@CatDQ I saw in my feed that you’re reading YabaQ. How is it? Very helpful?
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I am, I’m finding it quite good. I like the explanations on the nuances of the particles. I find them quite simple but also quite thorough as well. I hope there are more books in the series. 
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That’s great to hear. I was surprised by the cheap price, so I’m even more likely to get it now. Thanks!
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Just finished つれづれノート〈2〉 | L25. I quite enjoy those diaries. They are extremely quick reads with simple language and quite a few filler pages (photographs, drawings, …) and it’s almost like time travel. In this she referenced watching Charles & Diana’s wedding on TV. Oh boy is she in for a surprise. It’s also the year her (first) child was born and since we are already at 40+ volumes (1 vol spanning about a year), it will be fun to see how things go. Will her marriage last? (Her husband seems like a very traditional guy. I.e. she does all the housework and child-rearing while he goes off on overnight hiking trips, etc.) What will become of the child? Will there be siblings? 
Will probably also finish 世界からボクが消えたなら 映画「世界から猫が消えたなら」キャベツの物語 | L27?? today. It started off quite light-hearted, but, of course, with the subject matter, it was bound to become darker/sadder at some point. 
And after that I’ll be reading 未来のミライ | L28 next.
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There is only a small selection of questions but the explanations are thorough. Just thought I’d say. I still think less than £1 is a pretty decent deal considering some of the costs of books now.
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Hello everyone! 久しぶりですね！
I’m back home from 3 months of studying in Japan, where I bought plenty of new (to me) books but didn’t have time for much actual reading.
I was able to make good progress on 本好きの下剋上 (series) | L31 by listening to the audiobooks during my commute everyday, and I’m all the way to book 18 now! Unfortunately the audiobooks are only available up to book 19 at the moment, so I’ll have to switch back to print after the next one.
For now I’m reading a lot of the random manga I picked up from Bookoffs. Yesterday I read the first book of 葬送のフリーレン 1 | L26 which was really good (wish I’d picked up more of this series), and today I’m working on the last volume of あの日見た花の名前を僕達はまだ知らない。 3 | L24.
I also bought the 17 main volumes of 狼と香辛料 (series) | L35 hoping to get back into this series soon, especially with the new anime adaptation coming out next year(!). My other full-series purchase was 放浪息子 (series) | L27 which I can’t wait to read too!
I know I’ve been silent for awhile, but I’ll try to get back into the habit of updating here now that I have time again!
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I finished 2.43 清陰高校男子バレー部 代表決定戦編 2 | L28 today! I wanna jump immediately into the next volume (well, tomorrow; it’s already past 10 p.m. now), but on the other hand, I won’t be getting next4years until at least October probably, and I want 春高編 to last until then and I apparently have trouble pacing myself with this series even when it’s a part where I already know what happens, so. We’ll see what I decide tomorrow, I guess. My pile of unread, recently bought (and even a couple not recently, though those are on my shelf) novels have also been loudly calling my name for the past few days…
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I am making good progress with 未来のミライ | L28. I remember that I didn’t like the movie much, but I couldn’t remember what it was even about. Now that I remember, I also know why I didn’t like the movie. The parents suck. The grandparents suck. I feel for the little guy. And if I remember correctly, the parents never apologize and peace is only restored to the family when Kun-chan “grows up”. Wrong message. When you suddenly turn the world of a 4-year old upside-down, the parents need to explain things, not just ignore the child that is literally screaming for attention. And the rest of the family also has to make sure to show him, he is still loved. Poor fella.
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I got frustrated after slogging through the 31-page battle chapter that starts off 灰と幻想のグリムガル 6 
and needed a change of pace. so I picked up Fate/kaleid liner プリズマ☆イリヤ ツヴァイ! (2) | L26 again, which I had dropped in January. I’ve also been playing FF12 lately, so I wanted something light and dynamic with furigana; something easier but not too easy. I’m giving it a go without checking translation, and doing ok so far (only on p36). Not pausing グリムガル or anything, just reading Fate/kaleid alongside. It’s nice reading a manga with lots of comedy again 
slight rant on グリムガル
The author tends to end one book with a battle, and then start the next book with a later battle against the same style monster, to show how the characters have improved. It’s not a bad idea in theory, but reading them back to back it feels boring and redundant. His battle writing can be kind of boring at times (but really good at other times). While I’m enjoying the series overall, it’s one of a few frustrations I have with it.
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I thought I might finish 【マンガ】本好きの下剋上~司書になるためには手段を選んでいられません~第一部 「本がないなら作ればいい! 」 1 | L26 last week, but I actually didn’t have as much time so I finished it today. I’m pretty happy with my progress in it, as this is really the first manga I’ve finished in Japanese alone without a book club to fall back on.
Going to take a break with something hopefully a little easier (and therefore suitable for reading before bed as a more relaxed activity) in 三ツ星カラーズ (1) | L19 and then I might do ガールズ&パンツァー リトルアーミー 1 | L20?? as the follow up since I requested that be added here, before cycling back to bookworm part 1 volume 2.
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I just finished the 2nd volume of the 86 series 86―エイティシックス―Ep.2 ―ラン・スルー・ザ・バトルフロント―〈上〉 | L37
It didn’t go the way I expected. At the end of the first volume, there is a major time skip during the epilogue. I expected the story to keep going from there… but no. We basically go all the way back to exactly where stuff did end before the epilogue and keep going.
Still, it was generally fine. Some part felt a bit slow or annoying (once again, we get a bunch of info about a character just before killing them off), but the fights were still fun (although it is starting to be repetitive; there are only so many ways you can shoot a cannon 
).
This time, the story keeps going directly with the next volume, so I may read that next… but I was thinking of making a serious attempt at finally finishing 獣の奏者 as well 
we’ll see.
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Finished 天秤の錯覚 | L33 - it was quite enjoyable. Would recommend if you want some light science fiction and a cat protagonist sounds fun to you.
I’ve started JKハルは異世界で娼婦になった | L30?? - seems like an easy read but it hasn’t really grabbed me, and not sure how I feel about it so far. But, it’s definitely nice to see someone trying to deconstruct isekai a bit.
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I bought 君の声は魔法 | L29 because it sounded interesting and I do like “fake dating but oh no I caught feelings,” but SHY文庫 books don’t have Bookwalker previews (dunno if they’re print-only or what), and, hm.
I kind of have a bad feeling about it from the excerpt included on the color illustration at the front
「今日は、あんなことがあったあとだし、この前も、凛に無理させちゃったなって反省してたんだけど。でも……ごめん、我慢出来なかった」
「えっ……わぁっ！」
櫻木は、身体の下に手を差し込んでくる。そのままぐん、と持ち上げられれば軽い身体は簡単に浮き上がって、えっ、と思う間もなく、凛は櫻木に抱きかかえられていた。
Why is rapey crap (if not straight-up rape) played off as romantic such a popular trope… “They just care about you so much!” No, they only care about their own gratification. “I’ve reflected on pushing you to do things you didn’t want to… but I just couldn’t help myself!” (Meaning, he sees no problem with it and will keep doing it, and you’ll just have to learn to like it! :))
It may turn out fine, but. We’ll see. (I don’t exactly have high hopes.)
I also read the first two volumes of 元ヤンパパ と ヒツジ先生 (series) | L23 (the next four, よつば, are listed as a separate series) just to get my total volumes read this month to 10. This series is so cute~ Also I noticed toward the end of the first vol that Hitsuji-sensei looks like Makoto from Free!, and I’ve had a tough time unseeing it. (I wonder if it’s just coincidence, or if Mizuki-sensei likes Makoto. Certainly wouldn’t be the first time an author’s based a character off one from another series.)
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Does the physical copy have the romanized text on it, or is it some unofficial cover that was put on the site? Because if it does that is really horrible text design. 
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The colors are slightly off, but that is 100% the actual cover
(And then the color illustration, the text is over the bottom left corner, which is mostly white/pale colors [mainly pinkish], and the text is white with a pink glow around it, which also isn’t the best.)
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Finished 未来のミライ which I found very boring, but I didn’t like the movie either, so there is that.
I have now started 世界のニュースを日本人は何も知らない | L30?? which is my first non-fiction targeted at adults, I think. Language seems fairly straight-forward. The foreword was easy enough, at least.
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Why did you read it then?
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Because I bought the book before watching the movie and I was hoping the years and the different format might have improved on it. And I couldn’t remember why specifically I disliked the movie.
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I just had my first Japanese class of the year~. It’s basically a class that uses a 中２国語 textbook. So we read most of the first story (except for like the last paragraph) called アイスプラネット. It was interesting to read something in a group where everyone was reading the lines out loud and stuff. Every time we came upon a part where it described someone’s facial expression or voice or something my teacher would make kids in the class act it out. Was funny.
Also kind of unrelated since I haven’t started reading it yet but my Japanese school was giving out used books for free and they had both volumes of ノルウェイの森 (series) | L31! I was just reading about this book yesterday so it feels kind of like fate.
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I finally finished this today, and it was way worse that I expected. It was so bad I couldn’t even read it quickly and get it over with like planned. I’d thought my expectations were low enough, but apparently they needed to be lower. (I wrote a review if anyone’s curious just how bad it is.)
Not sure if I should read 夜明けの雲 | L30?? first and get it out of the way (it’s another new author, but as 3/4 SHY文庫 authors have been bad, I’m not expecting this one to be as good as the summary sounds anymore) or ノベル 平野と鍵浦 ジーンピクシブシリーズ | L30?? since I’m confident I’ll like that one (I like the manga), but I feel like the next novel I start will be 2.43 清陰高校男子バレー部 春高編 1 | L29, so I don’t gotta worry about that for a while. At least until after I finish one of the other novels I’ve got started.
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