I’m not sure until which part I should have read but judging from everyone’s comments it seems I stopped at the good place.
Like someone said before, it hard to follow because she always switches timelines and location but when you understand it, it gets easier to follow. It took a few pages to understand that kokoro was her name ha ha.
It’s definitely an interesting book so far and I’m surprised by the number of comments here. I’m not used to so much participation ha ha.
It was a bit painful to see the reply count go up and not be able to read them! I guess I’ll need to make it a habit to read (even) earlier in the week, or on weekends instead. 
Also, hi @denzo. I feel like it’s been since Haruhi.
I’ve been away for the past few weeks and my copy is just sitting there in my mailbox. Seeing all the responses so far has me really impatient to get home and get started.
I feel your pain. May you get to your copy in a timely fashion!
Where (and how) could I get the audiobook? I tried to find it but failed miserably …
It’s a bit expensive (on top of having bought the text version of the book), but it’s really well done. Separate voice actor for each character, sound effects, occasional music. You can hear a trailer of sorts on the product page, as well.
Hints we have! The chapter is titled ５月. I think we can safely assume it is May at this time in the story.
Then there’s some further hints: 東条 starts school a bit late. It seemed to be described as a very short time, so possibly only a few days. Enough to be noticable, but not really enough to factor hugely into the time span.
The first 2 weeks after 東条 joined the class were fine, and こころ got along well with 萌. (P. 22 both)
Furthermore, when she meets the teacher at 心の教室 there’s this part: 入学したばかり。それなのに、最初の４月しか、あそこに行っていないのだから。(p. 16)
So we know she only attended school for a month her first year.
Finally, (or really firstly), on page 11 (right at the start!), こころ is musing about all the things she normally didn’t experience on a weekday. 去年、までは。
So we know it has been pretty much exactly one year since she stopped attending school.
Page numbers from the tankobon
Sorry if this already got answered. I had fun in any case. 
Boooi what a spoiler did they put in there 
(I‘m talking about the mirror thing). On second thought, it’s probably already obvious from the title and the cover art and possibly also the abstract, but I tend to 100% ignore those things because I want to discover the story as it unfolds.
Just mentioning it in case there are others like me 
Ah, cool, thank you!
Do I need to pretend to be in Japan in order to buy at audiobook.jp? Or is there anything else I need to pay attention to when signing up?
On one hand, everything in there (for the part I understood) is in the book details/summary on sites where you can buy the e-book.
On the other hand, I agree with you completely about wanting to avoid spoilers on things. I avoid trailers on certain things for that very reason.
I don’t recall about having a Japanese address. But make certain that you’re not signing up for a monthly subscription. Or at least remove your credit card after purchase just to be safe.
It worked!
I had some trouble with the credit card payment because my first one didn’t work, but the second one did.
They didn’t care about an address whatsoever.
Thank you!
Glad to hear it worked out.
Just to be sure, are you certain you didn’t inadvertently sign up for a monthly subscription? I only ask because I did just that the first time I bought from them, and luckily found out in time right before the first payment a month later would have been.
Yes, I’m pretty sure I didn’t subscribe. I just checked, and in my account there is a button to register for all-you-can-listen registration, which, I suppose, means I haven’t registered yet.
Thanks for reminding me!
You’re right, that audiobook is very well done!
My god, this language is so beautiful!
Finally finished the chapter…
I don’t think anyone’s answered all of @VikingSchism’s questions yet:
I struggled with this one as well…it’s pretty hard to unpack the grammar:
東条さんの家は、 → topic = toujou’s house
こころの家とほぼ同じ間取りの家が → more or less the same floorplan as kokoros but
東条さんの家仕様になっている → made like toujou’s
という印象だった。 → gave the impresson
仕様 means way/means/method and になる is “to become”. I found this example on nihongomaster which helped piece things together:
全てを考慮してもやはり勝てない 仕様 になっています。
All things considered, it’s set up so it isn’t possible to win.
so basically I think it’s a way of saying that something is set up/designed to be a particular way.
in this context, 東条さんの家仕様になっているという印象だった is saying that toujou’s house gave the impression that it was the original, and kokoro’s was a copy of it.
pretty much agree with what @Shadowlauch said, except for this bit:
身を屈めて自分 refers to kokoro here, and the whole clause is the object of 覗く - the bully was peeking at kokoro who was bending over (屈める can also mean bending your knees/squatting, which makes more sense to me).
I know @Shadowlauch already answered this one but I’m gonna do the breakdown anyway for my own sake because I got a bit confused well.
東条さんが本当は → toujou san was really
**** 先生たちから → by the teachers
**** 自分に会ってくるよう、に話を聞いてくるように → to meet me, to talk to me
と言われている かもしれない → maybe was told to
ことについては → with regards to
that’s a hell of a sentence 
―そう言われてるのにもかかわらず → despite being told that
彼女がそうしないでいる可能性 → the possibility that she wasn’t
については → with regards to
考えないようにする → she chose not think about
this makes the 6% one look so easy…
whaddup! been a while yeah (I didn’t read haruhi though 
). I basically lost all motivation to do japanese over lockdown, but I’m picking stuff up again 
good work
I’d kinda worked out that it was at least 6 months, but I hadn’t narrowed it down that much
That makes a lot more sense. The 自分 irked me a bit but I could not put my finger on it!
Yeah that sentence took me a while to unpack, but also super satisfying once you understand it
Not even the beginning? I’m probably mixing stuff up again… At least the general feeling was correct!
Out of curiosity, how do folks incorporate audiobooks into their reading/studying? I’m probably not at the point where I could just listen and comprehend to the degree I’d want to, even if I read along physically. I was thinking of reading the chapter once at my own pace for comprehension then listening while reading along if I can muster the time and patience to essentially read the same thing twice. I’m always looking for ways to improve my listening skills though.
I don’t have anything worked out yet for utilizing the audio book in a useful way.
I know that at my (so-so) level of known words and (not so good) listening ability, if I listen to a section before reading it, I will miss a lot from the audio. But if I listen to it after reading (including looking up unknown words and grammar), I catch a lot more.
I’m still missing a decent amount from the audio book, especially since I’m not memorizing all the words I look up. But even then, I do find that sometimes things that were unclear in reading feel a bit clearer after I listen to that portion from the audio book. (Main example for chapter one is transitioning into and out of all the flashbacks.)
My listening skill is pretty bad. It’s always been the slowest when learning a new language.
I use audiobooks for listening immersion, letting it run and trying to pick up words and parts of sentences etc. I find it encouraging to notice how I recognize more than a couple of weeks ago, while still too little to actually really understands what’s going on. But I need that experience of little improvements for my motivation.
Besides, as I’d written above - it’s just a really beautiful language, read beautifully, and a pleasure to listen to.