西の魔女が死んだ

Mai, a middle school student, looks back on the time when she lived with her grandmother instead of going to school. Her grandmother had come to Japan as an English teacher and up until Mai came to live with her, she lived alone in her cosy, rural house with a large garden. Her grandmother taught Mai a lot about life and what it means to be a witch back then but now she is dying.

This novel somehow reminded me of a Ghibli film with all its descriptions of the beauty of everyday life and the work and tranquility in the garden. It was a calm read and did a great job of bringing in a bit of drama at certain key points. Unfortunately, the ending didn't really fit with the rest of the story for me personally.

Languagewise, it is rather short and a lot of the vocabulary is related to everyday life. However, it also introduces many specialised words for a lot of plants which I admit I mostly skipped over.