Rand’s translation is fluent and seamless; she captures the lyricism and meditative quality of the writing with care, a feat made more impressive given that there’s also a distinct Japanese sensibility ... powerful and moving, thoughtful and evocative. Messina writes with both clarity and restraint, with the ability to reveal much in a single, compressed paragraph ... Messina deals both with the profound questions as well as the, perhaps, more practical moments ... Longer chapters are punctuated by shorter ones, some written as list, others as fragments, a single word, or an in-depth look and what had otherwise seemed like a secondary observation. These ultimately add to the experience: revealing a relationship through quieter moments, serving as a break in the tension or offering a different lens to reflect upon the previous chapter ... There is a stillness and quietness to the book that makes each movement all the more meaningful. The words carry a weight that makes each sentence feel intentional; there’s no fat to trim. Moving and heart-breaking, Yui’s story—and that of the Wind Phone—is equally uplifting and heart-warming.

... [an] astonishment. And while Imai Messina’s quiet, contemplative, and gripping tale is fiction, the story ultimately has its feet – and its heart – planted firmly in reality ... Imai Messina’s story – musing on grief, hope, and joy – comes, then, at the perfect moment ... Imai Messina unfolds how Yui and Takeshi form a friendship of shared experience – and then navigate the trickier shoals of a deeper relationship – in lyrical, unrushed prose that avoids sentimentality ... These brief segments add rich detail to the novel without slowing down the storytelling ... Such characters, and such a setting, risk tipping the tale into a depressing bog. Yet Imai Messina, like her story’s powerful wind, pushes these individuals forward. They question, they consider, and they take fresh steps.

... moving ... Thoughtful and tender, full of small daily moments and acts of kindness, Messina's novel is a testament to the power of community (and a bit of whimsy) in moving forward after loss ... Messina's portrayal of the storm and its aftermath is matter of fact and unstinting; she lays out the broad outlines of the tragedy without trying to explain or make sense of it ... Messina intersperses her spare, lyrical narrative with tiny chapters formed mostly of lists...These lists of quotidian details offer flashes of normalcy (and sometimes humor) amid the larger narrative of life-altering grief with which the characters are grappling ... Though Messina's narrative is mainly focused on Yui and Takeshi, she draws thoughtful, nuanced portraits of several secondary characters ... The wind phone is perhaps an unusual response to grief, but both in the novel and in real life, it provides a place for grieving people to have necessary conversations, to acknowledge their sadness and other complicated emotions, and--perhaps--to let their grief lift and float out over the sea.

Messina swaps the usual busy thinking and colouring-in of romantic storytelling for a minimalist staging that is easy to miss: a glance, a breath, a movement of the hand...It’s exactly the western view of Japan: subtle, elegant and quiet. We also find kawaii — the culture of vulnerable cuteness that makes everything from pancakes to winter coats better with a pair of fluffy ears on top. This is given free rein in Takeshi’s daughter, a toddler who hasn’t spoken since losing her mother. She embodies and loves all things kawaii, and her sweet but sad nature is the force that finally helps Yui to face forwards again ... Ultimately, book groupers will learn that this is a story about the dogged survival of hope when all else is lost. And if they’re having trouble thinking about it, the text is appended by some questions for book groups to discuss, which feels rather brutal after the final page of an elegiac novel, but hey, the market knows best ... Messina shows us that even in the face of a terrible tragedy, such as an earthquake or the loss of a child, the small things — a cup of tea, a proffered hand — can offer a way ahead ... It would have been interesting to hear more about how emotional healing works in Japan’s famously formal society, especially coming from an author rooted in the very different Italian tradition, but Yui’s story is too specific to be parsed into a wider cultural landscape. So restrained and unsentimental is this novel that it’s hard to imagine anyone getting terribly upset over it, despite the subject matter. However, its meditative minimalism makes it a striking haiku of the human heart: short, slow and deceptively full.

... poetic ... unfolds over the course of many years as a tender tribute to grief and what it teaches us. Healing is not linear, and the ones we lose never truly leave us. It can be unfathomably painful when we’re reminded of our losses, even though remembering our loved ones is often what can heal us. The phone booth is a magical place that not only connects the living to the dead but also the living to the living.

The delicate story of Yui’s grief and how she patches herself together is punctuated by small vignettes about Yui and the other people in her life. For readers of Gail Tsukiyama and those healing from loss.

This wonderful, gentle, hopeful story leads the reader through the beginning of Yui and Takeshi’s 30 years together. Through their sorrow and grief, they learn how to let happiness, hope, joy, and laughter reside side by side with their memories of loss. It is a beautifully written book. Messina—an Italian who has lived in Tokyo for 15 years—writes in a way that’s evocative of Kazuo Ishiguro but in an opposite way: While Ishiguro leads with comfort and hints at the sadness to come, Messina offers grief and sadness first but offers the reader a trail of breadcrumbs toward future happiness ... A must-read.