I know the feeling. I just finished 風立ちぬ | L26 (my first physical book!) and they had one minor character speak entirely in spaced katakana to emphasize the fact that he was foreign. That shit’s cursed 
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I had a solid box of books arrive yesterday! I’m starting on them from easiest to hardest according to natviely
First up is チーズスイートホーム 1 | L15; I have also got volumes 2 & 3 of this.
I also bought チーズスイートホーム 1 | L15 and both にゃんにゃん探偵団 | L17, with 夜カフェ 1 | L24 and the first three くまクマ熊ベアー 1 | L23. I think it’s going to take a while to get through just this one with all of Chi’s baby talk though…
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I have a lot of physical books but have kind of simplified what I am reading.
世界から猫が消えたなら | L28
とんでもスキルで異世界放浪メシ 5 | L28
ティアムーン帝国物語 ~断頭台から始まる、姫の転生逆転ストーリー~ | L30
The first two are really easy for me. The third one definitely has some parts that are more difficult and I have to reread., but some parts which are also very easy.
I have a question about Japanese formatting…
Is it standard not to use a 「。」 for the final sentence of dialogue?? Is this only for vertical text?? At first I thought it was a lazy light novel thing, but I am also seeing it in 世界から猫が消えたなら | L28. I have never formally learned this? Do anyone know the rule? This no period thing doesn’t exist in English does it?
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It is standard I think, yeah. I know because when I copy a sentence to make a card for my SRS studying I have to add the final 。 if I copied dialogue. I have no idea if horizontal text is different, but since books (and therefore dialogue) are typically written vertically the question might be moot.
I only checked one English book since it’s the only one I had on hand, but it had a period for the final sentence of dialogue.
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I bought the first 5 volumes a while back when they were heavily discounted on booklive… I should get to reading them, but somehow I haven’t felt like it so far…
Well, I’ll read the first volume next, I guess.
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Still reading 五等分の花嫁. Finished volume 7 today.
Also been reading ぼっち・ざ・ろっく! 1 | L28 which has been quite enjoyable. It’s much more focused than the average Kirara series. Typically there’s a “theme” (e.g. for ご注文はうさぎですか it’s cafes), but many chapters completely ignore the theme in service of the cgdct aspect. But with ぼっちざろっく, every single chapter so far has been about the band theme in some way, which is a nice change of pace. Also, the main character is great. She’s very 人見知り, gets inside her head causing herself major anxiety, has an imagination that gets out of control and tends to go in bad directions, etc., but this makes her a very unique and interesting character.
Finally, I’m planning to start 狼と香辛料 1 | L35 today. This will be my second time trying it (gave up in the first chapter about two years ago). I’ll be reading it with the WaniKani book club, but I wanted to get a head start.
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Good luck with 狼と香辛料! It’s one of my favorite series (actually one of the reasons I started studying Japanese) and it took me two tries to get through it too.
I guess since I’m posting here, I should give an update on what I’m reading. I’m on book 6 of 本好きの下剋上 (series) | L31 listening to the audio books from Audible. More actively I just started reading こころ | L39 the other day, and I’m partway through book 3 of ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖 (series) | L31 which I want to finish fairly soon.
As for manga, I just started ボクガール 1 | L22 Book 1, 二ノ国 光の後継者と猫の王子 (series) | L24 Book 2, and 新説 狼と香辛料 狼と羊皮紙 1 | L34 Book 1. I’m really excited for the Ni No Kuni book actually, the series is only 2 volumes and the first one impressed me. Hopefully it can stick the landing!
(I’m at the stage in my reading cycle where I start a bunch of things at once because I can’t make up my mind, so Natively should come in handy to keep track of everything 
)
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I feel like maybe it’s the first thing I read in Japanese that had a decent of figurative language. I think that is the correct word for it. The writing style feels fairly different than anything else I have read, but the chapters are super short so it makes it approachable.
At the moment I find it quite interesting, but am not sure how far I plan to delve into the overall series.
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Thanks! I enjoyed the anime adaption when I watched it *checks AniList* 7 years ago apparently! I enjoy economics and trade well enough (I enjoy that part of 本好き as well), so I don’t expect that to be an issue. I’ve been having trouble getting into a reading routine lately, but if I can manage to be more consistent with my reading I think I’ll be able to get through it fine.
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Hello everyone! I’m new here but I love reading and one of my dreams is to be able to read books in Japanese^^.
I haven’t finished reading anything yet. Well, I’m going to read Hunter x Hunter with the Wanikani’s Absolute Beginner Book Club (although it doesn’t seem so absolutely beginnerish according to the Natively ratings:D). So, to prepare, I tried to start reading something easy.
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I started with 夜カフェ｜LVL 23 and I will definitely continue, but I found so many great books and it overwhelmed me and I jumped to the next book XD.
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So I jumped to ふしぎ古書店1 福の神はじめました | LVL 20?? …But I was discouraged by the abundance of onomatopoeia. Still, I want to pursue reading it later.
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And, finally, I have chosen my final victim… 魔女の宅急便 1 | LVL 26 Honestly, my favorite so far! I’ve only read a few pages as I’m learning all the new vocab as I go, but the writing style is so pleasant ;-;. Also, oh, this heavenly feeling when you have been staring at a sentence for 5 minutes and then you finally get it.
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Thanks! I enjoyed the anime adaption when I watched it checks AniList 7 years ago apparently! I enjoy economics and trade well enough (I enjoy that part of 本好き as well), so I don’t expect that to be an issue.
Hopefully the economics won’t give you too much trouble then, especially if you’ve seen the anime before for a bit of context going in. Personally I think ベンノ from 本好き feels like Lawrence in another life, and I’d love to ask 香月美夜先生 if it was an intentional inspiration.
Hello everyone! I’m new here but I love reading and one of my dreams is to be able to read books in Japanese^^.
Welcome @MiuEverGarden! My favorite advice to give people is that the best way to learn to read is by reading, and it sounds like you’re starting that already 
I understand your pain with onomatopoeia, that’s always been a hard thing for me and especially was at first. 魔女の宅急便 is a really fun one though, and uses less kanji than most books, so it should be a good starting point! A novel is a big project so best of luck persevering through 
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Well, that sounds promising. I’m going to keep my expectations low, though, considering it’s a light novel. Hopefully, I’ll get pleasantly surprised.
(About RDG)
Well, I didn’t, as I moved ahead with 転生した大聖女 (i.e. I bought volume 2 and kept reading). Volume 1 was kinda meh. Not so bad, but kinda generic isekai, with the caveat that the character is reincarnated in the same world (so… dousekai?). Like with most isekai, the main character keeps doing weird things and it’s hard to understand why they keep up with her BS, but anyway. Volume 1 ends on a cliffhanger and volume 2 was 50% discounted, so I kept going. I reached yesterday the “bonus stories” part of volume 2 and I’m really not feeling like reading ahead. The one at the end of volume 1 was also painfully boring. Maybe I should just flip through them and call it a day (I don’t feel like I can say I have read the book if I just ignore them).
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I just started 木曜日にはココアを | L29 (learnnatively.com). It’s a short story collection and it’s charming so far! The grammar is pretty straightforward and the sentences aren’t long. There’s some new vocabulary for me but it feels like a comfortable read.
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Wow that sounds like a great start! I would recommend looking at bookwalker as you can buy manga and novels to read online fairly cheaply (and sometimes for free). It also has a bonus that you can read the first few pages of anything for free, so you can test out if a writing style is straightforward or not for you to understand 
when I was starting out with reading I found it a great help!
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I finished the first volume yesterday and read a bit of volume 2.
I didn’t notice anything particular in the way of figurative language, but the writing is decent (for a light novel). What annoyed me, though, is that the narration, despite not being a character, has its own voice and keeps using it to tell us how much the main character is garbage. Since the main character is the one I (and readers in general) identify with, that really doesn’t feel pleasant at all.
Plus, I don’t mind that the achievements of the main character are basically a variation of “even a broken clock is right twice a day”. That’s what happens in 乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった... (series) | L26 too. But if the “broken” clock is right all the freaking time, I don’t care if, instead of clockwork, it’s working out of pixie dust or an improbability drive. It’s not a broken clock anymore.
I think the part I hated the narration the most is around the time there are two princes, who are consistently described as hot, making a nice display of friendship. Most of the girls in attendance (including partially the main character, since she hates one of those two) really enjoy the view, which basically invites the reader to do the same. And then the narration goes something like
By the way, I’d like to remind you those two are like twelve.
Gaaaaaaah just why.
That being said, the plot is fun. It’s not that special, but solid for a light novel. I also like the fact that there’s proper romance (even though they are 12-13 at this point). I will definitely read the volumes I own. We’ll see if I keep going beyond that.
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I am reading it via Syosetsu. I am a little weak at reading on screen, but I feel like there are a lot of sentences I have to stop and reread because I don’t get the meaning instantly. So something about the writing style is a little different than what I am used to. It kind of gives me more of a bit of a feel of literature books I read in school rather than other light novels. That was especially my initial impression with the first chapter, and maybe it has just stuck with me.
I am not sure how strict Japanese books are about POV in general, but the narration jumps around to different people at will and like you said sometimes infuses the princess’s views in the writing, even though it’s not written exclusively from her point of view. And other parts act more as one of her critics and take a negative view of her. That is kind of weird, so I think that is a valid criticism.
It’s funny because I never got past P10 or so in 乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった... 1 | L27 or also for the anime I stopped after 1 or 2 episodes, but I find Tearmoon Empire to be a page turner.
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Oh, by the way, how are you managing the page numbers? I saw that you are recording your reading by pages, but you won’t be able to tell from the website, right?
A bunch of times, the narration goes “something something… NOT” for comedic effect. That can be difficult to read at first.
It’s not really her point of view. The narration does mention what characters are thinking, but is separate, and has its own opinion (even going as far as using だろう or と思う at times). That reminds me how 江戸川乱歩 likes to talk to the reader during the story (even though the writing style is otherwise completely different).
Ah, also, when something corresponds to a character’s thought, there’s a long dash (—) in front of it, so it’s easy to parse. That might be missing from the web novel version.
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I will pay more attention to the long dashes. I don’t think I have ever read a book (in any language) that uses those. I kind of guessed it was talking about internal thoughts but will look more carefully about how it works.
The no period for the final sentences of dialogue is another “new” thing for me that I wasn’t aware of until recently.
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I just wanted to say that I’m glad that other people are reading and (mostly) enjoying ティアムーン帝国物語!! I personally love it to pieces since it’s very funny and charming. My first 3 novels in Japanese were all in the series and I recently read the fourth one (and the first 8 English translations before all that…) so I’m perhaps incredibly biased.
@Naphthalene Yes, the narrator definitely rags on Mia a BUNCH but it gets less annoying as time goes on.
Anyway, enjoy yourselves! Please feel free to keep posting in the forum so I can read your thoughts 
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Yes, I’m halfway through volume 2 and it’s a lot more bearable so far!
I’ll post them when I’m done with this volume, then!
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