I am sure that margarine could definitely be used (I’m not sure I would want to myself), but more like the entire combination of everything. 
I anyways love books with unrealistic yakuza stuff happening so if anyone has any recs, do let me know immediately. 
A couple more updates from me.
First I read ハゴロモ | L28 by Yoshimoto Banana.
I loved the beginning setting, of her home town being a town of rivers, and peoples life in the town being rooted in the water.
It reminded me a lot of Italo Calvino’s beautiful Invisible Cities book.
The rest of the story was OK - someone getting over heartbreak by returning to her hometown.
Aaannd I also read 私の夫は冷凍庫に眠っている | L28 which was a blast.
Thank you @cat for the recommendations.
It was a fun ride!
I’m on board with the alive husband understanding that ナナ wanted to kill him.
But I can’t believe he also didn’t seem to bat an eyelid that her next plan was to feed his dead brother to him
Also I thought the book might have climaxed early after the island hopping chase, but the is he/isn’t he evil twin ending was a really good uneasy ending. (I’m sufficiently bought in that he’s 寮 
)
Also, next door neighbour peacock didn’t get enough plot time! Did it ever make clear whether she and husband we really watching AV followed by a cockroach appearing?
Yeah, this is why when ppl treat DeepL like some sorta authority I roll my eyes… I’ve seen so much terrible DeepL on this site alone (no offense to Natively, there’s just a lot cuz of the book blurbs)…
I looked at the preview, and saw a multi page 登場人物 Anyway I added it to my list, in case I do decided I’m interested in the future. Thx
None of the AIs seem to handle that sentence very well. Current DeepL:
She is happy to meet her brother Alexei, the most beloved and sissy-conservative sister from her previous life, but the villainous siblings’ upbringing is too unfortunate for her!
Chatgpt 4o:
Overjoyed to meet her beloved older brother Alexei, who dotes on his sister, she soon realizes that the villainous siblings’ backstory is far more tragic than she ever imagined!
Claude Haiku:
Though overjoyed to reunite with her most beloved sibling, the brother-obsessed (siscon) Alexei, she soon learns the tragic backstories of the ill-fated villainous siblings.
Seems the closest, though it’s missing a bit of nuance.
So close, yet so far.
Yeah GPT 4o should at least get a “you didn’t absolutely fail” award
I have been reading some Aozora trying to fill out a few <L34 options for the upcoming Advent (pre-vetted calendar) and came across this line:
ジムは僕より身長が高いくせに、絵はずっと下手へたでした。
which struck me as such a hilariously petty/strange insult
Also my cult book has become interesting as there is now 
tension but needing to be nearly 200 pages in to get it speaks to bad pacing. I’m definitely on the fence about 辻村 深月. She’s not someone where I feel like I can consistently pick up a book by her and know I’ll enjoy it.
Just 辻村美月 things 
(I keep reading her books though…)
I am intrigued by 噓つきジェンガ | L31 on title alone, but I think I’m taking a break from her after this 
I’ve picked that book up and put it down again without buying it at multiple bookstores. One day maybe…
Just going by that title it’s either a novel about the consequences of the increasingly precarious lies told by the book’s characters… or a psychological death game LN about a game titled just that 
How about 指 | L32 or 「女らしさ」とは | L30? Both take less than 10 minutes to read and I enjoyed them.
I just finished volume 2 of 京都寺町三条のホームズ. I did not expect a Moriarty-like entity to show up in this series It was absolutely ridiculous.
Week 2 of 理由 started today, so I’ll read that next, followed by 水車館の殺人. But after that I’ll probably continue with volume 3. A light-hearted read like that is just what I need between all the murder.
I recently returned from a 3+ weeks trip to Japan where I acquired a stupid amount of books… (half of which are currently still in freezer quanrantine) 
However, I read very little while travelling. So I am now behind on everything.
Plans for the weekend:
I finished 吸血鬼は泉のごとく | L25 last night; this volume is two stories of about 100 pages each and I read most of the second story in a single sitting. These books are obviously a long way from good literature, but I keep reading them because they’re always an easy read, I know I’m not going to run into setups or situations that I personally find awkward to read through, and I just find them fun.
The 解説 in this volume was by somebody in their 40s reminiscing about having first read the series starting in 小学校六年 (sneakily reading during classes) and wondering if the reader was a young person just encountering them for the first time or an adult coming back for the nostalgia. Well, neither of those exactly 
I would have been the right age to enjoy them when they first came out if not for the language difference, though.
(Edit: whoops, wrong link, didn’t mean to link to the series page…)
I appreciate the suggestions but that story actually finished out the pre-vetted calendar I’ll keep those in mind for next year!
Update: The bonus chapters were incredibly boring! I thought one was interesting, one was okay, and three were terribly boring. So much so that it took me until today to get around to finishing the book. The main story was fine, solid 4/5, but all these bonus chapters were a slog and bring it down to a 3/5.
I may still try to read volume 32 before December 6th. It looks like it’s back to a normal number of bonus chapters (2-3) and I do generally enjoy and get through the main story just fine. So three weeks is plenty of time to read it if the plot moves at a decent pace. Though I often struggle getting through the prologue as well, so we’ll see.
If it wasn’t for a bit of editing and the pretty pictures, I probably would have been better off just reading the web novel.
It’s amazing how much of a difference the pretty pictures can make. It’s like a little reward every so often, along the way. Definitely helps w/ motivation a lot (at least for me)
For info, I gave volumes 31 and 32 only 3*, and the main reason was the “bonus” stories.
Well, I read both, but I agree. On the other hand, volume 33 (the last one) felt like a solid improvement upon the web novel version.
(The main reason being that the author felt rushed to finish the web novel due to focus on the published version; this volume is the “proper” version the author envisioned)
I find that interesting though, because the volumes with excessive number of bonus chapters are 29, 30, and 31, not 32. How come you still gave 29 and 30 five stars? Did you like the bonus chapters more than in 31, or was the main story just so good for you that you let the bad/boring bonus chapters slide?
Started reading あん today. Am quite new to these forums but would like to find a book club for reading easier things.
