Somehow I found the beginning a bit harder than usual (compared to book 1). Lots of sentences I had to read several times, and I was confused for a while whether the 事件 they were talking about was the one from the first book or a new one.
I didn’t count the cigarettes but as expected, Saikawa hasn’t stopped smoking. Oh and this quote from him: それよりも、もったいぶらないで、君たちの考えていることをさきに聞かせて欲しいな。It’s annoying when people do that, isn’t it Saikawa??
First chapter down! Not as strong of an opening as すべてがFになる for sure. That book had a hook to get you interested, before introducing the characters and setting up the camping trip scenario. This one just has plain exposition and a lot of vague talk about a 事件 that we still don’t know anything about after over 30 pages. Maybe it has something to do with this book being the first that Mori wrote for the series.
One thing that really surprised me is how confused Saikawa seems to be about everything. Whereas he was usually the one explaining things to Moe (or withholding theories) in the first book, the roles seem to have been reversed. Maybe an example of reverse character development?
I feel like there was a fair amount of vagueness in this opening that plagued me as a non-native speaker. At first I couldn’t even tell if the incident he was talking about was still the incident from the last book or if something new had happened. It does seem like the incident from last book is very much weighing on his mind, though in a different way from whatever has happened two weeks ago. (Just tell us, author. Any time.)
As with last book, I’m not a 犀川 fan. Not listening to 萌絵, forgetting their plans, then lying about it, plus his general tendency to sort people into boxes (and usually dismissive boxes). There was one line in this chapter that made me want to get this reaction gif, whatever it was admitting it was prejudice against women but the data backed it up, or something?
(I’m not interested in finding actual data and arguing with this fictional character, I just think he’s kind of a jerk, lol.)
I just found the first cigarette and thought I’d check out the first chapter thread~ I’m happy to see we’re all paying attention to the important things here.
I have started reading. Will commence catching up now.
I’m going to try to get through this book before the club resumes in June (so my reading order will be 1-5-2-6-7… ).
Chapter 1 was more challenging than I expected - I wasn’t really confused by the ominous references to an Incident, but introspective passages are still hard for me. The first few pages of Chapter 2 seem like they’ll be easier though.
It’s always fun when a book starts with a map. I also missed the weird science institute setting when reading book 5, so I’m glad that it looks like this book will have something at least vaguely similar.
Not listening to 萌絵, forgetting their plans, then lying about it, plus his general tendency to sort people into boxes (and usually dismissive boxes). There was one line in this chapter that made me want to get this reaction gif, whatever it was admitting it was prejudice against women but the data backed it up, or something?
Will commence catching up now. 
).