We just started the current Advanced Book Club pick on Friday, so you are not even late if you decide to join now 
It is a criminal story, and so far it has been a very nice read.
Thanks! I love criminal stories, I’ll take a look after I take a short break.
So I’ve finished the second volume yesterday and I like that series a lot. Thanks for the suggestion 
I find it to be a tougher read than what I’ve been focusing on recently, since the author doesn’t present the story in a pre-digested format. The trick of having a character say “do you mean 〇〇?” is absent, instead, the other character will say “Got it” and 猫猫 will internally monologue “it’s great to work with people who understand quickly”. Sometimes, I need to pause a bit to get it myself 
My favorite example so far (not a spoiler since it’s basically impossible to get it without the context of the previous paragraph):
大陸の中央に位置する、とある大国。どこから漏れたか、そこのやんごとなき貴人が霊薬ばかりかき集めると噂になる。 壬氏の執務室が、見舞いの花でいっぱいになり入れなくなったと知ったのは、午後の茶会のときであった。猫猫は桃饅を食みながら、「ふーん」とやる気なく言った。
It took me 5 solid minutes to get the connection between those three sentences 
Another challenging thing about this book is that they tend to use Chinese-ish reading for words (e.g. 薔薇 read as そうび) and Chinese (inspired?) word construction (the main example being the usage of the prefix 小 instead of the suffix ちゃん) with the actual Japanese word as furigana.
Meanwhile, at some point a character describes a kanji by using the modern Japanese terminology (and some katakana words do creep up in the text). I wonder if the author thought it was a bit too extreme to keep the setting or if it’s the editor who put their foot down.
Anyway, I love 猫猫. She is exactly the type of crazy I like to see in a character. The relation with the love (?) interest is also pretty nice and there’s good drama. The end of volume 2 was a bit cliche but I still cried. What do you mean this is a mystery series?
(That kinda reminds me how I’ve been told I played the game Mass Effect wrong; basically rushing through the missions so that I could spend more time romancing the characters Sooo I heard you’ve got reach; I’d like you to know I have flexibility for days)
Just finished reading 俺を好きなのはお前だけかよ 2. Jesus christ man, this series…
I’m actually having a hard time telling if the author is the greatest writer who has ever lived or is a complete idiot with the story writing skills of a literal eggplant. Like this series is just so many levels of dumb that its impossible to tell where the irony stops and it’s no longer a parody.
The whole thing is like meant to be a parody on tropey school harems which are already plenty dumb, and it just took it to the next level without actually being a harem. The thing is…now its actually kinda becoming a harem and now I can’t tell if this is going to become another layer of irony.Part of me feels like it wont become an actual harem and will stick with just the one main love interest. Like the second girl who ended up liking the main character attempted to basically isolate him from everyone else in the school with literal libel so she could have him all to herself and he told her to fuck off for all of eternity basically. The new girl who just got introduced is a bit tougher. She appeared out of thin air and is the main characters ideal female. The epilogue makes it seem like she literally may not be materialized from the power of god (there was actually a scene earlier that called upon the power of god), but who the hell knows anymore.
I believe this marks my 4th book done this year and I’m 150 pages into my next book, so maybe 24 books for the year is a bit low. Eh, who cares
Finally finished 獣の奏者 Volume 2 after looks at notes scribbled on hand
oh, uh, two weeks? Loved the book, but it definitely had its moments that left me scratching my head wondering if I’d actually understood the chapter (sub-chapter?) that I’d just read.
Now I’m torn between continuing on with the 3rd book (very likely) or taking a break for some other single-volume story as not to rush through the series (unlikely). I’ve had loads of free time lately and I’m hoping to make reading more of a habit so I can beat last year’s number of books read (also this year’s goal, for now) while still upping the difficulty. Considering 獣の奏者 II was a nearly 500 page and fairly difficult book, it’s looking like that should be very doable as long as I can actually stay on top of reading (and stay off of all of my distractions).
I’m glad you liked the series. I remember you said you liked 紅霞後宮物語 and I thought they were kind of similar. That was the basis for my suggestion. I guess it sort of worked? Or, which is more likely, 薬屋のひとりごと is just a good book.
I’m also happy to hear a confirmation that even you had some difficulties with this book.
Recently I started to really question my Japanese reading ability because I’ve seen people referring to the books I had difficulties with as “fine” or even “easy”. Now I know that at least with this one it wasn’t just me. 
I really want to read other books in the series, but the first one was a bit too hard to be a pleasant read, so I didn’t continue reading the series then. Maybe I should give it another try. 
I feel like the history and politics got a little complicated at times, but I really liked the book overall.
I’m not going to keep reading the series for now at least. Instead I’m reading 狐笛のかなた with the new book club, though it’ll be a slow paced read, like intermediate book club pace. I might go back to 獣の奏者 at some point, but maybe not.
These were definitely the times that gave me trouble. Between trying to remember who is who and where everything is, it gave me some real trouble. Also that one scene with シュナン and セィミヤ really threw me, I actually had to check the book club thread to make sure I understood it properly.
I’m definitely going to continue with it, it’s got me hooked in a way a book hasn’t in a long time, I just don’t know if it’ll be immediately or not yet.
I am thinking about starting my own book club on this site once I reach level 60. But I don’t know if I will have enough time to run it properly.
Didn’t manage to read much this year but at least I started コープスパーティー2. The game is two hours long so I may finish it this year. 
Man it feels like I’ve been pretty bad about reading lately. I’m a month ahead on my manga goal but still haven’t finished any novels, which means I’m about to be behind schedule in just a few days. I’ve been trying to read one chapter of 本好きの下剋上 vol. 3 per day to somewhat catch up, but it’s been hard to motivate myself for some reason
Nooo, I don’t need more novels to read!
I’ve had my eye on this one for a while (actually picked up vol. 1 of one of the manga adaptations at one point and found it too difficult to read at the time). Something about it just really intrigues me. I should at least get back to the manga soon (except I’m not allowed to read any more manga until I finish a novel or fall behind on my manga schedule, life is hard)
Now imagine reading it over several months instead of in two weeks!
Yes to all those things. 
Hm, I feel that, in the case of this series, it’s mostly the case that you need to get used to the vocabulary. The third volume is feeling way easier to read, even though there’s no change in the writing. If someone came to this series after reading various 後宮 stories, well, they’d probably find it easy too. In my case, since I only read one volume of 紅霞後宮物語 years ago (… it’s already been years?), the effect was not that strong; I still recognized immediately the word 宦官, so that’s one word less to look up 
Again, it does get easier if you keep going. Also I enjoyed volume 2 even more than volume 1 
Funny you mention that, because the main character gives me some strong 本好きの下剋上 vibes. Like マイン, 猫猫 is completely crazy about something (not books, though), and then there’s [half way through volume 1 of 薬屋のひとりごと]壬氏, basically the equivalent of [本好きの下剋上 volume 3]フェルディナンド. So, I’m pretty happy about that
I just had a weird moment of clarity about 獣の奏者 and 薬屋のひとりごと (and 紅霞後宮物語).
Some time ago, discussing with people from the 獣の奏者 club, we wondered about the reading of 金色, which was written as こんじき in the furigana version, but would make more sense to be read きんいろ in standard Japanese. At the time, I mentioned it really felt like こんじき to me, and I finally remember why. I have seen it with those furigana in 紅霞後宮物語. I remembered thanks to seeing it again in 薬屋のひとりごと with those same furigana (from the sentence 金色の髪をした美女).
Except that now I know that the readings used in the likes of 薬屋のひとりごとare garbage used for flavor. Looking at you 女性.
I’m nearly finished 本好きの下剋上 book 5. I just have to finish the bonus chapters that are after the epilogue. This volume was probably my least favorite so far, because the middle was so slow. Too much information dumping about how to make stuff, not enough story progress during those parts. But the last few chapters were really good. I expected them to show off how powerful she was sooner rather than later, and I think it’ll send the series in a good and interesting direction. Of course, the very end of the last chapter and the epilogue were completely out of nowhere, and I loved all of it. I was teary-eyed reading the end of the epilogue, specifically (major spoiler) when Main was apologizing to her mom in the dream.
I definitely cried.
Finished 本好き 4! Started 5, but also started 蜘蛛ですが、なにか 2, so we’ll see which of those win out for the bulk of my reading time. The latter is nice in one particular way: there aren’t as many, ummmm, spoiler-adjacent references in the forums here, lol. I muted all the 本好き threads for now, because I just don’t want to know anything, and not wanting to know anything while also looking at the threads is foolish even though the threads are for books I’ve read. If there weren’t so many books I’d take a break from the forums and binge them all, but I do not have the naphthalene-stamina for that. Ah, I also got the first 薬屋のひとりごと, because of course. Books in this thread are contagious. 
For my audiobook goal, I finished コンビニ人間 and started Wの悲劇. As usual, I’ll miss large bits in terms of comprehension, and then every once in a while have a really difficult word pop into my brain as soon as I hear it. Listening comprehension is going to be a long, long battle for me, I think, but with how much listening I’m putting in, I have to be heading the right direction.
For a second I was about to say that I don’t think there are that many of those in there. But then I checked and indeed, there are. Because I’m posting them, apparently
Considering I (unsuccessfully) tried to tell myself to stop after each volume, I feel it’s more “addiction” rather than stamina
Yay! 
a fair amount of words about spoilers so a cut
I think people are pretty good now in those threads about hiding things, but I have learned that things hidden that seem to be about things I have read will sometimes contain references to things I haven’t~ But the solution to that is easy, and someday I’ll have read them all and can go back and enjoy the threads. And frequently in this thread there are things that I don’t want to see, but not in a way where I’m upset or anything, either… I just tend to get things people say stuck in my head while I’m reading. There is a thing you said at some point about 本好き that I’m always wondering about while I’m reading it, and if/when I start reading 薬屋のひとりごと, there’ll be at least a couple of things that I’ll be fixated on even though I caught myself quickly and only skimmed your post (and again, there was nothing exceptionable about it, my brain’s just uselessly weird like that). The solution to that is less easy, because I really enjoy this thread and seeing what people are reading, etc, so I will just have to work at being better at skimming (and of course at being better at letting things go, but my brain resists!). That is all on me. In contrast to this, when I don’t care about something I really like reading spoilers, lol. After listening to the first このすば, and then seeing your post about the first three (I think it was), I went and read an exhaustive summary of the concluding book, curious about your wonderings, etc, and it was very satisfying (in terms of knowing what happens in the end).
I feel like even if you were addicted, you wouldn’t have been capable of keeping going without the stamina, so there’s a great deal of stamina either way!
What was that 
I swear I won’t say anything more than ふーん.
Noooo what have I done again.
I always have the internal conflict of wanting to tell people as much as I can about books while trying to avoid spoilers as much as possible (since I hate them myself). Not an easy balance to find.
Sooo, would you think I should invest in that series? 
I’m quite hesitant about it. One the one hand, it’s a very easy read, even in my after-work braindead state. On the other hand, there’s probably an infinity of better things to spend my money and time on.
Hm, actually, that’s interesting, because I really felt like 本好き pushed me past my (former) limits. I had never read such volume so fast for so long in the past (I would usually get tired before that). But now I can really keep going the same way with other books. Despite what I just said about このすば being an easy read, I would not have been able to read one book in a single day the way I was before 本好き. So I think I had some level of stamina before, but it’s really the addiction that got me forward.
No, don’t judge yourself by my foolishness! You’re doing just fine (as far as I can tell with my skimming)–I’m just a person trying to participate in a forum when I’m probably too spoiler-phobic to do so, lol.
Vague spoilers etc
I read the long post and also most of the comments on it. From the summary itself I don’t know, but I will say that a lot of the comments were about not being happy with how the romance(s?) ended up. It was mentioned that it was maybe going to be addressed in side stories or something, but there was definitely a dissatisfied theme. Maybe it’d be something that works for you, though, who knows.
A good point! I wouldn’t have thought I could read so much in one day before はめふら, either.