六人の嘘つきな大学生 Advanced Book Club 📧 🔍・Starting March 29th!

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Join the Advanced Book Club Here!
View this book on Natively!

Welcome to the 六人の嘘つきな大学生 Book Club!

View the nomination post here!

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Where to purchase

All options listed are either e-book or Paperback bunkobon. Each physical provider should also have options for the larger form tankobon edition.

Digital: [Amazon · Bookwalker · Kobo]

Physical: [Amazon · CDJapan]

Other options may be available - please check Natively.

Schedule

Week Start date Chapters Page count
Part 1
Week 1 March 29th Ch.1 46 pages
Week 2 April 5th Ch.2 22 pages
Week 3 April 12th Ch.3+4 39 pages
Week 4 April 19th Ch.5+6 43 pages
Part 2
Week 5 April 26th Ch.1 first half 27 pages (break point:)
Week 6 May 3rd Ch.1 second half 26 pages
Week 7 May 10th Ch.2 42 pages
Week 8 May 17th Ch.3-5 47 pages

Trigger Warnings

Summary of trigger warnings

From what I’ve seen, there is some discussion of topics including:

  • Bullying
  • Suicide
  • Abortion

However, I haven’t seen that there’s anything too over-the-top or graphic. Just an advance warning.

Discussion Guidelines

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice

  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

Proper Nouns

Will be added to throughout the book.

Name Reading Notes

Membership

Will you be reading with us?
  • Yes
  • Yes, but I might start late
  • Maybe
  • No
0 voters
Which version will you be reading?
  • eBook
  • Paperback Bunkobon
  • Hardcover Tankobon
0 voters

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to be notified when weekly threads get posted!

6 Likes
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Schedule-wise, here’s my thoughts:

I don’t have access to the ebook, so it would be great if someone could check what pages the ebook version is on for the start of the first few chapters, so we can see how they line up with the physical version. Based on a quick glance at the kindle page, it seems to relatively line up with the Tankobon version.

These are the chapter breaks in the Tankobon (304 page) version. There aren’t many obvious break points with the exception of chapters. There are some flashback points in Part 1, I think, which could also be used, but I’m not sure they’d actually make good break points.

Length (pages) Chapter/Section
Part 1
46 Ch.1
22 Ch.2
19 Ch.3
20 Ch.4
37 Ch.5
6 Ch.6
Part 2
53 Ch.1
42 Ch.2
18 Ch.3
18 Ch.4
11 Ch.5

Regardless of anything else, I think the most important break point is between part 1 and part 2, so that splits the book into two sections. Part 1 I think 4 or 5 weeks seems sensible. Part 2, annoyingly Ch.1 is very long, so that means either getting through it all at once, or splitting both it and Ch.2 up, I think. Again, it could be a more intense 3 weeks, or a slightly more comfortable 4 weeks (or something else if anyone else has any suggestions).

So far, this is what I’ve thought of. Please let me know what you think, or if you have any other suggestions.

2 options for Part 1:

  • Week 1: Ch.1 (46 pages)
  • Week 2: Ch.2+3 (41 pages)
  • Week 3: Ch.4+(half of ch.5) (~30 pages)
  • Week 4: Ch.5+6 (~35 pages)
  • Week 1: ~30-35 pages of Ch.1 (depending on break point)
  • Week 2: Rest of Ch.1+2 (~30-35 pages)
  • Week 3: Ch.3+4 (39 pages)
  • Week 4: Ch.5+6 (43 pages)

And also 2 options for Part 2:

  • Week 5: Ch.1 (53 pages)
  • Week 6: Ch.2 (42 pages)
  • Week 7: Ch.3+4+5 (47 pages)
  • Week 5: ~30 pages of Ch.1
  • Week 6: ~30 pages of Ch.1+2
  • Week 7: ~35 pages, rest of Ch.2
  • Week 8: Ch.3+4+5 (47 pages)
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Thanks for including the link to Rakuten / Kobo! Can you maybe change it to https://books.rakuten.co.jp/rk/c68d1cc7915d3fa884e783900107b3af/?l-id=item-c-kobo-title ? It’s the same page, but the eBook option is pre-selected.

Pages number change depending on the font used and so on I believe, so there’s no 1 to 1 conversion. Having the physical pages is great. If we split assignment mid-chapters, then you can indicate what’s the last sentence.

I don’t have a strong opinion on that one. I think I would be OK with 46 pages as the first assignment and I like the idea of not splitting chapters.

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Thank you for hosting the book club!

I’m ok with everything, but personally I like options without splitting chapters.

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Thanks for organizing.

Since this is going to be my first ABC and my two currently running IBCs overlap with it, I’m going to vote for the slowest possible option no matter what it is :sweat_smile:. So, for part 2, I’m in favor of the 4-week version, even though I usually hate splitting chapters. For part 1, there is no option without split chapters and since the chapters are so different in length, I can’t come up with a better solution. So I’d vote for option #2, which starts slow and splits chapter 1 but doesn’t split chapter 5.

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I bought the ebook on Bookwalker… It’s like a digital scan of the paper copy, so the pages are identical.

My vote is for the 4 week plan (the slower pace) because it’s been a while since I’ve tried reading a novel. blush

Thank you for running this, Malinkalさん! :pray:

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Link should be sorted now hopefully, thanks for spotting!

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Thanks everyone for your input, very much appreciated!

First, quick reminder of what I said before in the ABC, there’s currently coinback on Bookwalker and Amazon, so might be worth buying it now if you’re planning to read along and haven’t done so already.

It seems like there’s not really a good way to split the load up evenly while making sure not to split chapters, but also some people would like to go slightly slower. If we do hypothetically split up chapters I think probably doing it earlier is better, especially in Part 1, as we don’t want a break in the middle of the important ch.5 now that you mention it. Also if people don’t mind it being uneven, we could probably stick to the chapters closely and do a slower 5 weeks for Part 1 - I’ll have to double check what each option could look like later.

Part 2, I think a 3-week schedule could probably be too intense it seems, so again I’ll have a look what the best 4 (or 5) week schedule could be later.

I’ll double check what the break points and schedules could be later today (or actually probably tomorrow). Then I’ll put out the new options. Once the options look alright, I’ll put up a poll. Again let me know if that sounds good or not, or if you have any suggestions or ideas.

5 Likes
9

Alright, apologies for the delays. It’s March now, so it’s time to get the schedule sorted, methinks. I’ve racked my brains, and these are the best schedules I’ve been able to come up with, and what I think are the best two options for each Part.

For Part 1, there’s 2 options: A, which preserves chapters, and B, which spreads the load out and starts off a bit slower to let people adjust. I’ve put the potential split in a good-looking spot in Ch.1, in order to make sure that the latter chapters are uninterrupted in their suspense.

For Part 2, there’s also 2 options: C, which splits Ch.1 into two similar size sections and spreads the load out to four weeks, and D, which is 3 weeks and sticks to the chapters. There’s not really any other good way to break up the chapters, since I really don’t want to split across multiple parts of chapters in one week.

Breakdowns of the schedules below:

Part 1:

Options A+B

Option A

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
Week 1 Ch.1 46 pages
Week 2 Ch.2 22 pages
Week 3 Ch.3+4 39 pages
Week 4 Ch.5+6 43 pages

Option B

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
Week 1 Most of Ch.1 34 pages
Week 2 Ch.1+2 34 pages
Week 3 Ch.3+4 39 pages
Week 4 Ch.5+6 43 pages

(For my own future reference: break point would be pg.41, “僕がやっぱり笑い上戸だったからだ”)

Part 2:

Options C+D

Option C

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
Week 5 Ch.1 first half 27 pages
Week 6 Ch.1 second half 26 pages
Week 7 Ch.2 42 pages
Week 8 Ch.3-5 47 pages

(For my own future reference: break point would be pg.185, “波多野祥吾だったのではないだろうか”)

Option D

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
Week 5 Ch.1 53 pages
Week 6 Ch.2 42 pages
Week 7 Ch.3-5 47 pages

And now, it’s poll time: There’s two polls, one for Part 1, and one for Part 2.

Part 1:

Part 1 - which schedule would you prefer?
  • Option A: 4 weeks, preserve chapters (max 46pgs)
  • Option B: 4 weeks, start slower, more even reading load (max 43pgs)
  • Something else (please comment)
0 voters

And Part 2:

Part 2 - which schedule would you prefer?
  • Option C: 4 weeks, split Ch.1 in half (~36pg avg.)
  • Option D: 3 weeks, preserve chapters (~47pg avg.)
  • Something else (please comment)
0 voters

A quick note - if we need to, we could always reassess the schedule for Part 2 later on if people are finding the book easy or hard.

If there’s any changes needed or I’ve broken anything, please let me know. Hopefully though, the polls work fine.

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It’s been a week, so let’s get the schedule done:

Option A and Option C seem relatively clear winners.

For part 1, @Boodil I think was the only person who didn’t vote for A. If it’s OK with you, I think we’ll aim do the long first week. I know there might be one or two other people who may not like starting off with a long week 1 as well, but while it’s not ideal, as an alternative there’s the option of anyone who would rather split it up to do week 1 and week 2 as in option B. With that, anyone doing that would be caught back up with the club by week 2 anyway.

For part 2, most people seem to be fine with the slightly slower option C. I think if there’s likely to be one or two people who might be struggling with the workload by that point, it’s better just to do it as a 4 week schedule, so I think let’s stick with that.

That leaves the schedule as follows, for 8 weeks total:

Week Start date Chapters Page count
Part 1
Week 1 March 29th Ch.1 46 pages
Week 2 April 5th Ch.2 22 pages
Week 3 April 12th Ch.3+4 39 pages
Week 4 April 19th Ch.5+6 43 pages
Part 2
Week 5 April 26th Ch.1 first half 27 pages (break point:“波多野祥吾だったのではないだろうか”)
Week 6 May 3rd Ch.1 second half 26 pages
Week 7 May 10th Ch.2 42 pages
Week 8 May 17th Ch.3-5 47 pages
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46 pages for the first week seems very hard for people who are trying the ABC for the first time, but I must admit that I don’t have a better idea, plus the majority voted for it so it’s fair enough.
Maybe I do have one idea, for people who are worried that it could be a lot, you could start earlier? Since the first week only starts on March 29th and runs until April 5th, technically you can start now and make it so your first week is 4 weeks long!

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I’m the only person who voted against leaving the first week unsplit, and unfortunately, the only reason why I wanted that in the first place is because this club overlaps with my two currently running IBCs. So starting earlier just makes the overlapping phase longer. But don’t worry about me. I wouldn’t even attempt to read with an ABC if the prospect of lagging a few dozen pages behind the schedule felt too daunting. Also, stuff like showering and eating can’t possibly be as important as our modern society likes to makes us think, right?

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Showering is definitely overrated :rofl:

Also, parallelization helps a lot :+1: Reading and eating, reading and walking, even reading and showering is possible :blush:

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I’d be happy to put the week 1 thread up a week or two early if there’s anyone who would like to spread the load out. Due to scheduling I might personally be reading week 1 a week early and then taking a 2 week break anyway so would be happy to join anyone else starting early.

The only other real option I see would be to cut week 1 in half, but then that just delays the ramp up for later, there’ll be some back and forth between fast and slow weeks anyway, so I’m not sure that’s the best option. Worst comes to worst, week 2 is the shortest week, so gives some opportunity to catch up.

You can have time for both! All you need to do is take some inspiration from Wallace and Gromit…
Wallace and Gromit - The Wrong Trousers - Breakfast scene
A small up-front input of hundreds of hours making an elaborate contraption, and think about the 15 minutes you could save for reading every day…

5 Likes