Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
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Read-along Sessions
Come and read from the previous week’s section, join in the chat about this book (also the previous book, possible future books, WK reviews, all things Japan-related, what else you did on the weekend, etc) or just lurk and listen. Readers of all speeds and abilities welcome - we are here to help each other out. Reading sessions will be held every Sunday at 9:30pm JST.
Week 1 session (in your timezone): Sunday, October 13, 2019 12:30 PM TZ
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I think they’ll go together. This book’s pace is similar to Conbini’s so it’ll be similar to how things went on with when Haruhi and Conbini where ongoing.
There was some (very short) discussion about whether to increase or decrease the reading speed for Haruhi, but in the end I think we’re just sticking with the original schedule. So… 6 more weeks starting with tomorrow’s new thread, I guess.
And then the intermediate club will be left with this book only for some weeks.
In the end, there was no strong opinion in favor of going faster, and people said going slower wouldn’t help much at this point. So we just go with the plan. Plus, 6 weeks isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things.
I wish I had time to comment this days, but instead I spending as much of my free time reading instead of commenting said reading I can barely keep up with all the book clubs I am part of… still haven’t read this week’s Re:Zero either; I’m going to be busy this weekend
By the way, this week’s end isn’t a breakpoint in my edition. It’s right in the middle of a paragraph.
(I have the grey one with flowers-or-octopus-shaped-sausages)
Hmm, maybe there are textual differences between the versions after all?
I only have the ebook, but it’s also grey with flowers-not-sausages on the cover. There the ending phrase is also the end of a paragraph (which starts with —よくよく見れば).
The next paragraph starts with
車のキーをガチャガチャ鳴らしながら雄ーは戻ってきた。
It looks like it is textually the same but the text is probably just on different pages. The end phrase is actually on the last line of page 19. Your comment helped me find it as the phrase 車のキーをガチャガチャ鳴らしながら雄ーは戻ってきた is at the beginning of page 20.
As far as I understand, here the MC is talking about she doesn’t mind dirty kitchens. However, the ending of the sentence is throwing me off; 異様に広い seems to mean “strangely wide” or “strangely spacious”, but I have no idea how this supposed to be connected with a kitchen floor so dirty with vegetable residue that your slippers’ sole has turned black…
ひとり寒いところでも、誰かがいてあたたかいところでも、 私はおびえずにちゃんと-見つめたい。
Here the MC is talking about how she’d like to be in a kitchen when she dies. As far as I understand, it is saying that it is fine even if she dies alone and cold, or with someone nearby and warm (as long as it is in a kitchen); but what is she saying at the end? 見つめたい seems to mean “to want to stare at, to want to gaze at”, but I have no idea how it connects with the rest…
私、 桜井みかげの両親は、
Unless I am misunderstanding something, this must be the strangest way I have seen someone introduce herself. In English this would be like saying: "I, Sakurai Mikage’s parents,… " like it is half introducing herself, half trying to talk about her parents at the same time… !? Is this normal or some sort of fancy literary technique?
At 3%
引っ越しは手間だ。パワーだ。
So, パワー can only mean “power” as far as I’ve seen. However, I have little idea of in what sense she’s using the word. It is like she has to “power through” the whole moving apartments thing? Is she saying moving apartments is a matter of power? =@.@=
奇跡がボタもちのように訪ねてきたその午後を、私はよくおぼえている。
I have been unable to find what ボタ might mean here. It seems ぼたもち is a adzuki bean mochi, but I have no idea why half of it would be written on Katanaka, nor do I see how an adzuki bean mochi makes any sense as an analogy here >.<
With 見つめたい I think she is saying that regardless of the circumstances, she wants to face death without fear (and if she’s in a kitchen, it will be possible).
私 、 桜井みかげの両親は、
I think in English it would be closer to "My (Sakurai Mikage’s) parents…
At 3%
引っ越しは手間だ。パワーだ。
I think she’s saying that moving to a new place is time consuming and requires effort (and she doesn’t have any strength for that at the moment).
ボタもち
I think it’s written half in katakana because the kanji is not so common. It’s an alternative to using the kanji and adding furigana.
I wasn’t sure about the analogy either, but the Wikipedia entry for ぼたもち mentions it is in lots of proverbs, and I did notice on the Jisho page that there was an example sentence
棚からぼた餅とはこのこと - This is what they call a lucky break.
So I’m thinking that could be the meaning implied here too.
how’d it feel, 
