[2024] 多読/extensive reading challenge

It does not seem to expire, as far as I can see.
“Bought” it too :ok_hand:

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Now done with volume 9, which means I am now caught up with the publication, so I’ll have to wait for more than half a year for the next volume (if publication keeps going at the same rhythm) :anguished: That’s… a weird feeling, especially since I’ve been averaging 2.5 days per book over the last 4 books…

乙女ゲーム[…] has kinda convinced me that ebooks are pretty convenient indeed. I have mentioned it before, but I could really see an increase in time spent reading. The elevator is 7 floors away? Let’s read a page or too. Waiting to cross (on foot) a street with a long traffic light? Read some more. Waiting for my computer to boot up? You get the idea. And those really stack up.

I don’t have much to say about this volume. It was nice and I really liked the ocean setting (and it’s nice to see カタリナ being good at something for once), but that’s about it. I don’t really care about ソラ or セーザル, nor about the new character (not that we will ever see him again I guess), so I felt a bit detached about those. I wished more interactions happened with マリア though. Fight scenes this time were not that interesting either, but good for マリア to get new spells! I wish カタリナ would finally do the same… And oops I still ended up talking quite a bit I guess.

Anyway, next time, something completely different!

  • Catch up on book clubs
  • Next volume in the Walkalone series
  • 薬屋のひとりごと 1
  • 転移先は薬師が少ない世界でした 1
  • この素晴らしい世界に祝福を! 1
  • 紅霞後宮物語 2
  • DanMachi 14

0 voters

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I’m just going warn you that (based on the anime adaption at least) この素晴らしい世界に祝福を may have more fan service than you are comfortable with. After watching an anime, I sometimes write notes about things I reacted strongly to (both good and bad). This series is one of only seven I’ve watched where I put “too much fan service” in my notes.

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I’m aware, but due to a weird combo of discounts on BookLive, I could grab the first three volumes for 100 jpy each. Actually, I could grab up to volume 5 at that price, but I was really not sure I would read that far. 3 volumes is probably already pushing it… Discounts are terrifying forces.

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Book clubs would be the responsible choice but I’m throwing my vote behind ひとりごと, which I’ve been curious about for a while now. If you do read it I’d be interested what you think!

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@seanblue

Hmm, I’m usually quite nitpicky about fanservice, but somehow in Konosuba it didn’t bother me. Maybe because I feel it fit quite well in the realm of comedy (and Kasuma’s character? :stuck_out_tongue: ) and wasn’t just fanservice for fanservices sake. Danmachi I couldn’t watch more than a few episodes.

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I’ve been ”fine” with most books so far (1-13, basically just being various levels of annoyed). The worst offenders have always been the illustrations… so yeah, I assume the anime would be bad, since it’s basically based on those.

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I’m almost done with the first volume. Can’t say there’s a lot of fan service in the novel… but the novel is kinda boring compared to the anime. I think it’s the case of adapation significantly improving the source material.

I always found that watching an anime after reading the novel made it boring for me, since I already know the content. I also tried the reverse with ハイキュー (watched the anime, then tried to read the manga) and I found the manga similarly boring. I guess it’s just an issue of already knowing the content.

Makes sense. But I watched the anime ~3 years ago. I didn’t remeber much. Now I’d read a chapter and rewatch the anime episode. And the anime is just so much funnier. I guess the voice actors are a big part of it but also the screenplay doesn’t follow the novel directly. Some scenes are shortened, so are changed, and even some new ones are added.

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I guess it just depends on the person. I loved reading ご注文はうさぎですか after watching the anime. Especially with 4-koma manga, the anime adaptions have to modify a bit to smooth out the episodes and not be as jarring from the 4-koma nature, so the source material does feel a bit different. I’ve also been enjoying reading ヒナまつり despite only watching the anime at the beginning of this year and remembering many of the chapters. Now that I think about it, I also read Aria and やがて君になる and 放浪息子 after watching the anime adaptions, and I enjoyed all of those as well. :slight_smile:

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I think it depends on the anime/manga/book too, I enjoyed reading SAO and Re:zero after watching the anime (stuff was cut/changed in both and both, especially Re:zero, have better than average writing among the light novels I’ve read)

However, I didn’t like reading konosuba(because it was super similar to the anime) or 青ブタ(because the novels had more details about how the main character thinks and knowing his reasoning for doing stuff actually made me like him a bit less + it was very similar to the anime) as much after watching the anime.

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I’m really bad at this :rofl:

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My book club assignments for the next few weeks (獣の奏者 + 本好き)

  • Week of September 5th: 10 + 35 = 45
  • Week of September 12th: 19 + 39 = 58
  • Week of September 19th: 17 + 44 = 61 :sob:
  • Week of September 26th: 19 + 37 = 56
  • Week of October 3rd: 25 + 36 = 61 :sob:

Oh, also 博士の愛した数式 starts on September 19th if I’m crazy enough to try reading that too.

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I just had a realization. We have a bunch of book reviews in this thread, but they end up lost in the flow. Would it make sense to add an index under the table? I feel like it would help people find books and keep multiple reviews of a given book in the same place.

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Yesss! I was always sad seeing all those reviews being buried under the new posts and lost. (Or at least becoming hard to find.)

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Whoa I skipped a whole month of reading. I’m back now!!

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A week and a half later and I’ve read 2 books.

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アーモンド
A boy who, since birth, can’t feel any kind of emotion. Happy, sad, angry, etc. He lives with his mom and grandmom, who try to teach him how to be “normal”. Unfortunately they die brutally right in front of his eyes. (Not a spoiler, happens within literally like the first 5 or 10 pages.) He doesn’t even react. Now he has to live and go to school by himself and learn how to be “normal”.

I liked this book immensely in the beginning but with the introduction of one character I slowly started to become disinterested.
I really liked the “best friend” character. I liked seeing how they tried, in their own way, to teach the main character how to feel. So much of the first part is their interactions and I thought that’s how it would continue to be but then they forced a love interest. It’s not like I didn’t like her as a person, but it felt so much like "Oh don’t worry the two guys aren’t gay. He may not be able to feel emotions but he’s definitely straight! Honestly it really seemed unnecessary especially because the last part of the book is focused once again on the two guys. The entire climax is between them. Honestly the love interest barely does anything.

I thought this book would be more about how neurodivergent people learn to navigate the world on their own terms but I came away feeling like this book was written to be adapted as some Hallmark kind of movie. It showed great promise at the beginning but in the end it just became average.

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コーヒーが冷めないうちに
In a certain cafe you can travel back in time. However there are very specific rules: 1. You can only travel back to meet someone who has visited the cafe, 2. No matter what you do, the future will not be changed, 3. You can visit the past until before the coffee you’re served gets cold. (Hence the title.) There are other rules that come up during the story, but those are the main ones. Because of these “annoying” restrictions most people don’t bother going to the cafe. The book revolves around 4 women who do, with each one going back in time for different reasons (all for relationships like girlfriend-boyfriend, wife husband, sister-sister, mother-daughter).

I felt like this book tried too hard to be one of those kinds of books. I didn’t really care much about any of the characters. They felt less like actual characters and more like props for “heartfelt” stories. Which of course they are, but it’s like when a play or movie is bad, it takes me out of the story because the illusion is gone and I’m seeing just the media itself.

I had such high hopes for this since it was a story around women and their relationships but eh. Now I’m reading another book about women and their relationships and it just feels so right. I think it may be because this book was written by a guy and the book I’m reading now is written by a woman. But of course that’s not always the case.


Other than books I also read manga. I read the first volume of 薬屋のひとりごと which is about a girl who gets kidnapped and has to work in a pseudo-Chinese imperial harem and make medicine and stuff for the princesses/concubines. Coincidentally, I also started the anime Snow White with the Red Hair which is about a girl in pseudo-Europe who befriends a prince and makes medicine and stuff for people.

I like both the manga and anime so if, by the time I finish, I don’t have a incredible urge to become a witch or pharmacist and live in the woods and make medicine out of herbs, I’ll be severely disappointed.

And speaking of witches, I’m like 25 hours into the game House of Fata Morgana and dang these feels. Such a long game where, I swear, every chapter feels like it’s suppose to be the end but it just keeps going… I love it so much.

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Well, alright, I’m going to add a few things to get the ball rolling. We’ll see how it goes.

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