That’s more accurate
that seems a bit menacing to me… But yeah, your point is taken.
4 Likes
Cannot tell if this is a ringing endorsement or not 
Glad I’m not the only person who does this. Shall we form 活字中毒アノニマス？
8 Likes
For me, it is. I did expect 店長 to be cringey due to the title, but the author went above and beyond AND still kept everything (relatively) believable. I am very satisfied with this book.
That reminds me that I went to the library yesterday to stock up on books before they close for the end of the year. I was telling a friend about it today, and they told me that library trips were not a thing they do on Christmas Eve.
Anyway, the point of 活字中毒アノニマス is to recommend each others more books to read, yes? I can’t see why anyone would like to stop.
9 Likes
May I ask: Does the relationship stay parent-child like or do they introduce a romance element?
3 Likes
It’s just a front for yet another book club. Yes. 
9 Likes
it stays parent-child like, but there are moments where it’s obvious Sayu unknowingly has romantic feelings for Yoshida. Yoshida is totally unaware, and only acts as a guardian, but multiple characters think he has/almost has romantic feelings. (Spoilers for end below)
At the very end, Sayu finally understands her own feelings, and confesses, before they part. He again says he’s not interested in a ガキ. If they met again as adults, it’s possible - but he’s not gonna wait for her or anything. When they re-meet in the epilogue, it’s left to the reader’s imagination.
Having read that, how would you answer your own question?
3 Likes
We are good. 
I was very apprehensive about reading this, ngl. Japanese media has charred me for life. 
Teens have crushes on adults. That’s not an issue. It’s up to the adult to set boundaries, and he seems to be doing that. So, no issue there. 
Thank you! 
8 Likes
Speaking of that, both me and my spouse got books (plural) for each other as Christmas presents 
11 Likes
Well I finished book 23 a week ago and book 24 today, so I guess I can technically say I read more novels/LNs than last year. Granted it’s been a weird year. I read four volumes of 本好き in January and three volumes in December, with volumes of the やがて君になる LN and 魔法少女育成計画 scattered throughout the year. I definitely won’t be finishing any more novels this year. Actually, I may not even start a new novel so I can do some more manga reading.
Next year, I definitely plan to finish the rest of 本好き (not all at once; probably in sets of 2-3 volumes). Besides that, it would probably be good to read a proper novel and not just LNs. As with this year, 博士の愛した数式 | L35 and https://learnnatively.com/book/d5414a2683/ are the most likely candidates. After those I might be in trouble though, because there’s not much on my radar.
9 Likes
Finished ダブルブリッド | L34 - liked it a lot. Would recommend if the synopsis sounds like your kind of thing.
I have started 暁の女神ヤクシー 1鳥の呼ぶ声 | L30?? - bought this on the strength of one of the author’s other books without knowing anything much about it. I guess I just assumed it was going to be an ancient-Japan fantasy set in a royal court kind of deal from the cover. I am still not entirely sure what kind of story it is - but it’s certainly not that. It has spaceports, for starters, and is set on a small backwards planet some time after an AI catastrophe that humanity’s interplanetary society is still recovering from. I am down for that though - the story is starting to take off at around page 50, so guess we’ll see where it goes.
5 Likes
But
is basically a light novel 
At least, I am counting it as such and it’s even nominated in the LN book club.
(I do like that series, though, so I would recommend it anyway; still, you may be disappointed if you expect “proper” literature)
5 Likes
Yeahhh it does feel like counting that as a novel would be cheating a bit.
2 Likes
It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, mostly because I haven’t been reading much for several months, but I think it’s time for another update. I just finished 本好きの下剋上 part 4 book 9 yesterday, which means I’m finally onto the last part of the series! Maybe I can catch up with @seanblue before I finish… I’ll have to pick up the pace to do that though
I also read a few manga recently to push my total books count higher than last year, including チェンソーマン 15 | L25 and お兄ちゃんはおしまい! 8 | L22. I also just started おじさまと猫 1 | L19 which I had never heard of before I picked it up at a bookstore, but it’s very cute and apparently pretty popular here.
I think finishing 本好き is my next big goal. Compared to the last few years of my life, I have a lot less time to spend reading at the moment, but I’m almost always in the mood to read 本好き and I can do it in short sessions if I need to. There are other series like 狼と香辛料 (series) | L35 and 放浪息子 (series) | L27 that I want to get back into at some point, but I don’t have the same motivation for them right now. And I’m sure I’ll still read random manga from time to time, since I love doing that! For example I picked up Dーlive!! 1 | L25?? because it’s the origin of the お前に命を吹き込んでやる！ meme, so I want to read that soon 
9 Likes
I’m actually reading 放浪息子 (series) | L27 right now! I had read through it last year but am going more intensively now. I’m really liking how real and practical the dialogue is, especially compared to the way manga characters can sometimes talk.
8 Likes
And I finally finished the whole book! Really not much time to read these days (‘it’s the season )
The levels of cringe emanating from 店長 reached hazardous levels at some point, so that I would reflexively close my eyes and wait for it to pass… but that doesn’t work well with books. I then had the genius idea to use the audiobook at the same time to bruteforce through that part and found out that it is very well made too!
I still assumed very postures on the couch (i.e., physically cringing), prompting my spouse to ask if that was the so called bisexual sitting (it is not).
Again, that might sound like a negative, but it was an amazing book. It’s mostly about the everyday shenanigans befalling a book store employee whose boss is, indeed, way too dumb.
I found the very end a bit cheap, but I really loved this book anyway. The other two who read it on Natively seem more negative about it though
Maybe I’ll leave a review myself too 
16 Likes
Always helpful to have reviews from differing perspectives and experiences!
(I just get excited about ppl leaving reviews on here, in general lol)
8 Likes
@shablul Just finished ババンババンバンバンパイア 5 | L25, and dang, that was excellent! I really enjoyed that one; gonna start volume 6 right away
Edit:
Loool just got to it. Love it.
And dang, 葵 getting all the juicy details on the new バンパイア様. Girl knows what’s up.
Also , I’m impressed at the, like, love octagon or whatever that’s managed to form at this point. Ridiculous; no new character is safe.
Edit2: and finished! Looking forward to the next volume. 蘭丸 somehow keeps finding new ways to screw himself over, haha.
4 Likes
I’m reading a collection of short stories about dreams. I borrowed the book from one of the libraries I work at 
https://learnnatively.com/book/d282c970e7/
I’ve read the first two short stories so far. They were both really engaging. I’m thought it would be good to read some short stories to learn about different authors so that I can find out which ones I want to read more of
The second story by 石田衣良 was weird (it was describing a dream about toilets) so I definitely want to check out some of his other works.
7 Likes
1 Like
So I’m reading レゾンデートル | L30?? as my final ‘finish before EOY’ book (~280 pages, we’ll see if I make it ) and at ~1/3 through the plot is actually rather different than I was expecting. I kinda thought it was a fairly straight forward ‘man gets diagnosed with terminal cancer and decides to kill criminals out of anger and no repercussions’ but it’s actually, man gets diagnosed with terminal cancer, decides to pick a fight with two specific criminals who had beat him up, ends up killing one of them, is then scouted by a serial killer who specifically is into killing criminals due to an abusive childhood, and somehow ends up taking in a girl who is being hunted down by the yakuza because she owns a piece of jewelry a seedy photographer gave her friend…and her friend gave her. Meanwhile, he (man with cancer) decides he doesn’t like killing people and is going to find out the identity of the real serial killer.
Anyways I’m enjoying it. I have the audiobook set at 1.7x and am enjoying the ‘weee go fast’ vibes. Over 7 hours left still though, even at that speed…*
Worth noting that the 280 pages are ipad pages which are bigger than normal and also quite a few are denser text with little dialogue, hence the long time to page ratio
11 Likes
