I’ve been tempted to read along the audiobook from the start instead of the second pass, but that somehow feels like cheating to me, as it gives me zero effort to try to read the kanji on my own 
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Yeah, I can’t really do reading and listening… I notice that I just drag my eyes over the words but don’t actually read… so I usually just listen to the audiobook after I already read something… it’s good listening practice for sure 
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I started a new audiobook today (didn’t buy the text) - 本を守ろうとする猫の話 | L31
It’s a lot of fun! It’s only 5ish hours so I’ll likely finish it before the year is out. Light fantasy with a talking cat and books. What else could I desire 
Besides murder and love affairs, but we’ll leave my other book tastes out of this…
I’m a big fan of listening/reading and honestly I feel like doing it has given me a good deal of intuition for how kanji are read. I think of it as like a parent reading to their child. YMMV, not everyone likes doing it, but I don’t think it’s cheating at all so long as you’re actively paying attention to the text while listening.
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Three days to finish half of a 450 page book is pretty impressive no matter the book. Certainly faster than I’ve read anything in Japanese. 
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On the topic of 本好き, I read volume 31 a few days after it came out, but not much happened. Almost half the book is used for “bonus” stories telling what happened from the point of view of different characters. It really felt like the author (or, most likely, the editing team) is trying to milk the remaining story to fill as many volumes as possible.
Unrelated, but I read 火花 as well, and it was a lot of fun. It’s a succession of episodes over more than 10 years about two 漫才 artists. I was surprised to learn that it is actually fiction, it felt absolutely real (except maybe for the very end). The author did 漫才 himself, so I wonder if there’s a model for the characters in the story.
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The end of Book 7 was like this too, but I really enjoyed it! Seeing all the other perspectives was great, but maybe that’s because Benno and Main’s family are my favorite characters 
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That’s different. The end of each arc has legit plot-important chapters and aren’t really “bonus” stories. That’s as opposed to the (usually 2-3) chapters that are placed after the epilogue of most volumes.
Putting aside the post-arc chapters, I’ve rarely enjoyed these bonus chapters. For me they always kill my motivation to read the series. On top of that, they recently started getting into spoiler territory (as in ruining plot points from subsequent volumes), so I’ve stopped reading them entirely.
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Oh I see what you mean now, I misread the comment originally. Those are less interesting, but I like how they do sometimes add extra details that become relevant later. I wouldn’t consider the ones so far to be spoilers but I’ll see how it goes from here.
Listening to the audiobooks probably helps as well, since it’s easy to power through less-interesting content at the same speed as the good stuff
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I read a book in one day 
To be fair, I had the day off work and it was only 99 pages on my iPad (bunko is 160ish?), but still, a first.
おいしいごはんが食べられますように | L29 cannot recommend highly enough unless you like sweet and happy things, then maybe don’t. Or well definitely don’t. But otherwise do.
It has no gore and no cautionary notes besides a bit of sex, but it’s a wild ride.
Cheers to @Naphthalene for reading it first and recommending it. Great book to end the year on.
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I finished the first part of 夜は短し歩けよ乙女 | L43 and it is… completely surreal. I don’t mind that kind of story in general but I feel like there’s zero grounding of the story, if that makes sense? In 隣のトトロ, there’s a clear separation between the supernatural elements and “real life” (including comments such as “it was a dream, but it was not a dream”). When the 猫バス comes around, the main characters are floored, serving as proxy for the viewer. In 夜は短し歩け乙女, when 李白‘s triple-decker train (wagon?) comes in, literally nobody bats an eye, just noting that “oh, 李白 has arrived”. So, in universe, it’s nothing special? It’s not ever on rails, but that’s okay? Same when one character says that his job is to be kind of a 天狗 (and eventually displays supernatural powers). Like… is it a normal everyday occurrence in universe? Or has the main character inadvertently stepped into 妖怪 territory? In any case, she doesn’t care (and just remarks “
why `like’ a 天狗? He seems to be literally a 天狗?
”) and just focus on what alcohol she will drink next (and especially looking for 李白’s moonshine alcohol… for some reason?). Even the meaning behind the title drop was not super clear.
Despite liking this kind of story in general, I couldn’t help but feel bored so far (as there’s literally nothing telling me why I should care; I might as well be reading an AI-generated story…)
Hopefully the next parts will be better, but I’m not sure when I’ll keep reading this book.
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I did not like 夜は短し歩けよ乙女. I spent half the time wondering if the problem is my Japanese or if the story is just very weird. (It was probably a bit of both.) I watched the anime afterwards and would recommend it over the book.
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I honestly don’t get this author. I tried watching The Tatami Galaxy anime on two different occasions, and both times I gave up after the first episode.
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Don’t mind me, just adding this to my wish list…
Today I read the last pages of two mangas:
…and that means I’m officially down to reading one book at a time, just in time to start 2023 with a semi-clean slate! I don’t think that’ll last very long though… 
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Interesting to see everyone’s takes on 夜は短し歩けよ乙女, that’s been on my shelf for several months and I’m finally planning to pick it up again (as soon as I finish かがみの孤城). My sister watched the anime recently and told me it was a lot of fun, and I think someone on discord originally recommended it to me because they like the author, so I want to give it another shot. I was initially confused by it when I started it this summer, but now that I know more about what the tone is supposed to be, I’m hoping it’ll be easier. Wish me luck, I guess?
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Oh hey, I’ve read 玉藻の恋 too! I forgot to add it to Natively since it was one of my few E-books, I guess. I found it though the artist on Twitter awhile ago and it was a fun read.
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Oh, nice!
Yeah, I liked it too. The story was rather predictable, everything moved a tad too quickly due to it only being one volume and I felt like Tamamo was a bit too pushy at times, but it was a fun and easy read, the art is cute and I’m a sucker for fox girls.
(I would’ve rated it 3,5 if I could, so… glad I posted it here and it got a 4/5 from you now!)
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I totally agree with your review, it was enjoyable to read but nothing really set it apart on it’s own. Now this might sound odd, but while reading I got a feeling like the author was really putting their heart into every page and writing a story they cared about, which made for a very pleasant reading experience. It just felt very personal somehow which I appreciated.
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I finished 本好き3 a couple of days ago. I think, going forward, I will only listen to the audiobook. I usually read the book before listening to the audio for comprehension, but the audio alone is enough and it frees time up to read something else physically.
The last few days I have been binge-reading English stuff. I think I was a bit burned out on Japanese. I will need to find a better balance next year. Something along the lines of 1 English book, 1 Japanese book. I want to finish 探偵チームKZ事件ノート ハート虫は知っている | L27 today and I started 本を守ろうとする猫の話 | L31 which I think cat recommended somewhere. It’s supposed to be the same difficulty as 本好き but I find it quite a bit harder. 
良いお年を~
Edit: the links are parsing nicely in the preview, but when posted they revert back to the URLs. Or is that just for me? 
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I only read one 本好き book so hard for me to compare, but IIRC 本好き had simpler sentence constructions (grammar, phrasing) but a much wider range of vocab. To me 本を守ろう read a lot like the Harry Potter translations
Nah it’s everyone. Probably related to some Discourse update issues
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Haven’t read those, so can’t compare. 
I never analyze what I read, but simpler sentences would make sense why something can be a similar difficulty overall, but depending on where someone’s strengths lie, feel easier.
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