Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon
Mizuki Tsujimura, translated by Yuki Teijima
trade Paperback / eBook
ISBN: 9781668099834
Scribner, August 2025, 256 pages

Greetings, readers, and welcome back to another book review! This month we’re diving into a melancholic mystery that unfolds across multiple viewpoints; a tale of grief, loss, anger, acceptance, and the blurred boundaries between the living and the dead—that’s right, it’s Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon, by Mizuki Tsujimura.

Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon is an intertwined collection of first-person vignettes that share a common thread: In each story, someone is setting up a meeting with “the go-between,” who has the power to arrange a meeting between someone living and someone dead for a single night; however, the meeting comes with a catch. The dead have to agree to the meeting (this isn’t necromancy), and both the living and the dead can only ever use the go-between’s service a single time. Once you’ve used up your meeting, you can never contact or be contacted again.

And that’s all I’m going to say about the plot, because this is a mystery! Spoiling it would ruin the enjoyment of the book, and this is an extremely well-written and executed book.

The first thing that really stood out to me when reading Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon is the quality of Mizuki Tsujimura’s writing (and the wonderful translation by Yuki Teijima). The first-person perspective is artfully used to give a clear look at the current character’s personality via word choice, mannerisms, and what they focus on to the point where it feels like each vignette was written by a completely different individual. I felt like I was connecting with each character in the book as my own go-between, and all are rendered with beautiful human complexity. The way Mizuki Tsujimura weaves together their stories was like watching a graceful dance or listening to several melodies come together as a harmony.

The second thing I really enjoyed in this book was the dawning sense of comprehension, as the seemingly unrelated stories started connecting with each other. While this book is a mystery, it is not really a thriller—to me, it felt more like a character study on human nature and the ways we impact each other without ever really noticing, and it is exquisitely done. There’s also a very strong underlying theme of dealing with death, and all the many shapes that can take, which differs from person to person. Mizuki Tsujimura is incredibly thoughtful on dealing with what can obviously be a very sensitive subject, and there are some deeper philosophical questions raised that I’ll be considering for quite a while.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how very human this book is. Every character has virtues and flaws, and not every meeting ends with a happy outcome. This is a book as much about life as it is about death and the way people are affected by both, but despite the weighty subject matter, the story never bogs down or feels pretentious. To me, Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon felt just as much a celebration of life as an acknowledgement of death, and that includes all the messy, chaotic ways lives unfold, and, inevitably, end.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone feeling contemplative or in the mood for something poignant. Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon isn’t the longest book you’ll ever read, but it has plenty to say, and I’m looking forward to more translations of Mizuki Tsujimura’s works.