Thanks for your review! I did find it interesting. Out of curiosity about your comment on needless ‘young people things’ I looked up the author - they’re actually still in their 20s! But I know what you mean about over-explaining perfectly normal every day things. スマホを落としただけなのに | L29 went into great detail about how to use Facebook, how basic social engineering worked, what is the dark web, etc etc and I was like, this book is seriously from 2017?
I think this one I might skip as it sounds a bit too shallow for my tastes and the topics were maybe more for shock value?
It wasn’t really in the way where they explain where it worked, it was more like, an entire paragraph describing some hamster sticker Madoka wanted to send or something. Also a lot of instances of them describing what other people in the story had in their search history to “get inside their head” or something, which just made me question how the protagonist even knew any of this? And I think you’re right that they were about shock value, I don’t really think the author really wanted to understand the issues they were writing about instead of just writing something that has a grabbing synopsis.
I finished 灰と幻想のグリムガル level.1 ささやき、詠唱、祈り、目覚めよ | L30, and started book 2. It wasn’t my favorite read (I rated it 4 instead of 5), but I enjoyed. I finished it in 6 days, which is the fastest I’ve ever read a LN (usually it’s a month or two), in part because I didn’t let myself read anything else at the same time. It’s just like the anime, for the most part. Book 2 starts off with some action, so I’m already enjoying it more.
ホリミヤ (pausing)
I also finished ホリミヤ 9 | L22, and decided that for now I don’t want to be continue the series. I probably will at some point, but a decent amount of the writing has gotten repetitive, and there’s some patterns/tropes in it that really bother me. They were mostly in the anime too, but for some reason they’re hiring me a lot harder, as in reading it. At this point, in enjoying the side characters more than I’m enjoying the main couple. That’s disappointing, bc the main couple started of sooooo excellently.
Anyway, I’m planning to focus on 灰と幻想のグリムガル 2, but not exclusively. I also picked up SAO Progressive 1 again (much easier this time around). I’m planning to read it entirely without translation (I’ve previously read it in English, a few years ago). Otherwise, I’m in the middle of the 五等分の花嫁 game. I think I’ll give myself a 2 week goal for 灰と幻想のグリムガル 2, but hopefully finish sooner. In general I really want to focus on light novels now.
I think I’ll leave 本好き | L31 and 青春ブタ野郎 | L30 as “read along to to the audiobook, whenever I’m in the mood”. I probably won’t independently read them for right now, just bc I can only do so much at once.
Did another 18 or so pages of the 本好きの下剋上 manga today, so now at the halfway point. It’s the first one I’m reading independently, and the first with barely any furigana, but it’s going pretty well. It’s mostly the fantasy related language like 貴族 that has presented difficulty so far and also this latest sections discussion on 油 that have posed difficulties, but I’m feeling happy with my level of progress and lookups.
Yesterday I started reading 今さら聞けない! 政治のキホンが2時間で全部頭に入る | L37?? on a plane flight. I was planning to read the whole thing on the flight because it’s pretty text light and claims to be able to read in 2 hours, but it was a really early morning flight so I ended up spending like 90% of the time sleeping. I will try and read it when I have time on my trip, the format makes it easy to pick up, read a couple pages, and put down so it’s perfect for this.
I started reading 52ヘルツのクジラたち | L30 yesterday.
I knew nothing about it, I just found it on the “popular” list from my local library. That list is how I got to read stuff like 推し、燃ゆ | L36 and おいしいごはんが食べられますように | L30, which I enjoyed a lot, so why not.
I would say that for the first ~50 pages, the writing was really nice and strongly pulled me in… then the dark themes really started to kick in and I had to slow down by quite a lot. I even stopped reading for a while and just read ~30 pages from a random saccarine light novel (虫かぶり姫2 花守り虫と祈りを捧げる使者 アイリスNEO | L31) to calm down. I also had a hard time falling asleep
Anyway, I read a bit more this morning and around page 100 things look like they will get better? But there’s still more than half the book left, so I’m a bit cautious…
I really really like the book so far, but oof, it’s a rough read.
You certainly piqued my interest (again). I’m fine with dark themes, not fine with tearjerkers. Would you say the book falls into the latter category? And would you mind broadly outlining (in spoilers) what kind of dark themes you’ve seen so far? It looks like physical/psychological abuse within families from the summary I read.
Not a tearjerker so far. I guess there’s a chance it will change later.
That’s exactly what it is. Thing is, there is no blurb on the back of the edition I got from the library, so I went in completely blind and it just sucker punched me.
Since ホリミヤ and 宇宙兄弟 tied in my “What should I read while waiting for book club to start?” poll, I’ve been reading a bit of both. I read one section of 宇宙兄弟 earlier today, and started the first section of ホリミヤ a few minutes ago. What are the odds that I would read one section each from two manga of two entirely different genres and they both feature a headbutt?
I think it’s long overdue that I take a step back from all the books I’ve piled on myself recently; I’ve been feeling pretty overwhelmed with some real life stuff going on, and I think the pressure I’ve been putting on myself to keep up with these good books is slowly getting to me. I think most people organizing the clubs I’m in pop in this thread occasionally, so I thought I’d give notice here instead of in several different threads.
I’ll still continue to run the コップクラフト club and whatnot; just gotta take a step back otherwise, I think. I’m going to continue reading FLESH & BLOOD 13 | L33, but otherwise I’ll have to hold off on joining you lovely folks in conversation with other cool stuff. orz I hope everyone can enjoy the books for me~
Assuming 予言の島 is one being dropped? It’s an oddly tiring read - their dialect really slows things down. You can always return to it later though. Gotta take care of your self and your sanity
予言の島 and コップクラフト, and I won’t be starting 木洩れ日に泳ぐ魚 after all. (Though I did go ahead and pick it up to keep it in mind to read down the line.)
Agreed on 予言の島 being a bit more mind-stretching than originally anticipated; I was having a good time with it, though. It’s a nice challenge from my usual, I think.
Thanks. Yeah, hopefully I’ll be back in the game later this year, at least in terms of book clubs.
Sorry to hear that, but yes, you need to put yourself and your sanity first. The book clubs will still be there if and when you decide to go back to them.
Really, I sometimes stress over keeping up with book clubs too, but in the end, reading is not an obligation, nor should it be regarded as such. If it starts to feel like a chore, or if it’s taking too much valuable time from actual real-life obligations, then it’s probably time to take a step back and reassess.
I started reading ハサミ男 | L35 as my ‘blow off steam’ book and I think I might actually stick to this one unlike the other half started books this year. I’m enjoying the writing style and I’m learning a decent chunk of new words. Admittedly some aren’t likely to be very useful to me that often (光磁気ディスク for example - the book is from the 90s) but it’s a nice stretch.
I have vague memories that this book might be kind of graphic? I feel like that was mentioned in some Japanese review or another. But it’s also in so many mystery book ‘must read’ type lists that I want to give it a shot.
It’s a longish book and I’m just reading a bit here and there so don’t expect a full review anytime soon though
I have started 天秤の錯覚 | L22?? - Though this is part of my random-scifi hunt, I have relatively high expectations. Not really based on anything, but the art is cool and it doesn’t feel like the author is going for schlock.
Reading the new 青ブタ book (number 12) recently. Playing persona sped up my reading speed a lot. Already 32% through in only 2 days. 20 pages in 50 minutes. Still a little slow, but better than before.
I have just started 舞妓さんちのまかないさん 1 | L26?? (learnnatively.com) - I totally loved the netflix adaptation and I haven’t read manga in quite a while, so it seemed like a relaxing filler before the book club starts!
tfw you start up some easy-looking manga already in your library because it has furigana then you log it and notice the natively rating is about 8 levels higher than your comfort zone and you’ve only done about 10% in a regular reading sesh when you’re used to like 25-30%… oh well, I’m enjoying myself, guess I’ll take my time
Well, I ended up finishing ド直球彼氏×彼女 1 | L23. Sort of a weird place difficulty wise - I found what was actually going on relatively easy to read in a grammar sense (with vocab lookups, of course), there was just way more of it than I was used to, so the book took longer and I needed more stamina. The last 30% or so took like 45 minutes! I’m glad I stuck it out though.
Not sure where to head next… I’m on a Street Fighter kick and have been rewatching the show for ハイスコアガール 1 | L24??, but it might yet be a little difficult… and I can tell the other fighting game book (対ありでした。 ~お嬢さまは格闘ゲームなんてしない~ 1 | L28) I want to read is at least on the same level… maybe I’ll just kick back and keep going with a few other easier series before gearing up for the next challenge.
(Though I did go ahead and pick it up to keep it in mind to read down the line.)
Yeah, hopefully I’ll be back in the game later this year, at least in terms of book clubs. 
