Home thread for 月の裏側 🌒 (finished)

Welcome to the home thread for 月の裏側 | L30??, the 1st pick of the The 恩田 陸 (Onda Riku) Book Club!

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We started reading on November 6.

The book is divided into 15 chapters of roughly equal length. From Week 4 onwards, following a poll, we’re reading two chapters/week.

Thanks to @pm215 for providing the page numbers!

Week Starting Date Chapters Pages Length
Week 1 November 6 Chapter I 6-30 24
Week 2 November 13 Chapter II 32-57 25
Week 3 November 20 Chapter III 60-86 26
Week 4 November 27 Chapter IV + V 88-142 56
Week 5 December 4 Chapter VI+VII 144-203 57
Week 6 December 11 Chapter VIII + IX 206-267 55
Week 7 December 18 Chapter X + XI 270-328 56
Week 8 December 25 Chapter XII + XIII 330-392 60
Week 9 January 1 Chapter XIV + XV 394-452 56

Will you be reading along when the club starts on November 6?

  • Yes
  • No, but I want to click a poll
  • I’ll read it but at my own pace
0 voters

Which version of the book will you be reading?

  • Ebook
  • Physical copy
0 voters

There’s a temporary schedule that assumes reading one chapter per week, but I feel this may be way too slow. I also have no idea if my page numbers are anywhere near accurate. On Amazon the book is shown to have 370 pages on Kindle, and 461 pages in paperback, which is a larger difference than usual. I assume the Kindle pages are more accurate, but I can’t be sure.

In my opinion we could either read two chapters per week (which would maybe mean 40+ pages per week if my page calculations are correct), or start slow and ramp up as we go. What do you think?

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I’m hoping to participate, so either the slower schedule or the start slow and ramp up ones are fine for me. I may be starting earlier/later and the proposed schedule though, since I’ll be traveling that first week of November.

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I’m team start slow and ramp up, I’m not sure I want to commit to ~50 pages a week right out the gate.

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The end of the 木洩れ日 club was ~40 pages a week and that was honestly a bit much for me. I think a chapter a week might be just right personally.

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Okay, I think I’ll keep the schedule as is for now, and we can see how we feel once we start. It may be an easy read or a harder one. My page calculations may be completely off, and in fact each chapter may turn out to be shorter, or way longer. Once we start reading, we’ll know more.

There’s also two weeks that fall right on the holidays, Christmas and New Year’s. We can decide whether to skip those or not closer to the time.

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I can do that once I buy my paper copy, but that won’t be til late Oct/early Nov.

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Thinking about reading this book but worrying if its part of a series. Is it stand-alone or do I need some background going into it?

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This is a stand alone, no worries!
These are all the author’s series and it’s not listed as part of any of them: 恩田陸の全シリーズ作品をまとめました【読む順番】 | SHIKAKU blog-しかくブログ-

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Thanks! I guess I’ll hope in then! よろしくね!

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Here are the page numbers for each chapter from the 幻冬舎 bunkoban edition, which looks like this:

I include only the pages with text on them, since the book has a page or two that is blank or just the “Chapter NN” header at the start of each chapter. (As an aside, I’d never heard of this publisher before; my copy has the pages slightly stuck together at the edges, and the cover didn’t quite get folded in the right places, so it feels slightly cheaply produced. But the text is all there and perfectly readable, and the cover has a cute cat on it, so it’s not all bad…)

Chapter I : 6-30
Chapter II : 32-57
Chapter III : 60-86
Chapter IV : 88-114
Chapter V : 116-142
Chapter VI : 144-172
Chapter VII : 174-203
Chapter VIII : 206-235
Chapter IX : 238-267
Chapter X : 270-298
Chapter XI : 300-328
Chapter XII : 330-358
Chapter XIII : 360-392
Chapter XIV : 394-422
Chapter XV : 424-452
解説 : 453-461

7 Likes

We’re starting in a few days!

I had to go to the main Onda Riku thread and check, but it seems we had all decided for weekly threads, so I will set up our first weekly thread on Monday (or probably Sunday evening). We’ll start with the currently proposed schedule of one chapter per week, then in a week or two we can discuss whether we want to change it.

8 Likes

First week is up!

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Week 2 is starting. Is there a white cat after all?

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Time for week 3!

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OK so usually I am the one who is chewing on the weekly assignments forever, but this book turned into a really quick read from chapter 2! The dialogues in chapter 3 helped of course, but still. So I was wondering how everybody felt about increasing the pace? (which would basically mean two chapters per week) That way we could manage juuuusst soooo to finish the book this year (with a tiny bit of reading ahead, if my calculations are correct). Which is something I’d personally like a lot, but if the majority feels like keeping the pace, I’m of course not against it. :upside_down_face:

6 Likes

I could handle a faster pace if everybody wants to go faster, but since this is one of six book club books/manga/VNs I’m currently reading I’m happy with the current schedule :slight_smile:

(Oddly the three WaniKani forum clubs all start the week on Saturday, and the three clubs hosted here start each week on Monday…)

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I have 3 here starting Monday and one starting Sunday. I do Mondays for the clubs I run because mentally the week starts on Monday for me so it’s easier to keep track of.

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With 10 days of covid and then 3 days of unrelated stomach bug, my November reading has suffered considerably, and I haven’t even read this week’s chapter yet. :sob:

That said, I’m not opposed to a change of pace at all, so here’s a poll:

How do you feel about the current reading speed?
  • I prefer the current pace of 1 chapter/week
  • I’d prefer to speed up to 2 chapters/week
  • I’m fine with either option
  • I’d prefer something else (please explain in post)
0 voters
1 Like

I believe WK clubs have traditionally started on Saturdays so that people have the weekend to do their reading (and then take as much of the following week as they need). The first club started here was the Mystery Club, and it started Monday for the reasons @cat stated. Whenever I’ve started a new club, I tried to keep the tradition of the respective forum. Not sure where that Sunday one came from, but I’m pretty sure we had one (むらさき?) starting on a Wednesday. :rofl: It’s chaos!

3 Likes