Sorry 
next time I try to look a little closer at the break point (I first had another one but that would have been pretty uneven “halfs”), but weeell it was gonna be kinda middle of chapter close to this either way… on a positive note, so far there are no more two week chapters planned 
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I mean, no reason to be sorry. If you were a showrunner deciding the endpoint of an episode, you picked pretty much the exact point any showrunner worth their salt would pick. Hopefully it just motivates folks to stick around a little longer.
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I thought it was a great place to stop!!! heck of a way to keep up the motivation… I already started reading more haha
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I mean, if you already started reading more, it clearly wasn’t a great place to stop for you 
…but I agree that there wasn’t a much better place that was still fairly halfway, @sumsum, so it’s all good. Those who can’t deal with the cliffhanger (like me!) are just gonna continue reading anyway, and everyone else can stop there without getting overwhelmed.
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I had a few questions from the first 2-3 pages which I read quite thoroughly, I then found I managed to read through a lot of the dialogue. I definitely have the gist but I’d like to understand some of the constructions I don’t get as I’m guessing they may be repeated. Posting this between legs of an international flight while I have a signal. (Some of the bits I struggled with have been answered already!)
On p16
I wondered about the construction at the end of this sentence どの部に入るうかと - is the かと representing “whether to”?
On p17
What’s a サブバッグ?
I don’t quite get the meaning of あまりに似合ってないんだもん - is it that it didn’t really seem to suit her?
On p19
気楽といえば気楽だけど - is this a set phrase, I couldn’t find it on Bunpro? I’m assuming something like “to be carefree, but to be carefree….” then relates to the rest of the sentence about having no one to talk to.
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どの部に入るうか is a straight question: “Which club should I join?”
と is quoting that question
all together it would be something like “(deciding) which club I should join”
I’d been wondering the same thing. I can’t find it in any dictionary. An image search gives results very much like the bag in the picture. Searching, I ran into a few articles talking about bags appropriate for weddings, which are very small, and how if you need to take more things a サブバッグ is a good solution. From that and from the fact that the girl in the picture also has two bags, I’m inclined to think that it’s supposed to be an extra bag for whatever won’t fit in your main bag? Or something.
Yes 
Maybe? I couldn’t find it in Japanese Grammar Patterns, but I found something similar here. According to that site, the construction AといえばAだが, which seems almost identical, with が in place of けど , would mean “I admit A is the case, but”.
AといえばAだが」という形で「②Aであることは認める、でも〜」という意味があります。
Breaking down the sentence gives us the same result anyway.
気楽といえば - speaking of comfort(able)
気楽だ - it is comfortable
けど - but
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in 「もたもたしてるうちに」is she referring to her sort of messy home life causing her to be late with entering a club? having a bit of a hard time understanding that part of the sentence…
Thank you!
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@omk3 you both typoed the volitional here (can’t remember if the last time was also this club). It’s 入ろうかと
The bag thing you see in the picture she has under her arm with the seashell keyholder. If you google pictures with it you will see many variatons of it. Seems to be a pretty new word since like omk3 says the most dictionarys don’t have it. search
@omk3 already has a nice explanation. XといえばX is surprisingly common. Here is something from one of the pervious discussions of this construct Can't figure out how to think about this sentence from 窓から逃げた１００歳老人 - #11 by Leebo
Point 2 of the linked thesaurus gives a (japanese) explanation.
To me it’s part of the whole sentence it connects with the previous sentence. She is thinking/lamenting wich club she should join but while she is idlying her time away/not making progress towards joining any two weeks pass and she misses joining any and stays that way (まま).
EDIT: ah I didn’t register that you thought うちに could mean at home. See @sumsum answer 2 posts below for a better explanation.
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Once again, I didn’t type, just copied 
. Alternating between three languages on the keyboard gets tedious fast, so I prefer copying to changing the language to Japanese and back every time. Thanks for catching all those typos I miss - I keep doing that.
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I think the うちに here is in the meaning of “while” (see e.g. JLPT N3 Grammar: うちに (uchi ni) Meaning – JLPTsensei.com ) and not “at home”
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It’s still interesting to me how like half of the N2/N1 Grammar patterns fall into this category of being somewhat self explanatory (because it’s more like “set phrases/combinations of patterns how some things are expressed” instead of entirely new forms or something)
When I googled I also found similar results (e.g. 【N2文法解説】～といえば｜用法・例文｜日本語教師たのすけのお助けブログ the second usage under 用法② - it doesn’t have much explanation, but I found just reading the examples made the usage clearer ) . On bunpro I only found “ことは〜が” as a pattern that is a bit similar both in structure and meaning (but I also have trouble using the bunpro search properly)
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The key is they’re meant to be fashionable because they’re typically A4 size (the standard paper size in Japan) and you would pair it with a mini bag that would typically contain the smaller things like makeup, keys, phone, wallet, hand lotion, etc.
As @omk3 mentioned, it is a fitting size to bring to weddings if you have a lot to carry and a small handbag isn’t enough. At least the sub-bag should be big enough for what you need to carry without distracting from the main event, so not all sub-bags are OK for weddings (some have logos that are too flashy). But they’re great to have when you need to carry an umbrella, a change of clothes etc.
They’re also good for any formal events like a school’s opening ceremony where you have to dress up. I suppose I could bring one to my daughter’s opening ceremony for nursery school so I could carry her baby essentials without detracting from my outfit, but teacher’s will straight up wear crocs as indoor shoes without thinking twice so I personally don’t feel the need. I’m not fashionable to begin with and it won’t necessarily ruin anyone’s day. 
There are parents (read: mothers) who want to maintain a certain image and will do the full outfit. It’s just part of the culture for women in particular to put in a lot of effort to look good because a woman who cares about her looks automatically cares about cleaning, preparing good food to stay healthy which equates to being a good mother and wife (or potential partner if she’s single).
Anyway, the one the new character carries in this chapter is a simple design fitting for a junior high school student because they’re not allowed to bring flashy things to school (no piercings, jewelry, or makeup are allowed at school either). The fact that she carries a sub-bag adds to her fashionable, sophisticated air. This is an important detail to note because it will help later on.
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I think a sub-bag is literally just a totebag lol
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Yeah basically. When you call it a sub-bag, it just means you wear it with another bag. But tote bags come in all sizes while sub-bags are typically more compact giving it an air of オシャレ.
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Can I get a little clarity with this sentence:小学生 の とき は、 学校 で ひとり ぼっ ち でも、 うち に 帰れ ば、 ママ が い た から 気 が まぎれ て た。
Pretty much just the が い た から part, is this like because mom existed (because she was there) or something? Thanks for any help
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yup, that’s right!
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Thanks, I should have been able to figure that out! There always seem to be so many とs scattered in text…
And thanks to everyone for all the other replies, now I can sit and go through them, then go over the rest of the week’s reading.
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I finished this weeks assignment today, and I honestly thought that was quite a good point to have the break 
Leaving on a cliffhanger for sure but at the same time, I’m really eager to read on next week.
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Still haven’t read any of it yet (I will be later today), but I found some mistakes in the vocab list for the latter half of this chapter. I came across “to stuff one’s cheeks” in a Satori Reader story today and realized the reason I hadn’t found ほおぼる, the word on the list, was a typo and it’s actually ほおばる. So I fixed that. And I checked for 予想 since it was on the page before, and it was actually a verb, 装う, so I fixed that too.
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I read the whole chapter today (I didn’t even pay attention to where the cut-off was since I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to stop lol) and all I have to say about the first half, aside from that I hope Tina (karaage girl) becomes Hanabi’s friend, is some not-nice things about Hanabi’s father
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