I think that it’s more a “the youth of today will vibe with this book” kinda thing… and not a “the story is similar”. Catcher in the Rye apparently was really a big hit with teens/young adults when it came out. 
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Horrifying. (My apologies to anyone who does like the book.)
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tbf, my generation got hooked on sparkly vampires and S&M done wrong… so who am I to judge. 
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Fair enough. The wildest things become popular for sure.
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Just finished チーズスイートホーム (series) | L13, and I may have shed a tear at the end. 
Good thing the mangaka has several other series to fill the Chii-shaped hole in my heart.
Hoping for a コッチ spin-off someday… 
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I never finished that series. I didn’t realize it had an ending… 
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Just finished トンネルの森 1945. The MC イコ was - as I understood it - evacuated from 東京都深川 to the region where 江戸川 and 利根川 separate, which is 千葉県, though actually north of parts of 東京都 and 埼玉県. One of the first things she learned is: you do not use あたし but おれ 
Now, after the worldly horror, I am back in for some supernatural horror, #3 of the Another series Another エピソードS. It’s a side story of volume #2 i.e. the story of what happened to MC 鳴 on her one week seaside vacation with her parents, before the actual show down of the main story.
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I did too, just now. And it’s surprisingly hard to read manga through tears…
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After finally finishing 探偵チームKZ事件ノート 赤い仮面は知っている | L27 which was a slog and a mess and a half, my next physical read is
(The link doesn’t want to parse inline.)
I read this book in English ages ago, so curious to see how I like it in the original.
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Just finished High School Girl Exorcist Akane, which is by the same author as Hinamatsuri.
Probably the fastest I’ve ever read the first volume of a manga, knocked the whole thing out in less than an hour! Good read, pretty funny, art is solid. Imagine if a High School Girl tried to be Reigen from Mob Psycho, and you have the gist.
New chapter comes out in Grand Jump Mucha tomorrow, so I’m excited to continue it in my magazine of choice!
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Thanks to @bungakushoujo’s suggestion I discovered ルポ塾歴社会 日本のエリート教育を牛耳る「鉄緑会」と「サピックス」の正体 幻冬舎新書 | L30??.
read a few pages and according to the book most of successful students in Japan come from only two cram schools, and the author wants to discuss the reasons behind these 2 huge cram schools’ success and domination.
It caught my interest because in my country too there’s a competitive university entrance exam and each year many of those accepted in top universities come from few specific schools. So I like to compare the 2 countries.
I’ll skim through the book for now and only read parts that I’m most curious about, then pause and come back to it later when I have more time and focus for a nonfiction.
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Nice! I’m glad that led you to something interesting! 
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Yes, I love this book! It’s a really wholesome set of stories, almost hard to believe they’re based on real life at times.
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I finally finished both of these. Had slightly mixed feelings on クラスで2番目 4. Read the manga adaptation, which is still in the events of book 1. So glad to be done with the Fate/Kaleid volume finally… Don’t think I’m gonna continue reading those anytime soon. Fun series, but I’m just not in the mood for it rn.
I’ve picked SAO Progressive 1 back up (only 30% left!!), and also started 週に一度クラスメイトを買う話 ~ふたりの時間、言い訳の五千円~ | L27 because I wanted another high school romance around that level. It’s odd, but might be interesting enough to stick with so far… If anyone has any other recs, lmk!). Trying to read both more intensively.
I’m kind of considering rereading クラスで2番目, to see if I get things better the 2nd time around… But that might be overkill
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So, as my stats page is reminding me, I’ve kind of fallen off of reading for the last month and a half.
This is largely due to simultaneously getting a (nearly) full-time job and a custom SOUND VOLTEX controller, a.k.a. a lot less free time and something else to fill it with. But I want to get back into reading and keep up my JP momentum before taking the N1 this December, so I’m going to set a goal for myself:
Another big distraction for me is coming when The Talos Principle 2 releases on November 2nd, so before then I want to finish the two books I’m reading right now (狼と香辛料 4 | L35 and 本好きの下剋上 20 | L30) as well as one manga (probably 葬送のフリーレン 3 | L25). That should be manageable for me in a week and a half… but only if I don’t slack off! Wish me luck 
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Yesterday, I finished the トラップヒロイン (series) | L25?? series and it was not what I expected.
I looked at the summary (a guy who has a past trauma related to femboys (男の娘 specifically) starts high school and finds out that his dorm roommate is a femboy) and expect BL.
I don’t think anyone would fault me for that. Sure, the main character says he is straight, but they always say that.
But then fanservice started showing up??? And that’s when I realized it’s a shonen comic.
So I was a bit disappointed, especially since the story (MEGA SPOILER TERRITORY) starts hinting that said femboy may be actually a girl just pretending to be a guy. Honestly, that felt like a stretch when thinking of the logistics that would involve… but I thought maybe the story just had that much of a plot hole. At the same time, there is some fan service, and cis girls in bikini look like this 8 while his bikini look is more like that ▯ (in case the character doesn’t properly shows up, that’s a tiny rectangle; it would be a very flat rectangle too, if I could bring 3D to the screen). Still, at that point, I was a bit annoyed that it might just end up as a regular straight rom com. I will leave the answer to that to the Great Spoilering™ section, because that’s like the main major point of the story 
Anyway, (back to regular spoilers) the main character (チロダ) gets convinced (as in, he intellectually knows) that 小日向 (I’m getting tired of saying femboy) is a guy, but at the same time, he sees him as a girl (with his err feelings). チロダ is crazy confused about that but still think, well, maybe it can work out. Honestly, I found the depiction of his internal conflict more realistic than what I usually see in BL, so that was nice, at least. And now, we move on to
The Great Spoilering(tm)
チロダ ends up confessing to 小日向 who, at first, gets angry about it (“you are only saying that because you are not seeing me as a guy”). They still kinda patch up and 小日向 says “let me think about it”. At that point チロダ is getting confident that, no matter what, things can work out. AND THEN, a few days later, when asking for an answer, there’s an “accident”, causing 小日向 to fall on top of チロダ and, well, the poles (sfw link) end up touching. If it was BL, things would ensue I assume… but it is not. Instead, チロダ’s feelings (?) go nope as hard as they can (… that sounds wrong; hard is definitely not a thing they do). Both characters are emotionally hurt in the process.
After more shenanigans, though, it turns out that 小日向 has been presenting (and behaving) as a girl since like, 5. It is strongly hinted that 小日向 also experiences gender dysphoria, especially when it comes to stuff related to puberty. Imagining having to present as a guy once puberty makes it impossible to pass makes him (?) have suicidal ideation (that scene was hard too). While 小日向 didn’t want to trick チロダ, being treated like an actual girl just felt too good to stop either.
While I didn’t like the way it was done, they still patch things up (again?!?), admit that they do love each other, have no idea how things will work out in the future (meanwhile I think that, you know, transition is a thing if 小日向 feels like it) but that they are willing to try it out.
Now, that sounds like an extremely interesting development. What will happen next?
Next page: THE END thank you for reading.
Me: just pure unadulterated rage.
Without spoiler, I would say that I really liked the theme of the book, but found the approach quite frustrating. In the end, I see what the author is going for, but I found the pace and introduction of some developments quite clumsy. Also, that was the MOST FRUSTRATING ENDING I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED IN MY LIFE. WHAT THE HECK STOP. (Or, technically, DON’T STOP)
It terms of trigger warnings, I guess I could say the title includes a slur that is used as a slur in the story. At the end of the story (SPOILER, obviously) there’s a call back to that part, but it turns out that love was the trap all along. Reeeeally cheesy, but at least it’s positive. But there’s also a short scene with suicidal ideation at some point.
Boy, that was a lot of stuff I had to get off my chest.
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A shonen-muke book with that kind of plot? We have come far. 
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Finished 君死にたもう流星群4 | L29 and thoroughly enjoyed it. As a series it has some problems - the theming is painfully unsubtle, the time travel mechanics make no sense, and some things feel pretty contrived, but it makes up for it in pacing and drama.
Was going to move on to Red Data Girl #3, but was having trouble getting enthused from the first few pages. I remember really liking the anime of this, but am not feeling it book-wise. And then a box full of books arrived so I picked up the new-shiny instead.
I am now reading 竜歌の巫女と二度目の誓い | L30??. Really enjoying it so far.
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Right? It was serialized in something I have never heard of (裏少年サンデー; 少年サンデー itself is famous though) and it is quite minor… but still, progress indeed!
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So after finishing チーズスイートホーム (series) | L13, I read up to volume 5 of スーと鯛ちゃん (series) | L11 (apparently it’s still publishing), which is similarly cute, and started ふくふくふにゃ~ん (series) | L9-24??, which is quite a bit different (unsurprising since it was written long before the other two). The cats don’t talk the way they do in the mangaka’s newer works, so the stories are mostly conveyed through the images, but if you enjoy cat antics, it’s pretty fun.
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