I decided to put the book on hold after volume 1. I’ve now been stuck in the last 40 pages of vol 1 for at least a week and it’s such a chore I had to put all my other bookclubs on hold for it, and I can’t take it anymore. I want time to read stuff that’s actually fun. It’s likely that I’ll pick 香君 up again at some point because I already own the other volumes and it’s just engaging enough that I want to know the ending, but for now, I’m out of the voting.
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I have too many book clubs going at the same time to commit to a fixed schedule… also, right now, sticking to the schedule means I spend an afternoon a week reading 香君, and then move on to other books. The result being that from one week to another I forget most of the small details such as which character is which other character long-lost cousin, or who decided which political trap, and I’m lost. It’s also one of those book that I find interesting while I’m reading it, and completely forget about the instant I close it. I intend to finish it, but on a free schedule, probably reading ahead, because I have a feeling I’ll enjoy it better that way.
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I am not sure whether to continue with Volume 3-4, or to stop at Volume 2. But if to continue, I would want to continue to Volume 4.
In a way, I am not sure about pouring attention into Japanese immersion, as it takes more time that just learning about the language parts and structures.
But if to continue, I want to keep to continuity well, reaching a good stopping part, that is, full original volume.
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I don’t want to be left hanging at a point of intense action… And I don’t want to continue a series if it will be more than 15 books in the series (so it will add up to expensive).
…But if this concludes the story lines with Book 4, then I would like to read to book 4.
… I’m very VERY behind in my reading of the first part.. But I expect to massively increase my reading speed this year… I was unable to keep up with the club speed… But I always like to have a club thread to go to…Even if I am going back to it years later… 
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I imagine if we didn’t do a formal schedule we’d still have a single thread to discuss the remaining volumes.
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Yes, as I understand it this isn’t a series, it’s a single book that’s been split into 2 or 4 volumes for publishing convenience.
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The 4-book split is strange, by the way. I have the physical paperbacks, and they’re tiny ! Most of the time, two-book splits are due to lengthy prints, which are physically difficult (though not impossible) to bind as a paperback. Here, it could have have been done easily…
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Yes, I have the four book paper edition too and don’t really see why they split it in four rather than two or three (though it does let them have one cover per season). Still, it helps my book count and counterbalances the fact that one of the other books I’m currently reading is a thousand page bunkobon…
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Although I voted for starting reading the third book right away, I’m totally fine with a two-week break too. I just want to read it, preferably together with you people to share thoughts.
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I removed my vote because I’m honestly feeling burned out. This has got to be one of the densest Japanese books I’ve read and it’s taking up too much of my time. I will finish it, but I think it’ll be refreshing to read something else in between volumes.
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Week 10 thread is up:
Here’s the week 11 thread:
Given the wide range of preferences people have given, I think I will set up one thread for volume three and one for volume four that people can discuss and ask questions in, but I won’t set out any particular group schedule for reading through the last two books.
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And we’ve reached the last week of our formal club read-through: we read the last three chapters of volume two. Here’s the thread:
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Thanks for running the book club @pm215. Unfortunately I lost steam at the end, but I’ll finish this and get to the second half at some point.
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@pm215 thank you for hosting! I really enjoyed the book. The setting and the style was new to me, so I hope that I learnt something reading it. Anyway, I plan to finish other two books, so it is not the end yet!
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I have put up the threads for informal discussion of the last two volumes:
In the process I discovered that the volume 3/4 split is done in the middle of chapter 5.10, which has 4 pages in volume 3 and 9 pages in volume 4. I have no idea what possessed them to do that…
Thank you all for reading along, and I hope the discussion (and the book!) has been enjoyable.
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