book for me were the descriptions of places in the pawnshop world.  There was an ink world inside a scroll, living paper cranes holding pieces of history in a museum, and a town that build the night sky out of dreams and wishes.  Travel could happen by jumping in a puddle.  All of these places were evocative.  That said, the characters don't spend any time truly exploring them.  They run from place to place.  Also the inner workings of the pawnshop world seemed to have no real internal logic, rules, or world building.

I also think that a lot of whether the book is liked or not will come down to how the reader feels about the romance.  I personally found it off-putting.  There is insta-lust, the love triangle, and lots of lack of communication and lying.  Once the romance is introduced, it takes the focus of the plot and the mystery.  It is a shame because I found the beginning of the story to be so engaging.  Also there isn't a whole lot of character development so emotional resonance is practically non-existent.

At the 65% mark, I finally admitted to myself that I was really struggling to continue.  So I took a break to read other reviews to give myself a push to finish.  I was entertained and confused when three different reviewers gave different descriptions and meanings to the ending.  How could it be that confusing?  So I skipped ahead a did something I never do - read the ending.  And I was confused too.  What I did understand seemed angsty and immature.  So I abandoned ship at that point and still wish someone could explain the ending to me satisfactorily.  Arrrrr!