Week 11 📚 時間割男子1 わたしのテストは命がけ!

Japanese Reading Book Clubs
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We’re reading this book as part of the Children’s Book Club.

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Week 11 May 24
End page 175
Chapter(s) 13
Read until End of chapter 13
Last week Week 10
Next week Week 12
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Discussion Guidelines

  • Please blur/hide any major events in the current week’s pages (however early they occur), like so: text here (that’s [spoiler]text here[/spoiler]).
  • If you have a question about grammar, vocab, the story, cultural things or literally anything else related to the book — ask! There is really no need to be hesitant. If it’s something you are wondering about, chances are someone else will be thankful you asked first, lots of people enjoy answering questions, you learn something new, and the thread gets more lively. It’s a win-win on all fronts!

Participation Poll

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m planning to catch up later
  • I’m reading after the club has finished
  • I’ve already read this, just here for the discussion
0 voters
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Asdf ahh, caught up!

Week 11

「仕事なんかしないで、ずっとそばにいてほしかった。 ワガママ言ってこまらせたくなかったからがまんしてたけど……一度くらい言えばよかったな。」
When I first started reading this book and Madoka revealed her recently deceased mom was the impetus to her past studying, I remember thinking to myself “Oh but of course she is!” So much children’s media uses this trope, and rarely in a way that extends past shallow character development/characterization.
So I was kind of surprised by, firstly, how beautifully the mom is characterized in such a small amount of space this chapter. She felt like a real person with interests and faults. I particularly liked the detail of her studying plants. And secondly, how well Madoka talks about the loneliness and regret of losing somebody. It was really bittersweet, relatable, and well written.

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I agree! I’ve been really impressed with the writing in this book, particularly with regards to Madoka’s backstory and character development.

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I’m a little behind but one thing that took me by surprise was how

Spoilers

relatively recently her mom passed away. Like I guess there’s the whole thing that at a child’s age, any amount of time feels like an eternity, especially after an event like that, but I had thought it was years ago.

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I think Madoka giving up on studying makes perfect sense given how recent her mom’s death actually was. I mean, of course she doesn’t want to study! I wouldn’t either!

And agreed with earlier comments that her mom being dead is written fairly well, and has a pretty strong impact on the character.

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Yeah, the effects on her grades just felt a bit too instant if that was the cause and it was recent

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I think she always had bad grades, they just weren’t quite as bad (7 points or whatever). It seems like even when she got bad grades, her mom encouraged her, which inspired her to keep trying. It’s only really the ‘keep trying’ part that she’s given up on. After all, she does say that math is her worst subject like 800 times, which seemed to be true beforehand too.

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