What You Are Looking For Is in the Library

Sayuri Komachi gives all five characters a list of book recommendations. How do her book suggestions influence Tomoka Fujiki’s, Ryo Urase’s, Natsumi Sakitani’s, Hiroya Suda’s, and Masao Gonno’s perspectives? What unexpected lessons do these works of literature teach the characters, and how?

All five of the main characters are searching for meaning, purpose, and direction in life. Why do they all want to change their circumstances and how do they go about making these changes? What events, relationships, or experiences contribute to their personal journeys?

How do the characters’ jobs define them? In what ways do they regard their jobs as extensions of themselves? How and why does this way of thinking entrap or immobilize the characters?

Explore the ways in which the narrative structure and form enacts the novel’s overarching thematic explorations. Consider how each of the character’s has her own separate section and how these distinct sections come together over the course of the novel. What narrative bridges link the chapters and storylines?

In what ways does making connections change each of the five characters? Consider the characters’ social circumstances at the beginnings of their chapters, and how these circumstances change by the end. What role does friendship and community play in their personal growth journeys?

Explore Sayuri Komachi’s character as a narrative device. What is her function in the novel’s overarching narrative world? What is her function within each of the character’s individual worlds?

Explore the Honeydome cookies as a point of connection between the characters. How do the characters respond to the Honeydome cookie box on Komachi’s desk, and why? In what ways do the cookies convey the characters’ interconnectedness before they are aware of it?

All five chapters are written from the first-person point of view. What is the significance of hearing the five main characters tell their stories in their own words? What does this formal choice convey about Tomoka’s, Ryo’s, Natsumi’s, Hiroya’s, and Masao’s characters and foreshadow about their futures?