Unfortunately, I feel like a lot of LNs aimed at men are incel-ish… ._. Not that men are portrayed realistically in LNs for women, but I think, we are more aware of that? 
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What happened to reading less garbage this year? 
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New Year’s cleaning. Out with the garbage, so the rest of the year will be full of good things. 
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I am still slowly making my way through 本を守ろうとする猫の話 | L31
It’s really a lot more difficult for me than 本好き due to many, many words that I’ve never seen before, even though I can kinda guess at the meaning from kanji/context. I tried listening to the audiobook, but because of the unknown vocab and grammar, I could barely follow the story, so I switched to ebook, which is much better but also much slower due to lookups. The story starts somewhat melancholic, but there are some rather amusing parts as well.
This exchange in the first chapter, for example, made me chuckle.
「今さら帰れと言われても、無事出口まで戻れる自信がないんだけど」
「心配するな、二代目」とトラネコが軽く林太郎を見上げて、
「わしも戻れる自信はない」
単純なことをもったいつけて言う猫である。
I am enjoying myself so far, though I have not the slightest idea yet, what is actually going on. 
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Now I’m wondering if I rated 本を守ろうとする too easy or 本好き is rated too hard 
32 feels right for 本を守ろうとする to me. It definitely felt easier than 教場 | L34, 十角館の殺人 | L34, and 火車 | L35 to me. Then again I think it’s probably about the same as 崩れる脳を抱きしめて | L34 which felt graded too hard to me so… 
I wonder if once you get into a groove with the way the cat speaks (I think he’s probably the most unusual speech pattern in the book, although I think one guy used a decent amount of keigo IIRC) it will suddenly seem easier? I’ve had that happen with dialects.
Either way I’m always interested in how books seems easier/harder to various people. I felt (still feel) https://learnnatively.com/book/191aef02a3/ is a few levels low for how difficult it is, but it’s one of the most graded books!
Most of the time 本好き is a 31, for what it’s worth. I think at 32 it’s rated slightly too hard, but not by much. For reference, かがみの孤城 is a 28, and I think it’s definitely easier than 本好き. But then things like RDG and 魔法少女育成計画 are rated 34 and 35 respectively, and they are significantly more difficult than 本好き. 僕が愛したすべての君へ is a 30 and I think it’s reasonable to say it’s between かがみの孤城 and 本好き in terms of difficulty (granted, I’m the only one on Natively who’s read it). So I don’t know. I think part of the problem is simply that so many novels and light novels are squeezed into a relatively small range (~27-35; basically the N2 grouping, slightly going into the N1 grouping), while the difference in difficulty between the low and high ends is immense.
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But it was freeee… (Also I thought it would be, well, not that).
I mean, I could have just stopped reading at any point without losing anything, so that’s on me, I guess.
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I had some shower thoughts (well, not during shower; walk thoughts?) about your comment, and I think there’s actually a difference (or maybe I just avoided the worst stuff?).
I general, the women will be portrayed in unrealistic ways (especially the ways they fall for the male protagonist), but that sounds more like a kind of power fantasy than actual incel logic. In 乙女ゲー世界はモブに厳しい世界です, women are literally depicted the way incel culture(?) presents them (to the best of my understanding; I only have second/third hand knowledge about incel stuff). The only exceptions are the male protagonist’s mother (thank god for small favors), the two girls who are on his “side” (of course), and some random characters who are mentioned as having found a partner extremely fast thanks to being a rarity (which also made them get the guys near the very top of the social ladder, but, again, the numbers do not add up; I feel like that should be a strong social pressure for more girls to be “nice”).
Actually, I’m just going to downgrade that book from 2* to 1*.
Another shower/walk thought, but the almost entirety of my 積読 pile is garbage, so that’s not the last you’ve seen. Plus, I read 17 books/manga (so ~8% of the total) that I rated 1* or 2* last year, so even if that’s a bad start, I can still do better than last year. Also, I originally meant reading less light novels, which accounted for ~75% of my total 活字 books last year, so I also have room to do better there.
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He is the easiest part for me. 
I find the descriptions much more difficult. 
But I am slowly getting used to it. Yomichan helps. 
I think it really depends on what you are used to in terms of language. The language used in 本を守ろう feels kinda old-fashioned/antiquated at times. And I don’t mean the way the cat speaks. Just the general use of language. I know you wrote in your review it’s for Middle Grade but I would disagree. There is almost no furigana and not the easiest of kanji, imo. I’d say it’s at least High School, even though the contents itself could be read by someone younger, the language would be a barrier, methinks.
I think, probably, most people read it after having watched the movie and books are much easier, if you already vaguely know what is going on, I find.
this and the companion book 君を愛したひとりの僕へ are on my 積読 pile. Have you read both or just the one?
tbf, I am putting incel-logic and alpha male-logic on the same pile (of poop). They stem from the same stupid ideas of what/how women are - just from slightly different POVs. The fact that guys recommended https://learnnatively.com/book/db30d43527/ to me as a wholesome lovestory (and I should just ignore the cover, it’s misleading) still baffles me. 
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That’s fair. I’m just saying this one is very deep down the pile.
I had a similar experience. I read one “romance comedy” light novel aimed at guys (also on a recommendation) and thought never again.
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I read them both. I really liked 僕が愛したすべての君へ. On the other hand I thought 君を愛したひとりの僕へ was fine but not great. This is mostly due to the tone and content not working as well for me. They both take place in the same world (=mulitiverse) but they are very different. I give a little more detail in my reviews if you’re curious.
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One thing to keep in mind for those thinking about their 本好き ratings is that 本好き is a long series → fans of the series are likely to read a lot of those books → as you read the books the overall feeling of difficulty is going to drop in your mind because you’re familiar with the way the author writes, in terms of vocab, grammar, turns of phrase, etc. So a fan rating it is going to rate it much differently than someone who’s only read the first/a couple of the books. And when you start comparing it to much shorter series/single volume books, I find it becomes harder to compare ratings, because you’re not going to be as familiar with those author’s styles in comparison.
(This isn’t directed towards anyone in particular; just thoughts that bubbled up as I was reading everyone’s replies. I’m not qualified to say whether 本好き is graded too high or low; just wanted to add some cents to the convo. 
)
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That’s a fair point in general, but in this case I felt 本好き was fairly easy from the very beginning. Also, 本好き gets harder in every arc, so if anything people rating based on only the first book may be understating the difficulty. The language used becomes more varied (e.g. greater degrees of formal language used), not to mention the characters and plot become more complex.
Based on other people’s comments, I may just be an outlier though. I read fantasy in English, so maybe some of the fantasy language in 本好き didn’t phase me while others found it difficult. Who knows. 
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On the difficulty of 本好き, it’s also funny to look at the difficulty gradings on Natively. It’s fairly consistently graded easier than stuff above 34, then things start to get crazy. 獣の奏者 (33) is declared “similar difficulty”, but it has 3/2/3 ratings (easier/same/harder). 2/1/2 for ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖 (31).
I guess it really depends on everyone’s background, but the 31-33 range does sound fair.
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As far as I understand it, the story changes a bit depending on the order you read the books (or watch the movies), since they apparently are somewhat interlinked. I am looking forward to my experience… one day. XD
They are interlinked, though I’m not quite sure how much the story would change based on the read order. I think it’s more a matter of what references you get and what pieces were “spoiled” by reading the other book first.
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So I started reading the kuma⁴ series earlier this week. I’m not enjoying myself much, but I acquired the first 3 volumes way back when and they’re great filler for tadoku. I might aim for a (personal) high score this month and then proceed with reading things I enjoy after. This would have the side effect of finally reading some of those LNs I’ve 積読’d over the past few years. I’m particularly looking forward to finally starting ハメフラ and maybe also continuing 薬屋のひとりごと. We’ll See.
I’m also reading 犬婿入り | L30?? - which is at least of some literary worth. It’s interesting? I’m not sure I’d say I like it. There’s 2 short stories in there of roughly equal length, each about 60-70 pages long. I’m about halfway through the 2nd story. It’s an 芥川賞 winner, so I’m not surprised that while I feel like I’m slowly getting a more complete picture, there’s still a lot left unclear. In a way, the two stories are told in completely opposing fashions. One is told mostly through one person’s POV, the other through outsiders’ POV. They both deal with how we are perceived by society, and how we deal with it. I think. (Minor spoilers.)
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Please make sure to write a review, I think it would be very helpful for context 
I’m surprised by the lack of furigana, it really did feel very ‘young’.
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A friend of mine gave me some manga for free the other day, volumes 2-9 of https://learnnatively.com/series/1c8d6fa561/ which they found at a local Half-Price Books. I bought the first volume on Bookwalker to get started, and it was… not great. There’s no major thematic problem with it (which is what usually gives books a low rating from me), it’s just incredibly rough compared to what I’m used to.
further explanation that got way too long
I think I’m spoiled from usually being picky with manga, and almost exclusively reading iconic or critically-acclaimed series. It’s either current stuff everyone is loving, like Yotsuba and Chainsaw Man, or older iconic series like Ranma 1/2 and Fullmetal Alchemist. Jumping to CLOTH ROAD reminded me how important fundamental things like panel layout, framing, and shot composition are to an enjoyable manga reading experience— it was a struggle to follow this book’s story and action most of the time. In the big fights between fashion models with weaponized clothing, I frequently lost track of the movement and had to wait until the announcer explained what just happened, then flip back to see what I was supposed to have seen. Even within non-fight scenes, the changes in panel angles are totally unpredictable, and it’s often unclear when it’s jumped to an entirely new scene. Combined with baffling plot choices (example: the teacher-figure is dying of Disease but comes to support the heroes in their fight, then coughs up blood after they win. Will he die dramatically here, giving the heroes one last word of advice to take on their journey? No, instead let’s IMMEDIATELY cut ahead a few days, now he’s still alive back in his shop, but then it catches on fire for LITERALLY NO EXPLAINED REASON and he dies from that instead. Cut to funeral scene. ???!?), uninteresting characters, and a world where the gimmick of computerized fashion would only be interesting if the author actually explained anything about it, I’ve decided CLOTH ROAD will be placed in my drawer of disappointing books I don’t want anyone to ask me about.
So, I don’t think I’ll be continuing this series unless I get very bored. Sorry, aforementioned friend of mine, I know you meant well!
Meanwhile, I finally got back into かがみの孤城 | L28, a much better book I’m excited to (hopefully) finish tomorrow! I’m about to start the 閉城 chapter, so for anyone who knows, a lot just happened but I still have plenty of questions about how it’ll all turn out.
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Well 僕が愛したすべての君へ just won to be the next book read by the WaniKani Intermediate Book Club, in case you want to read with a group. Also, it’s not starting until February 18th, so if you wanted to read 君を愛したひとりの僕へ first there’s plenty of time.
I don’t plan on reading the book again, but if there’s enough interest I’m going to set up weekly “read aloud” sessions where we read that week’s assigned part out loud and discuss it.
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