I think the issue is that there are probably very few (if any?) “real” Japanese books (i.e. not graded readers) that are truly at beginner level grammar- and/or vocab-wise. So I guess people just suggest some books they think are somewhat manageable?
Also, nowadays high level words are not so much of an issue as there are online dictionaries where one can easily look up stuff. Granted, I cannot read a book uninterrupted if I don’t know the vocab, but as a beginner I will always have a rather limited set of vocabulary, so I will inevitably need to look up stuff - that’s part of the game for me as a beginner. (And as far as I can see from observing people around me, the need to look up vocab for a book is not going to end any time soon anyway.)
Grammar lookup is much more difficult, I think. So for me it is much more important that a book does not feature crazy grammar. And I think when it comes to that criterion, the book is doing quite ok for me at least.
As @sigolino said, the story itself only accounts for half of the book.
In my edition, there are two other short stories afterward, plus some commentary (from the editor, I think, I didn’t read it).
Right, I think the name of the club is a bit misleading (although explanation is given in the OP of the main thread). The idea is for people who have already some foundations in Japanese, but no experience with native media, to help each other make the transition. So I guess people up to the intermediate level (based on the standard definition) would fall in that category.
People complained that it was misleading, and thus the “absolute beginner” book club was born.
Does it matter that my book doesn’t have the cover that seems to be linked in the first post?
EDIT: Oh, I scrolled further down and it says “Tsubasa Bunko (kids) edition”. So there’s more than one version?
No, there are multiple editions, but they all have the same main story. The only thing that changes is the set of stories included afterwards. EDIT: the Tsubasa edition has furigana on everything.
Based on the page count you mentioned, you probably have the same edition as me.
There are basically two versions of the book, one with all-furigana and some pictures and the other one with just very few furi here and there. Apart from that, there seem to be various covers on the market.
Ah, okay, well it just seemed like there were parts where a beginner would have to stop at every other word to check definitions, but I don’t participate in this book club, so I don’t really know what people expect or anything.
Carry on.
There’s a google spreadsheet with all difficult words in the order they appear in the book (divided by chapters too), so look-up is easier than if they had to fence for themselves in the wild 
Plus the threads are here to ask questions about grammar and so on. So the club is supposed to give as many crutches as possible to help reading the book.
Ah, well that’s good. Mostly I was just like “beginner’s book club?” I know I’m bad at reading, but I thought that was tougher than that… I’m still bad at reading, but now I understand what the thought process was.
Well, in addition to the whole ‘beginners to reading books’ and not ‘beginners in Japanese’ thing, it’s also the case that, as in English, I don’t really look up every word I don’t recognize. I hope no one else does either. That would be an irritating reading experience 
Well, you need to do something with those words even if you don’t look them up the first time. I usually read with a pencil and mark them so I can come back later. Still, whether you stop to look them up, making for a choppy experience, or mark them to come back later, which at this frequency it would be like skipping some whole sentences, it would be rough going for someone who was a beginner to Japanese. But true, I hadn’t thought of it as “beginners to Japanese books.”
You don’t need to.
I’m not trying to pick a fight, I promise! I’m just a little confused. I look up a fair number of things when I read in general, but there’s also a fair number of things I don’t - either because I run into a sentence that has so many words I don’t recognize that it seems like too much of a bother (not in this book), or because I understand the sentence even without the word I don’t recognize and just don’t feel like looking it up because, hey, I’ll see it again eventually anyway(often in this book). I don’t feel like I need to do something with every word I read anymore than I feel like I need to look up every word I hear when I listen to the news/shows/podcasts. 
I definitely agree that there’s a critical mass for enjoyment or lack thereof though. If it is literally every other word, that might not be too enjoyable, depending on your mindset.
I guess you just read with a different goal in mind. I don’t really care about reading fiction, so when I read books like this it’s for the purpose of finding those words and adding them to my vocabulary. It’s work, and those words are the payoff. Not looking them up would defeat the purpose.
Makes sense. Yeah, different goals in mind then. Or different mindset, anyway. I am reading to learn, but I do want to enjoy it too, and tend to take a more naturalistic approach to acquisition.
As in you’ll just be able to figure out what they mean eventually from repeated exposure?
I acquired most of my English that way =P
I had a foundation from school, but basically on the same level Japanese people has 
The rest I got through exposure, reading and watching TV shows. I hardly ever looked anything up. If I did it was more to get a proper definition to make sure I understand it completely.
I did almost the same (well, we had good english classes at school), watching youtube and playing games, but I’m that one person who takes the time to look up every single word:DD
It’s hard and I might stop if it’s too much (like I did with Phoenix Wright in japanese, it’s still too hard now), but if it’s not thaat important to translate, like when I’m watching something and that word maybe was said once, I don’t bother. Oor if I don’t bother and then it appears everywhere, I translate it:DD
I tend to look up most words I don’t know, but not right away. I’ll read some amount without stopping (unless I’m completely lost) and then I’ll reread that part while looking everything up to fill in the details. Sometimes that amount is a single sentence, other times it’s over a page. It really depends on how much I understand as I’m reading through the first time. But on the second read through I often even look up words I figured out from the context, just to see if there’s more too it than I realized.
I was on holiday this week and so therefore have to now rush through these two chapters tonight when i get home/tomorrow after work while also binging the first two how to train your dragon films and watching the third one in cinemas in the same time frame 
Wish me luck 
Oof, just finally read 17th chapter till the end. For some reason this and 16th one were so much harder to go through D: Maybe it’s a lack of rush and need to get through the chapters, or maybe I’m just tired myself out:DD
Anyway, I’m super curious what’s gonna happen next 
Now that I’m looking at some examples, the extra っ kind of makes sense (colloquially). Since the verb version requires past tense conjugation, which can sometimes be ったって, I’d guess that carries over sometimes to the adjective version.