I think there’s also an element of spoiler-avoidance. I don’t know the plot of the story exactly, but I’ve seen the anime and in the past have read the Wikipedia page for the book, so there’s a limit to how much I can speculate on future events. Perhaps books without anime adaptations would naturally have a little more discussion as a result.
Raionus would probably add it if it were picked though it’s not a given, obviously, but at worst we could nominate it to be added and then all vote for it on Patreon
@Elenakiyomi I think 時をかける少女 proper is about 120 pages of text, for comparison.
That book looks pretty easy (too easy for me probably). Plus since it’s targeting kids it’s missing a bunch of kanji. I need to finally read a book with proper kanji usage.
This absolute jumble of romaji standards packed into a single word makes my soul hurt. Only way you could have made it worse would have been to write, like “shyōjou” or something.
I think it may be a bit too easy for me, but the description seems right up my alley (got a bit of a petshop of horrors vibe from it actually) so I’d definitely read it if it was selected… And maybe if it isn’t. Thanks for pointing this one out!
The summary reminds me so much of ショコラの魔法! (Amazon JP Link)
It’s a manga about a witch chocolatier who makes chocolate that fulfills wishes, but also takes something valuable from you at the same time. Also one chocolate flavor / backstory per chapter, I think. I don’t know if there’s an English version, I read some volumes of the German translation of the manga, and found it really cute
I like this idea! I undestand that some might find it too easy, I might be on the other end of the spectrum though as I’m studying again after a few months off, and need something nice to get back into reading.
I’m sure this question gets asked a lot, but am I better off starting from the first book of the beginner book club or from the current? I’ve never really read anything Japanese before except for sample sentences. I always bounced off before because it was slow to learn so much kanji, but I suspect there is something that won’t be too bad with my current level.
I don’t know about the first book, but the current one was the first book I read in Japanese, so I think it’s doable. If you allow me to evaluate your kanji and vocab knowledge from your level, though, it would certainly require a lot of dictionary aid, and searching for kanji is a bit inconvenient if you can’t copy + paste your way out of it. I was about level 15-20 (I think) when I read it and it was quite cumbersome at first. That could be made easier for you if you got the version with furigana or a digital copy where you can copy + paste.
There’s also grammar, which I don’t know if you already started studying or not, but I would recommend knowing at least the basic stuff before attempting this.
Anyway, if you’re up for it and with a mindset to not be discouraged by probably searching more than reading, I think you’ll come out of it with a lot more Japanese knowledge under your belt. That being said, it’s also not a bad choice to wait some more until you feel more comfortable. A lot of people (understandably) don’t enjoy reading stuff while looking up every other word.
I may wait in that case, since looking up is what killed me in the past. I’m optimistic that my grammar is up to the task - I did a few years of Japanese study when I was younger and maintained the grammar well, but basically never learned any kanji for longer than a one-hour window around a given exam.
Definitely do the current book, in my opinion! The furigana version makes it easy to look things up, and there’s been a lot of good discussion on grammar in the weekly threads. Just don’t try to understand everything and you’ll learn a lot. You can tell by the types of questions people have started asking that they’ve learned a lot, and while I don’t know how visible my learning has been (because I don’t ask a lot of questions), I’ve learned a lot too.
it’s not a given, obviously, but at worst we could nominate it to be added and then all vote for it on Patreon 
your nomination certainly looks like it would have a few pictures.
I’ve never read it myself, but maybe I should! It didn’t occur to me, but now that you mention it they really look similar 
