Ok, so I finished 人妻教師が教え子の女子高生にドはまりする話 | L31 (and wrote a review), and am 22% into https://learnnatively.com/book/959b7f95fa/ (btw Sora, the MC is a major supporting character in 人妻教師, where she is an adult). While I have a number of criticisms for 人妻教師, the writing style isn’t one of them. It was a smooth read, and I felt compelled to keep reading. My main issues were related to character and story believability “these characters and setting are so unbelievable” (especially the 16 year old) and also “wtf is wrong with these adults?!” I like the fact that some(?) of his yuri novels take place in the same broader setting (https://learnnatively.com/series/de7c10adbc/ somehow relates to 私の初恋, which relates to 人妻教師, etc).
Writing style: some of his phrasings, expressions, vocab and kanji choices, etc, are quirky and unfamiliar, but so far I think his books are probably a good choice for ~L30 LNs language-learning… they’re certainly easier than fantasy around this level anyway. I don’t feel like I’ve 100% cracked it yet… like there’s still occasional sentences where I’m a bit confused (and I’m considering checking the EN translation in those spots for 私の初恋), but I don’t feel like I’m in the deep end anymore. I’m kind of unsure what to say about his pacing. It’s kinda slow(?) but doesn’t exactly drag - at least for these 2 books. Also I appreciate that he manages to have lots of internal monologue/introspection without it feeling like dragging, redundant info dumping. Edit: I’ll add that both books seems a lot simpler than あだしま based on your review, specifically “the internal monologues of various characters, and their thoughts aren’t exactly straight forward. It’s full of metaphors, philosophizing, introspection and ideas that make don’t make any sense when taken literally”. I don’t feel like either book has much of that.
Anyway, I wouldn’t put him on my favorite authors list, but I will probably finish 私の初恋 1 and am considering retrying やがて君になる 佐伯沙弥香について | L30 sooner or later (though I’d like to read something slightly easier next).
