I just finished reading 忘れえぬ魔女の物語 It’s a yuri light novel about a girl who repeats every single day mulitple, on average five, times(so a time loop, basically). However, other people end up acting differently on each repeat and because of this and how she remembers a lot of stuff other people don’t, she hasn’t been able to make any friends. That is, until she one day meets a girl that consistently keeps approaching her on every single repeat of the same day, completely without fail.
I’d say it kind of feels like a mix of Adachi and Shimamura and Steins gate, with both the romance and yuri but also the weird time loop stuff. I also feel like I should say that the romance isn’t really the main focus, even if it’s there and also basically what makes the plot happen. The book focuses more on the main character and how she differs from other people due to having experienced five times as much stuff as them even though they’re the same age, and also some of the time loop stuff. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who at least somewhat likes both yuri and stuff with time loops
And… overall I really liked the book!
Now it’s time for spoilers:
Summary
There were actually three things that bothered me a bit during the first half of the story, namely that Yuuka seemed really childish when she talked about how Ayaka should use her ability better, even though it seemed to be portrayed as the more reasonable position of the two, that Yuuka somehow just luckily survived even without Ayaka saving her, and that Yuuka claims she fell in love at first sight… but I mean, as pointed out by the book itself too Ayaka was ten years old at the time so that would have been super creepy.
The second half solved all of those pretty nicely though with the reveal that Yuuka actually has a bit of influence over which version of the day actually ends up being “chosen”, and that she actually must be pretty immature since she didn’t try to help Ayaka until the three-thousandth loop, and seemingly only was willing to go through with it after realising that she has no chance because Ayaka will probably never stop trying to save Michiru otherwise and literally just keep dying over and over for all of eternity until someone else intervenes or until she can’t even think anymore.
I also feel like I have to say this book probably has one of the most stubborn protagonists I’ve ever come across Major spoiler: I mean, she died literally thousands of time so Michiru’s death wouldn’t be made permanent. Though, I guess she basically already realised it was impossible to actually save her after the first few hundred and mostly just kept doing it because she didn’t want Michiru’s death to become fact… but on the other hand, what is that if not stubbornness? But I guess it also seemed to be more compulsion than actual willpower that made her keep doing it the last few hundred times, especially since it seemed like she didn’t actually have the mental strength for much more than the actual “reset” after the 2000nth time or so. And hey, she was actually rewarded for it in the end too.
Returning to less spoilery stuff, I can safely say that the author of this book probably reads a lot because there’s references to both various pieces of more classic literature(most of which I didn’t get because I haven’t read them), as well as a few to other light novels and more modern works, some of which I’ve read.
Apparently there’s also a second book coming up, and while I’m a bit puzzled about what it’ll even be about I’ll definitely read it.
Anyway, now that I’ve finished that it’s time to actually catch up to the two book clubs I am in (re:zero and 本好きの下剋上. Funnily enough I’m pretty sure the author of this light novel must have read both of those too, which I guess might not be that weird since they’re pretty popular)