Sounds great! Thanks!
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Got a bit distracted from reading for a bit. Finished 竜歌の巫女と二度目の誓い | L32 a little while back - it’s one of those imperfect books that I enjoyed a lot. Wouldn’t globally recommend it, but if you like light-novely fantasy, I think it definitely stands out as something a bit different.
Currently reading アンクスの海賊―クレギオン | L22?? -it’s pretty straightforward, and has less of a big science fiction question as the premise than the other two of this series I’ve read. Also a lot easier. Still fun though.
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just found something super cute and I really recommend to those who like this kind of short “throwing around ideas” kind of readings
you can read the 1st chapter for free in the first link and read from the volume sample some goodies in the second link
意味が分かると怖い4コマ
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Finished アンクスの海賊―クレギオン | L34 - this series remains consistently good. Would recommend to anyone looking to get into space-based science fiction.
Started Unnamed Memory I 青き月の魔女と呪われし王 | L32 - from the description I feel like this probably isn’t going to be my thing, but after following enough links to this author’s books I figure I might as well give it a go. First impression is that the writing style seems very straightforward, and the protagonist seems a bit bland - but I guess we’ll see.
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I pushed through 300 pages on Sunday, bringing me to 400 overall (so that I have only ~50 pages left). I really enjoyed it but then suddenly my brain went “nope, done for now”. And I still haven’t read any since then.
Hopefully I’ll get in the mood and just finish it tonight.
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In the end, I was not. But I did finish it yesterday.
I have to say that the end felt a bit frustrating. There’s so much left to do in that universe. I really like the main character and the epilogue is basically saying “okay, from now on, it’s for real!”. And then the book ends. There are so many factions with conflicting interests and she is particularly disposed to political intrigue. What happens next???
I really hope the author does that thing where she publishes an extra book set in the same universe later on. She did it for 獣の奏者 and 鹿の王, I really hope she does it for 香君 too. I’d read the heck out of that.
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So in the end, how would you rank all of her series that you’ve read? Both in terms of enjoyment and difficulty?
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That’s hard to say.
香君 上 西から来た少女 | L36 starts with a lot of info dumps and explanations of intrigues, which I thought were genuinely hard to follow, regardless of language. However, the topic at hand was easier than that of 鹿の王 1 | L36. By the end (especially in the second volume), I’d say that 香君 is even easier than 獣の奏者 (1) | L33.
I don’t really remember the difficulty of 狐笛のかなた | L29, but Natively assures me it is easier, so I’d say, overall, that it goes:
鹿の王 > 香君 > 獣の奏者 > 狐笛のかなた.
In terms of enjoyment is even harder. Both 鹿の王 and 獣の奏者 had parts I absolutely loved and some I found completely boring. Meanwhile, 香君 was fun the whole time (expect the epilogue which brings nothing except telling you all the series could have been without delivering on it) but never quite reach the level of my favorite parts in the other two. 狐笛のかなた was also fine, but was a lot weaker in terms of plot and world building.
Purely on how I feel about those right now, I’d say
獣の奏者 > 香君 > 鹿の王 >> 狐笛のかなた
Overall, I’d say that 香君 is solid in terms of enjoyment and not that hard once you have pushed through the first part. If I had just one series to recommend, though, I’d still go with 獣の奏者, I think.
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Thanks for the detailed info on all of her series! The only one I’ve read is 鹿の王 (which I enjoyed a lot) and I’ve always wanted to try more from her so this is helpful. I guess you haven’t read 精霊の守り人 yet? That seemed like one of her most famous ones!
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I haven’t yet, but I plan to read it someday™
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Rather, what I am not reading today… It’s been a full week that I haven’t read a thing. This month I went through 10 days of covid during which I could still manage to read at least a little, then almost immediately got some other virus which was arguably lighter, but left me, somehow, unable to concentrate on reading any more. I’m now recovered from both, back to all my normal activities, but not reading. Why? What is that switch in my brain that refuses to flip back to normal? I open a book, read a few lines, enjoy it, but then somehow can’t concentrate any more. Am I permanently broken? Of course not (right?), but I’m running out of patience.
Thanks for listening, I just needed to complain. Hopefully I’ll be fully back to normal in a day or two. (right?)
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Oh my, I hope you will get better soon! In the meantime, just give yourself the rest your body and mind demands - Covid is still a serious illness, and so you might need more time to recover than what the immediate symptoms may indicate.
And in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter as much if you read something next week or not (I keep telling myself as well) 
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Finished all 3 vols of:
which was a great slice of life, but I was disappointed that the 百合 aspect was almost an afterthought. I would have enjoyed it a bit more, if I knew that in advance.
Finished vol 1:
which was cute enough, but didn’t feel inspired to continue. Afaict it’s a cross-dressing BL story, so check it out if that’s your thing.
Really slow progress on 角川まんが学習シリーズ 日本の歴史 2 飛鳥朝廷と仏教 飛鳥~奈良時代 | L28 - just haven’t been in the headspace for it.
Finished 男子だと思っていた幼馴染との新婚生活がうまくいきすぎる件について and am slowly going through vol 2.
It's not bad, but I'm underwhelmed
Even though the ship already sorta sailed at the end of Vol 1, and the characters are obviously head over heels for each other, and they are married and living together, the story is still in “will they, won’t they” mode. I liked the story in vol 1 well enough, but it’s felt more boring in vol 2. I’m also a bit past my suspension of disbelief that they both haven’t been found out, and haven’t confessed or realized each other’s feelings. (Also there continues to be more random “is this brocon?” moments, and I don’t really get why, though I otherwise enjoy the otaku 妹 character and slang. Edit: the author now introduced the 義妹 (sister in law) who is apparently an 押し of the sister’s online fan club(?) for the main couple, and actually wants to get with the MC. Wut??).
In general the story is nice enough, but the author just doesn’t bring anything to its full potential. I definitely enjoyed クラスで2番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった | L26 way more.
If this ship hasn’t glorious sailed by the end of this volume, I’ll probably drop book 3. The author went way beyond anything reasonable, I’m kinda bored of the high school 日常 / romance anyway. Finally getting back to SAO now.
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I actually didn’t read all that much today since I started a new fic. (2.43. You’d think, with me being over halfway thru Daiya act i now that at least some of my ideas would be Daiya, but nope. 2.43 still has me in too much of a stranglehold ig) I wrote over 2k words, which is a lot for me, not just to write in a day but also for a fic, and I actually got down pretty much everything I had an idea for. Still got a lot left to go, though.
Anyways, I’ve only got 20 volumes left of ダイヤのA (series) | L25. This is definitely faster than I read HQ. Still won’t be finishing it until next year, though
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I working to wrap up some books before the end of the year and finished three (3) in the past week and now just have three more remaining before I left myself indulge in some English reading.
I just need to finish タイムマシンに乗れないぼくたち | L30?? (short story collection), 私は幽霊を見ない | L30?? (short essay collection) and レゾンデートル | L30?? (murder mystery) and I’LL BE DONE. Except for the Aozora Advent and book clubs, of course
Fun fact: I read 286 pages of books I stopped this year. A whole book’s worth of pages just in books I decided not to complete! A few I’d like to return to at some point in the future, but I suspect I will not finish:
DNF
- チュベローズで待ってる AGE32 | L33
– First volume was great, though - ぼくはイエローでホワイトで、ちょっとブルー | L32
– I think I’d enjoy this much more from the perspective of the child than that of the mother. - 夏と花火と私の死体 | L26
– Writing style did nothing for me
Let’s meet again
- 死体は語る | L30??
– Just a bit more dark in a real way than I really wanted this year - 夢探偵フロイト -てるてる坊主殺人事件- | L34
– The 推理カルテ series has usurped this as my lazy day book series, but this one is fun so I’ll probably go back to it eventually
I also vaguely remember taking a stab at 扉は閉ざされたまま | L30?? again, but since it’s not in my spreadsheet it didn’t really happen 
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After one year of wait (edit: 9 months actually; so fast!), I finally got volumes 13-24 of 7SEEDS (series) | L27 from the library.
I have kinda forgotten what was going on, but I remember now.
I read volumes 13-16 so far. I’m not at home and didn’t think to bring more, which I regret.
The story is really picking up now…
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Today I finished my reread (ish) of 本好き 21, so I’ll start the new arc within the next couple days. I should probably not take such a long break going forward.
I also hit a wall on manga after bingeing a bunch in the last week. I caught up on 女ともだちと結婚してみた。 (series) | L25 and the last volume isn’t coming out for another month. It’s good, but not enough romance as I would have liked. I also finished volume 4 of ぜんぶきみの性 (series) | L22, which is good but I think l need a bit of a break from it. I do still need to finish ロジカとラッカセイ 3巻 | L22, so maybe I’ll finally do that.
I have a ton of manga, both physical and digital, in my 積読 pile. So naturally I plan to order more physical manga soon. 
I should probably at least read volume 2 of 推しの子 first though so I can decide whether or not to order more. I may have overestimated my interest in the manga version from of my excitement from the anime, but only time will tell.
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I’ve started reading 空っぽの少女と虹のかけら 1 (マッグガーデンス Beat'sシリーズ) | L20?? and I would’ve been really confused by the unexpected Kansai-ben… had I not read 舞妓さんちのまかないさん 1 | L26 just before it with a book club! I don’t think I ever needed Kansai-ben for a book or manga before, and just after I make an effort to learn it I need it. Such a great timing 
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It’s time for my biannual monthly book update~~ What has eefara been up to?
Currently Reading
Now that we’re getting close to the end of the year, I’ve been in “wrap-up” mode; I love starting fresh in a new year, so I want to finish up as many of my in-progress books as possible.
- medium 霊媒探偵城塚翡翠 | L33 - Almost halfway through. This book isn’t scheduled to finish this year, but I’m going to try to push through and finish it early. It’s been okay so far; there’s not much in particular that stands out, but nothing that puts me off, either. Feels very 体育館の殺人 to me that way.
- 冥府の王の神隠し | L30?? - Not much to say here. Picked it up, was enjoying it, real life
got in the way. Should be reasonable enough to finish it before January; I have 2/3 left. - Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication: A Self-Study Course and Reference | L0 - Not sure how I want to tackle this; I was using it as kind of a self-guided speaking practice thing before my Japan trip, but now that’s done with I don’t have any driving motivation. Would like to at least glance through it so I can write a useful review, at the very least.
Upcoming
These are pretty much all last-minute book club books.
- 美しい彼 | L30 - I’m starting this one this week, but I’m not counting it as “currently reading” until I get a section in or so. I’m looking forward to this one, since I’ve heard good things about it. Dunno if I can finish before the new year; could if I pushed it, but I’m honestly just looking forward to a chill December, so I probably won’t stress over finishing before 2024.
- 今日からマ王! 魔王誕生編 | L30?? - We’re technically only reading the first half of this omnibus for book club, but I’ll almost certainly keep going and read book #2 just to finish it off (unless I hate book #1, I suppose, haha). Won’t be done before the new year.
Finished
This would be “finished since Sep 5”, I believe. …Man, it’s been a while since my last update post… I should have reviews posted for most of these.
- Read Real Japanese Fiction: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers | L30 - Picked up this graded reader I’ve had for forever to a) get it off my TBR, and b) get in some more listening practice.
- Colloquial Kansai Japanese―まいど! おおきに! 関西弁 (Tuttle language library) | L15 - This was just a quick flip-through on my part; I need to go back and make actual flashcards for this to study.
- 猫と竜 | L26 - A free (?) Kindle manga I picked up at some point. Cute; makes me wonder how it compares to the LN.
- 魔法少年なつき×らびっツ 1 | L24 - Tried this out on @bibliothecary (and @shablul’s? can’t remember) recommendation. The first volume was pretty cute, and I’ve go the second one lined up and ready to go.
- ゴーストハント 1 - This one is one of my ancient Kindle pickups; I’d heard it was well-liked due to its anime, and ghost hunting is always fun, so I gave it a shot. I’ve noticed this on a few series, but sometime I wonder if my enjoyment of a work is being hindered by reading the crappy Kindle version. (<- Pretty sure that answer is yes
) This first volume didn’t rise above “it was okay” for me; I’m betting if I put more time into it and continued the series it’d hook me, but I don’t know when/if that’ll happen. - 吸血鬼ドラキュラ - The big one I’d been working on for a while. Was glad to move this off the list. I enjoyed reading it in Japanese, but I don’t think I’ll be doing so again next year for Daily Dracula.
- ババンババンバンバンパイア 4 - Continuing on with this series; just got one volume left and I’ll be caught up.
- コップクラフト - I originally started this with the LN book club, had to put it down due to time reasons, then picked it back up again later to read along with the audiobook. This was definitely one of those books I could feel myself improving with listening-wise as I went along; I had to stop fairly frequently early on to think about what I’d just heard or manually go back and read a sentence, but only occasionally had to do that near the end.
- 本好きの下剋上 1 - I hurried through this last week to finish up ahead of the book club. Another audiobook read-along. I also picked up audiobooks for the rest of the 本好き books I own since US Audible is having an incredible sale for them.
- 東京ミュウミュウ オーレ! 1 - Just finished this one up today, actually. Lots of goofy cute boy fun. :3 Definitely want to read more.
Man, this ended up being pretty long; I want to do a better job posting next year.
As I mentioned above, I’m hoping to approach as close to possible as the fabled “you’re not reading any books” status before the new year; not gonna happen, but I should be able to knock out a few more before then. I’ve really been enjoying having a book I’ll listen to as I read as well, and I’ve got a nice stockpile of candidates to choose from once I go through all my book club picks with an audiobook. Can’t wait for the bingo next year; I’m going to see how many bingos I can get with only backlog books. 
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indeed it is I and carybiblio whom are holding a bitter rivalry over 魔法少年なつき×らびっツ
it seems to me that you will be joining in this duel of minds 
can’t wait for you to finish volume 5 in babanpire, it’s a hoot
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