Oof, sounds like a DNFer to me.
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I finished no.6 volume 2. 
It wasn’t as much of a page turner as the first volume, but still very good. I think I was also a bit distracted reading, which didn’t help.
My favorite parts were getting to see how the mum and かふ？ were doing in No6. So happy ネズミ reached out to her. 
That last chapter was also really good. The boys clashing was a long time in coming! And finally some ナズミ introspection.
I’m expecting to find out what’s up with the government (?) kidnapping かふ. Hope the mum telling her 紫苑’s location isn’t going to ruin whatever they come up with.
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Nice, congrats! I’m on chapter 3 still; hoping to finish tonight, and if I can keep up my pace of a chapter a day (might be unlikely due to needing to work this weekend, we’ll see) I should be finishing up as well soon enough. 
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I’ve found my ideal fantasy novel! Just finished ch 1 (28%), and this is the perfect mix of fun and light with just the right difficulty, and nothing that’s making me roll my eyes (yet? Edit: it seems we’ve got the “lead 1 口説き落とす pestering lead 2 for a relationship trope” 
let’s see how it goes this time). So far no info-dumping either. Book switches between the two leads’ perspectives, and is kind enough to label them at the beginning. By いのり (author of 私の推しは悪役令嬢。 | L32 and that homunculus novel I forgot the name of). I like this much better than わたおし so far, and it’s easier. At the very beginning I was like “how is this only L28??”, but after a few pages it got easy. Lookups are 2-9 per page, with most pages being 2-4 or so. Also it involves the MC rejecting AI - which I’m all here for.
comparison to Mercury Witch
It feels like a good complement to 機動戦士ガンダム 水星の魔女 S1 | L31 (which I’m watching rn), in that sense of - the MCs are (in this case attempting) to attend an elite school, one of them is deeply entrenched in the system already, with a prestigious pedigree, the other is a kinda clueless (yet uniquely impressive) outsider who you’re a bit worried to leave on her own. There’s different factions (here: humans vs mazoku, there: space-ians vs earth-ians), some hints that things might be kind shady under the surface (ok well in G-witch things are extremely shady, and barely under the surface). That’s probly where the similarities end, but they just felt kinda complementary to me.
There’s an extended review (with spoilers) here
Ironically, it won’t actually help too much with reading something like わたおし manga b/c the difficult vocab in there is largely political.
Gradually rereading this lovely shoujo yuri 
Very unique art style & characters (who have archetypes, but interesting personality). Focused on two couples (prince & princess, actor & author)… lots of pining, but also some things that move quite fast.
Book clubs:
- Home Thread 付き合ってあげてもいいかな - week 9 - first chapter was cool
- Final Week - クラスで2番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった | L27 - Light Novel Club - we’ll be finishing ch 2 this coming week
- トーマの心臓 | L30 - gotta start progressing on this again
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A lot better then I expected. It eventually settled down, and they have an actual friendship/relationship (though not the most solid, and partly due to outside circumstances). Perstering girl wants to change girl 2 in ways that would actually be healthy for her - and not manipulating her for her own advantage (I know there’s more to it than that with Rei & Claire, but still). Which is to say this is like the opposite of わたおし, and I’m loving it!!
Update: I finished this. Definitely a fun & recommended read
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Finally finished 猫鳴り | L30??
It follows the life of a cat, from the point of view of three different people who interacted with it when it was tiny, adult and dying, respectively.
First part was boring and almost made me drop the book.
Second part was absolutely horrifying (we are literally in the head of a monster).
Last past was really sad.
Each part raised a bunch of questions that we never got answers to.
I’m not sure how to rate the book. It sure made me feel things overall, but those were all negative emotions. Not a good book if you are in a dark place. Edit: gave 2* because (spoiler + oh god trigger warning) the scene where the point of view character is furiously masturbating to the thought of murdering a 2yo boy will stay with me for a while. Reading that part was not a good time.
It’s one of the oldest Japanese books I currently own, bought about 10 years ago. I’m almost done with my physical 積読. Only have Norvegian woods and 妻はくノ一 left from a while ago, plus 誰が勇者を殺したか | L31 which I bought 2 years ago I think
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That spoiler was not at all what I was expecting for a book about a cat 
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I know, right. In that section, the cat is often hanging out in the park where the viewpoint character goes “kid watching” for lack of a better term. The character is convinced that the cat is looking at him and judging him or something. I was afraid for a while that he would try to kill the cat too, but he doesn’t.
Except for the cat and a minor character from the first part being there, that part has otherwise nothing to do with part 1 and 3.
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Series has been vaguely on my radar since the anime (never watched) came out. Anyway, interesting premise, and I’ve read good things - well maintained all-female cast, doesn’t overdo the world building, (very) slow burn yuri, etc. Sounds perfect! So imagine my surprise when it starts off with - a sympathetic, but unenjoyable male PoV character who has just been isekai’d into this world. As one might expect the poor kid is not long for this world, and by the end of the prologue, we get the actual MC’s perspective + a general rundown of the broader situation, and why her job exists.
Anyway, short of what’s in the blurb, I have no real idea what to expect. And I’m liking the writing style so far. It’s a bit tougher (vocab), and longer, than I was planning on, but it seems like it has solid potential.
Finished トーマの心臓 | L30 - it was amazing, and I really loved it. But long and hard, so I’m glad it’s finally over
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So I only read this first volume in english and I have a question. I’ve seen people complain that the writing is bad (I think most english translations of light novels read awfully tbh so I disregard this), and specifically that it sexualizes the female characters a lot and describing their bodies in a lot of detail. I don’t remember the latter being the case, did you get that impression?
I generally am pretty easy to annoy on this so I was surprised I don’t remember such a problem at all and I wonder if you will feel the same way.
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Heads up that the first three books of 十二国記シリーズ | L33-34?? are available on Audible (JP and US for sure; didn’t check others)! Looks like they’re going to be releasing later books throughout the year as well. I’m pretty excited; I have 魔性の子 十二国記 0 | L33 sitting on my shelf that I’ve been wanting to read for a while, but the physical-only has made me hesitate.
Edit: first two are on audiobook.jp as well for that DRM-free goodness!
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I didn’t get that impression from the prologue. I’ll get back to you when I’m further in though.
Honestly translating JP to EN is so tricky that it’s amazing any of them sound good 
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I’ve heard translators say that you’re basically writing a novel, it’s just that you already know what needs to happen. So if you’re bad at writing, your translation isn’t going to sound good. 
I also think a lot of the writing I’ve read in Japanese is somewhere between mid and awful.. even not being fluent in the language I can tell when someone just isn’t a good writer based on the non word choice parts of writing that I can notice 
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One reason why I prefer (and actively look for) authors who have won some prize or something - simply feels much more pleasant to read to me, even not being fluent either…
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I’m not quiiiite at the level where I can be choosy about most of what I read, but Soon™.
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I’ve read some LNs with really bad sentence structure. That said, I prefer simpler sentence structure when it’s still written well. But there’s a fine line between simple and bad. Flowery writing is nice and all, but it’s also tedious and exhausting, which is why I prefer a simpler style.
本好き is my go-to example of simple but nice.
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That sounds reasonable…
ダンジョンに出会いを求めるのは間違っているだろうか 1 | L33 comes to mind (based on excerpts my friend has showed me of book 1)
I feel like I’ve mostly had good luck here… though I’m fairly quick to drop things I don’t like
勇者になりたい少女と、勇者になるべき彼女 | L28 hit that niche for me
I mostly like flowery stuff (and no negative example is coming to mind), but there’s a lot of other stuff that makes a difference for me wrt whether I think an author is a good writer or not
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I’m mostly like “can you get to the point?” That goes for books I’ve read in English and Japanese. It’s just that in Japanese it often leads to really long relative clauses that makes it harder to follow as well.
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Edit: hmm, I get what you’re saying.
Otoh I’ve read plenty of non-flowery stuff that I’d say “can you get to the point” about (sci-fi/fantasy can be particularly bad)… But I wonder if we’re using the word in different ways? Any examples?
Stuff like マリア様がみてる and 花物語 (and other works by the author) are the only JP things I can think of that I’ve read that I’d call flowery… Otoh 本好き is something non-flowery where I sometimes felt like “just get to the point already”, and 灰と幻想のグリムガル | L31 (also not flowery, but overly long sentences iirc) was like “omg just move on from the point already”, from what I remember of it.
I have a vague memory that some of the sentences in ログ・ホライズン 1 異世界のはじまり | L33 were flowery in a way that made it too challenging - but that was a year and a half ago, so I’m not sure how accurate it is.
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For me the difference comes down to, is the prose in service of the story/metaphor, or is it to tell the reader that the author knows what all these big words mean.
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