Reading this was much smoother this time around and because I wasn’t spending time looking up words, I enjoyed the narration style a lot.
I liked the feeling of seeing almost like a drone camera panning from far above the village and slowly coming down to enter through the gates and residence of Kiki’s family.
The speaking style was very soothing and I chuckled a little bit at "もう 、 おわかりでしょうか 。この家には、魔女の一家が住んでいるのです。It reminds me of a children’s show where they quiz you in the middle to check you’re paying attention to the details.
Comparison to the Movie:
Kiki somehow comes off as more immature and a bit bratty compared to the film. But I think it’s very realistic since she’s barely 13 and not very worldly (yet!). Also the little bit about her black cat familiar is an interesting departure – makes me wonder why that was changed (it’s also one of the parts that always makes me really sad, so I’m glad she keeps Jiji until she’s at least married here)!
Reading books for kids is always somehow a bit harder because of the lack of kanji. But it’s a good way to remember vocab without using it as a crutch.
Since @bibliothecary doesn’t seem to be around for the moment, I’ll put out a general question: anyone reading in a language other than Japanese? Just need to know if I need to update any book club index threads other than the JP one.
The couple of paragraphs before それでかあさんのコキリさんが、 高い木をえらんで鈴をとりつけたというわけなのです, explains that Kiki is technically very good at flying but she’s very absent-minded and when she loses concentration thinking about tweenager issues like getting pimples or what she’s wearing, she slowly starts flying lower and is prone to collisions. So when that happens, her feet brushes by the tops of the trees and the bells sound, which reminds her to course correct!
I got that impression as well! I’m glad I kept putting this book down instead of struggling through it because it feels like it’s going to be a fun read based on the narration style.
Honestly I’m a little disappointed that it’s been 4 years and I’m only just now reading at this level, but I wasn’t really reading much until I found Natively last summer.
I’m still reading along, even if it seems that the club has died. I just finished up the Super Cub book club early so I’ll probably finish this up in the next few weeks since I have more time now.
I think I’m about a week behind now, but I’ve been reading as well. I’m planning on finishing it by the end of the club even if I have to read the whole second half in a few days.
I ended up really falling behind after going on vacation a couple of weeks ago. And realised the book wasn’t really keeping me motivated… so I decided to try the audiobook instead. I started last week, so I’m still behind (finishing week 4 around now), but I hope to be able to catch up eventually.
I read two more chapters and and caught back up to where I should be. I might just push to the end this week since the light novel club starts back up on Monday and I always join too many book clubs.
Overall, I’m finding the individual chapters fun to read on their own, but struggling to stay
motivated without much of an overarching plot (part of why I’m considering just finishing up quickly). I feel like the book might be better suited to readers who prefer short story collections because this has been very easy to pick up and put down (especially the putting down part ).
The reason is iirc that the individual chapters were published in a newspaper and afterwards made into a book. At the start Kadano probably didn’t know how long they would let her continue with further chapters and she did not plan far ahead.
Otoh, the second book is different. I assume it was from the start planned to become a book, and thus got a more overarching plot.
I read it fairly quickly and wrote a review of it weeks ago if you want to check it out (I didn’t want to discourage anyone here). But this is a good one to power through with the audiobook.
But it’s a good way to remember vocab without using it as a crutch.
