Title: Miri Lives in the Cat’s Eye
Where I Read: ARC via @netgalley and @yenpress
Synopsis: The stage is set for a love across time.Youichi Kamisuki is a college student with the uncanny ability to see people’s pasts by gazing into their eyes. After being trapped inside due to the pandemic, his stale, stagnant life takes a turn when his next-door neighbor is murdered. In the chaos, he locks eyes with a stray cat and somehow meets a girl from the past named Miri, who can peer into the future.From across time, Miri warns Youichi that this murder will not be the last. With her help, he sets out to change the fate of his friends. As the two grow close, Youichi finds himself wanting to meet Miri. The only question is…where is she in the present?
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The RayView: ✨✨✨✨
The HeatRay: 🍬
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I’ll be honest, I’m not big on the whole time traveling trope. I find it much too complicated for me no matter how well it’s written. I imagine I’d have had an easier time if I had seen it instead but this is indeed a light novel and that’s on me. I enjoyed the mystery aspect to it. It wasn’t too easy or too over complicated which made me curious to continue. It being during the COVID pandemic made it one of the most modern stories I’ve read as of late and honestly it was comforting to read. Sounds strange to say given the devastating time of our lives but seeing and reading about the anxiety, the panic, the changes that the pandemic brought to others filled me with a sense of kinship for my own experiences.

This was absolutely ridiculous, impossible to really explain, and a great freaking time. Did I know what was going on a lot of the time? No. Would I read it again? Absolutely. Kind of wild from start to finish so just hold on for the ride 😌.

The premise is absolutely bananas, and trying to explain it just makes one sound insane. But the meat of the story was compelling. A boy who can reach into the past and a girl who can see the future, colliding across time and space, building an elaborate theater together (and in competition with each other - how very Night Circus of them). We had a whodunnit - complete with explanations of each of the increasingly impractical steps the killer needed to take + a uniquely bizarre setting with the Goddess House. We had COVID being a fundamental part of the story - both in solving the murders and also explaining Youichi’s mental state and how he reacts to each of the people in Drama Club.

Things did get waaaay harder to buy into by the end, when we get the big reveals. But I think overall it was definitely worth the read.