Technically I haven’t finished ハンチバック yet (award winner) but I will soon and I didn’t want to have to update again so soon. (it does not effect the bingos, though)
Haha just the other day I was looking at my bingo (which has fewer books than yours, but equally carefully arranged in non-bingo style) and I wondered whether it would be an interesting challenge to read as many books as possible without getting any bingo
I actually wanted to wait with my next post till I have a bingo, but apparently I also have a bad case of carefully crossing off in a way to not get any bingos.
One more Korean Bingo square coming! I present to you 마녀를 잡아라 | L23 aka The witches by Roald Dahl. I picked it up at first because I figured it’d be easier since I’ve read it before, but it turns out that I’d forgotten everything. Still, it’s the longest and hardest novel to date that I’ve finished in Korean.
I’ll go with the fantasy setting prompt for now, but I might change that later.
I’m honestly not sure. You could really give arguments for both. It doesn’t matter much though, because I already have another book lined up for this prompt, 나나이랑 그루’s One Fine Day | L19.
Managed to cross off my third space today with 容疑者Xの献身 | L32.
I use it for the award-winning book category (直木賞).
It was a great read! Not my first 東野圭吾, but the first one I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish. Highly recommended.
Finally decided on what I’m doing
So it will be a manga only version (a bit problematic on the higher level thing since it’s higher than other manga but on the same level as books I’ve read…)
The absolute majority of these are things I’ve started but didn’t finish so I hope to kick myself back into these using this
from your TBR using a qualifier ― will adjust according to what I want to finish, I have so many TBR that I’m not worried about this, I will always have SOMETHING that fits
Finish a series ― will see what I read and what gets “completed” during the year 最遊記RELOAD OR if I find that I can’t manage that (since there’s a lot left) 最遊記外伝
New to you author ー にわにはににん
(technically a graphic novel but I will count it as manga since the line between graphic novels and comics is super thin and mainly depends on marketing lol)
I finished JR上野駅公園口 | L45 and used it for my “randomly chosen from TBR” square. It’s been on my kindle for years and I randomly picked it out in January…and I guess it took me around 2 months to get through it. It was interesting in parts, very dull in others, challenging language-wise here and there throughout… but hey, now I can say I’ve read it!
御不浄バトル | L33 goes towards my “workplace setting” square. This book was so whacky. I don’t even know who I could recommend this to tbh. (on second note, it feels vaguely like something @cat would enjoy…, especially the second short story)
My “higher level than I’ve read so far” goes to 春琴抄 | L52??, which was indeed hard. But it was short so I almost feel like it’s cheating using it for this square vs an upper 40s 200-300 page book. Oh well!
Can’t easily update my bingo card ATM, but I have a new square to mark off: no reviews/ratings/gradings for ブライト・プリズン 学園の美しき生け贄 | L32 . Someone else had already marked the book as finished, but there were none of the above, so I’m still good!
Long time no update, finally going to have more time to read again. Instead of catching up with any of my book club books, I went to the library yesterday and found a copy of 夜は猫といっしょ 1 | L16, it was very cute and easy to read. Without planning to, I checked off “read 1 volume in a single day”. So close to a couple of bingos…
Edit: forgot to also check off the following, still no bingos yet:
I’m not really into ecchi or romance but I’m a sucker for anything involving gender shenanigans. The premise of this book was kind of interesting, but vol 1 was mostly set up… so I haven’t read the next one. From what I see so far it seems to treat gender with more nuance than what I’d expect, so at least that’s good?
This is borderline because I read maybe 60% of it in December and finished in January, but I’m doing a couple of other book clubs right now so will probably swap it out later. Just wanted to include it because I haven’t been finishing much recently…
First real (children’s) book in Japanese sped through most of it in a week so I could return it to the library in time. Surprisingly liked it a lot despite it being a children’s book. Did minimal dictionary lookup and still understood the overall story, mostly just missed some descriptive vocab.
No reviews/ratings/gradings on Natively [2024.02.02]
Discovered the first volume was free for a limited time and binged it. I really liked it! Not usually a fan of romance but it helped that they were actually working adults and Sasaki’s exhaustion is a mood.
The very first native material I tried to read back in 2021 (thanks to the wanikani ABBC) - I only got through ch 2 before I stopped my japanese studying again. This time around I read most of it in a day, and might continue with vol 2.
I’m not really into ecchi or romance but I’m a sucker for anything involving gender shenanigans. The premise of this book was kind of interesting, but vol 1 was mostly set up… so I haven’t read the next one. From what I see so far it seems to treat gender with more nuance than what I’d expect, so at least that’s good?
Read 1 volume in a single day [2024.04.07]
夜は猫といっしょ 1 | L16 - Very cute and easy to read, binged in one day at the library.
Crossed off my next space today.
I finished 西の魔女が死んだ | L28
and use it for bad cover. It is not a horribly bad cover, but I do not like it at all. Not my style, and it is unlikely I would have had a closer look at the book while browsing in a book shop, so for me that is enough to count it.
Unfortunately, it was not just the cover. I did not like the book itself either, so for me the cover and the contents are a good match.
The main story was rather boring for me. Not so bad that I felt like not finishing it, but there was nothing that pulled me along.
The additional story did not make much sense to me. To be fair, this might be because I was already bored when I read it and possibly did not pay enough attention anymore.
I‘m planning to start this one soon-ish (starting in June) as my new sauna book (which means „read physical book without dictionary“ ) and I‘ll report back on how I like it!
FWIW I remember this book being recommended in a Japanese youtube video by a teacher in their list of ‘good books for young readers’, so it might be one which is great for kids but less interesting for adults?
Read something with no reviews/gradings/ratings on Natively:
behind back
but yay then!! 
thanks for letting me know!
sped through most of it in a week so I could return it to the library in time. Surprisingly liked it a lot despite it being a children’s book. Did minimal dictionary lookup and still understood the overall story, mostly just missed some descriptive vocab.
Maybe she died of a heatstroke? I guess I‘ll find out! 