@Feanor From that article I linked to:
Importantly, since it places him in the new/important information part, marking Taro with 「が」 actually emphasises that Taro bought the book . Not someone else, but Taro.
So uh, maybe I had my idea on that flipped. が may emphasize the girls as you originally said. (That emphasis may or may not be needed here, but that’s another story.)
Just my 2 cents.
You’re not wrong by saying that は adds contrast actually. It does. When you’re talking about something and you wanna make sure what you’re saying next doesn’t refer to what’s been said before, you’d use は. You’d also use it when you’re making a direct comparison to something else I think.
が simply gives a stronger emphasis on whatever comes before regardless of what’s around it in terms of information. So sometimes, you could probably use either as well.
At least that’s how I remember it. I still struggle with the differences as well. You may already know about this, but try Misa’s video on it, I always refer back to that when I need a refresher 
A bit late, but just checking in to say that I’m reading the book with all of you! I read Chapter 1 a few times, first solo and then after reading through these notes. I might not get through the chapters over the weekend, since it’s easier during the week, but I’ll try to catch up afterwards while scrolling through the comments. I would say I’ll chime in if I think of anything interesting, but that seems doubtful.
This is my first time joining a book club, but from what I understand the weekly threads are just there to sort of give a schedule / reading pace to make discussion easier with this many people - and if people wish are reading the book a bit later they can still add to it. In any case you’re still well within even that time limit.
But yeah, people move fast! I read the chapter first thing on the 2nd, but even so could not keep up with the pace of the discussion. 
Yeah, anyway, glad to be here! Also, big thanks to @jprspereira for making that vocabulary deck - 本当に! It makes reading this book so much easier.
WK teaching you idioms… kinda difficult to tell apart from the usual, wacky example sentences, but still pretty cool! Makes me wonder if there’s more hidden in some of the vocab.
Chapter 2 is here! 
i’m sure this a really silly question… but right at the end of the chapter after she says we might burn to death there’s a bubble that reads:
んあああああああ with " added to the あs。what is that?? some sound she is making? how do you read it??
It’s basically “naaaaa” but more harsh-sounding.
yuu: でもまあずっと暗闇だから
chi: 目が慣れてきたかも
or is chi is saying both lines and saying “because its been dark so long, our eyes got accustomed to it perhaps…” but why would she say かも here if their eyes have indeed accustomed to the dark? she’d say that if the place didn’t seem dark to them…
(Page 5 for reference)
Adding かも just softens the assertion I think. “Maybe our eyes have gotten used it it”. I think both lines are said by Yuu.
P.S. Please put the page number next time. It took me a while to find the dialogue you were asking about.
Both lines are said by Yuu. They’re actually one sentence split into two speech bubbles. If Yuu only said the first line it wouldn’t really make sense because it would be an incomplete thought (“but hmm since it’s been dark for so long…”). I mean, that does happen a lot in Japanese but only when it’s clear from context what the rest of the thought is, which it’s not in this case unless we hear the rest of her sentence.
As @seanblue said, the かも softens the assertion, because it wouldn’t make sense for Yuu to just state (assertively) that “our eyes have gotten used to the dark” after an entire page of her complaining about how dark it is and asking if they can turn the lantern on. So I’d read the sentence as her rethinking needing the lantern after Chi said they should save it for when they need it, hence the maybe/かも.
Erm… when and why did the kanji in the vocab sheet for this chapter become ginormous?! I’ll change them back, but just want to check quickly that there’s no specific reason…
Somebody probably just copied the formatting (from jisho?) by mistake.
That’s what I figured, but it’s every single line, so it looked like somebody deliberately enlarged them all 
anyway, it’s easy to change so I’ve shrunk them for now. I thought perhaps I’d missed a conversation about accessibility and text size or something 
Can someone please help me understand this sentence on page 7? 「そういう意味の言葉だっけそれ」
Why is there それ after だっけ? I’m assuming this means something like “I wonder if that was really the meaning of those words…” but I’m not sure
I have no idea what I’m talking about so take the following as nothing more than a very poorly educated guess
I figured there was an implied ですか at the end, since they are talking very casually all the time, turning it in something like “Is that a word (can also mean an expression) with such a meaning?” or translating less literally “Do these words have such meaning?”
or ultimately I guess
is a correct translation
Although it’s not technically grammatically correct, you can put something at the end of the sentence if you want to clarify it or emphasize it. Especially in speech, people may just start talking and could realize after they’ve started that they forgot something important. So they tack it on at the end. This sentence is equivalent to それはそういう意味の言葉だっけ.
That’s close, but not quite right. The particle け (and だっけ as an expression) is used when you’re trying to recall something (links were posted earlier in the thread). It’s kind of hard to translate, but maybe it’s more like “Is that what those words mean again?” (“again” is my poor attempt at capturing だっけ.)
Same disclaimer as above, please take my attempt at this with a grain of salt.
Since you asked specifically about the それ at the end of the sentence - sometimes, when speaking Japanese, people won’t stick to the rules for ‘correct’ word order and such. Or maybe, while speaking, they’ll feel the need to clarify something they left out before. So, in a 'correctly ordered '–
Okay, thanks @seanblue, guess I can stop here. 
