Reading Thoughts

Author: Syuu
Genres: Fantasy, cozy, slice of life, romance
Dates Read: January 5 - January 7, 2025
Format: ebook
Page count: 241

Thoughts: This was such a sweet story. I cried several times and just found it extremely heartwarming. The romance and subsequent marriage were a bit too fast for my liking, but honestly I feel like we get so few books where the main love interests get together and then we actually see their relationship afterwards, that this is welcome. I've already started the second book, so I definitely liked it! The chapters felt very episodic and for some reason the vibes and everything reminded me of Mushishi, even though I haven't seen that anime in a million years so I'm not actually sure if they are similar. I just remember Mushishi being contemplative and peaceful, and that's what this book felt like to me. A quiet, cozy book about a woman who can hear the inner voices of people and animals. There are a couple stressful moments, but they are quickly handled and aren't looming over the story for significant chunks of time. That to me is an important feature of coziness - there are a couple books I've read that people say are cozy, but then the main characters have some large thing they are avoiding/hiding from or some overarching problem that's always in the back of their minds, and it ends up stressing me the fuck out. I already deal with that enough irl!!! I don't want it in my cozy books!!!! Anyway lmao, yeah. Unfortunately there are only two volumes of this out in English, and tbh I'm not sure if there are more in Japanese either that are waiting to be translated. But I can only hope!

Author: Hisaya Amagishi
Genres: Fantasy, slice of life, reincarnation
Dates Read: January 3 - January 5, 2025
Format: ebook
Page count: 280

Thoughts: Another Dahlia installment! Tbh it took me forever to start this one. I kept putting it off and trying and not feeling it, but I was finally in the mood the other day! I think I'll read this one weekly too since volume 9 is currently publishing on J-Novel club. Anyway, this one is my favorite one yet! Now that it seems like Dahlia has more and more people at her side, her inventions are increasing at a pretty alarming rate. Honestly I'm having trouble keeping track of all of the characters, but it's still fun nonetheless. It seems like we finally got A LITTLE more progress on her romance with Volf, although not really. Poor Volf lol. I feel so bad for him, and yet I also think that things would move a lot faster if he actually said something more direct. I feel like Dahlia would never bring up romantic feelings for Volf (even if she was aware of them) because she's seen how rough his life has been with women harrassing him.

I really liked the addition of bringing up the medical uses for some of her inventions. We're introduced to Lord Bernigi in this volume and he has a prosthetic leg, and it was really cool seeing Dahlia immediately help him (and also put some of her newest inventions to work). It really shows how far she's come and how much more confident she is! It's really cool comparing how she was at the beginning of the series to how she is now. I'm really interested to see if we actually get introduced to real dangers that keep being brought up as possibilities. I wonder if one of those dangers will finally force Volf into action lol. It's almost cute how he thinks he can stay with her forever if she was his sister, as opposed to his wife lmao....

Author: Punichan
Genres: Fantasy, isekai, litrpg, adventure
Dates Read: January 5, 2025
Format: ebook
Page count: 207

Thoughts: Okay so I really loved this one! It starts out with main character, who is obsessed with an MMO in her real life and is very knowledgable about the game. Then there's a fade to black moment and she basically finds herself as the villainess of the MMO's spin-off dating sim, and regains her past life's memories. She uses her knowledge of the game to do all sorts of stuff! And yeah! I basically binged the first volume and the second one is releasing on J-Novel Club right now, so I get to read it weekly on Mondays, ohoho. But yeah, this one is great because while she does remember a lot about the game so she can move through the world doing the game's "quests" and stuff, there are also a lot of things that she doesn't remember or didn't experience before. So there's still new and fresh things for her to see and do. It's also nice seeing her help the people around her, and make friends, and avoid her ex-fiance. In typical otome villainess story fashion, it starts out with her fiance (who is the prince) dumping her for a commoner. The commoner in question is also just... cartoonishly horrible. I really hope we don't see much of them because I just... am not interested lol. But yeah! I'm really excited about where this goes. Oh, the unfortunate thing is that she gives up her name Charlotte for the name Sharon.... lmao. No hate against people named Sharon, but it just.... doesn't feel very fantasy T_T

Author: Honobonoru500
Genres: Fantasy, isekai, slice of life,
Dates Read: January 2 - January 3, 2025
Format: ebook
Page count: 386 in Vol. 7 and 316 in Vol. 8

Thoughts: Okay first of all I learned that I can subscribe to new volumes in a series via google books, so I'm doing that instead of buying these on amazon! Woo! (not that google is much better but like... I hate how horrible amazon is getting with ebooks and DRMs and shit).

Okay so to the story - the reason I'm combining these two volumes is that I read them back to back and idk it's just easier for me to talk about it all in one go. Though Honobonoru made these two volumes very distinct, there are smaller things that I'm not sure belong to which volume. Anyway... Volume 7 is a more cozy story that just follows Ivy, Druid, and co. as they prepare for and participate in what's basically a take/twist on Holi. There weren't any antagonists, and it was very sweet. I think this is the volume where Ivy and Druid officially become family, which was so so so sweet and definitely made me cry. We also got to see what happened to Ivy's family, and I'm really curious if Ivy is ever going to meet up with her sister, or at least let her know she's alive. Volume 8 goes back to having a bigger plot again. Ivy, Druid, & co. are in a new city with a summoning circle somewhere that removes everyone's fear, and has also altered their memories a little. I really like the new people that they meet (though there are so many that I'm having trouble keeping track of who is who and remembering everyone's names...) and I love seeing Ivy's slimes help people.

I really love the tamer plot point where we find out that slimes are becoming less powerful, and they think it's because tamers are used to controlling/taming their monsters by force instead of building up a bond of mutual trust and respect with their slimes. I think it'll be really cool to see how that changes in the future, and hopefully there's more research done and Ivy gets to find out more about her slimes! I always feel so bad for her because she and druid are basically winging it lol.

Anyway, I really think either Honobonoru's writing has improved, their editor/translators have improved, or maybe a combination. Because these last two volumes were so much more enjoyable. While there are still a bunch of repetitive things in the story (like someone will say something and then it basically gets dumbed down/simplified even more in the very next sentence), it didn't feel as overbearing as it usually does. I suppose it could also be my mood lol... but I'm just going to pretend like the writing is getting better. Ugh, I really can't wait for the next volume. The author usually does two book arcs so hopefully everything gets fixed up in the next one. On that note though, we've started to hear more about the capital city and the more it gets brought up, the more it sounds like an incredibly unappealing and unsafe place. I know it's Ivy's goal but man... I hope that they can add someone else to their party, or idk Ivy gets much stronger or something. I'm worried for her with how things are right now.

Author: Riko Saiki
Genres: Fantasy, isekai
Dates Read: December 25, 2024 - January 1, 2025
Format: ebook
Page count: 260

Thoughts: Henceforth I'm not doing ratings anymore! I'm adding genres instead, and I'm just going to continue on. Some books are just hard to rate because the writing might be worse than another book but I like the story a lot, or idk shit like that. ANYWAY.

I really didn't love this one. I was browsing through J-Novel Club and saw that this one had the "inventions" tag or something, so I was like wow, great! Maybe it'll be like Ascendance of a Bookworm, m favorite series ever!! W R O N G. They basically skipped all the good shit! The main character, Tafelina, has basically already invented everything. So the main story is basically her going to school and being overpowered, but not even in a fun way. The antagonists are cartoonishly bad, there's like literally nothing Tafelina is working toward overall. There are a couple fun scenes, like her setting up her attic room, or her searching for the kidnapped children. But other than that, the story felt bland and all of the characters felt very bland. I would have liked it better if it was set before school and we got to see her actually invent/do things, or even just beating up monsters in the forest. Instead we got.... a shitty school setting and her and everyone just talking about the cool things she did.

Author: Sarah Beth Durst
Rating: ★★★★★
Dates Read: December 12 - December 22, 2024
Format: ebook
Page count: 385

Thoughts: I loved this so much! I for some reason thought that there would be something "wrong" with it because I had seen some negative reviews, but I'm glad that I ignored them and pushed on. This book is exactly the kind of book I love to read. Peaceful (mostly), found family, setting up a cute shop in a small town, romance, etc. etc. etc. There were a couple stressful events around the 60% mark and a bit later on, but I'm glad that they resolved themselves peacefully, because oh man did those parts get my heart rate up a bit! This is so great as a standalone, but ugh I honestly just want to spend more time with the characters and seeing everyone heal the island further and watch everything change for the better. It was just very lovely. In the author's note she says that she wanted the book to feel like drinking a mug of hot chocolate, and I really think she captured that feeling.

Also, the cover is just SO gorgeous. Hmmm. So goodreads categorized this as romantasy for the 2024 choice awards and idk, I don't really think of it as romantasy? It felt more like a cozy fantasy with a (bigish) romantic subplot. More like, I think that if you deleted the romance aspect of it and just made Kiela and Larran friends, the story would have still worked very well.

Anyway, I was going to write a bunch of caveats about how yeah, some of the characters aren't super three dimensional and blah blah blah plots and whatever (I was just skimming a review while writing this). But you know what? Fuck that. No caveats! I really had a great time other than the few stressful moments! I would like to live on this island please. Thank you.

Author: Nathan Lowell
Rating: ★★★★✭
Dates Read: September 29 - December 19, 2024
Format: Audiobook
Page count: 12 hours, 10 minutes

Thoughts: So! I listened to this over a long period of time, mostly when I went around my neighborhood walkies lol, but I still feel like I actually remember a lot more about this than I typically do about books. Overall I enjoyed the narrator and I liked the different voices he did for the different characters. He was very good at doing Shackleford's voice, lol. But yeah! This was a relaxing book for the most part. There were some times where I think I felt a bit stressed out (basically every experience with Naomi), but luckily they were a bit spread out. I think the only thing that really bothered me about this book was how Naomi was introduced. I wasn't a fan of how the author described her, but she seems to be the only woman described that way in the book, so I suppose it's fine?

I remember reading a tiny bit of a review before I finished the book that said that a lot of the "action" happens when Roger isn't in the room. And that's definitely true, but it also didn't bother me that much. I think the book would have maybe been a bit more convoluted that way, and this way just felt much more "accurate" to what Roger's experience would actually be like. One thing that delighted me every time was when Roger would do his "Jeeves bow." It just made me chuckle lol.

I really like how they wrapped up the issue with the amulet. Though the ending of the entire book felt a bit rushed to me. I would have liked to see a more satisfying conclusion to them updating Shackleford house and seeing what they do with it.

But yeah, all in all, I enjoyed this one! I didn't expect to feel captivated the entire time but I really was. Very cozy, very slice of life. I'll probably add this into my regular rotation of audiobooks to play when falling asleep.

Author:Deborah Harkness
Rating: ★★★✭☆
Dates Read: November 18 - December 11, 2024
Format: ebook
Page count: 594 pages

Thoughts: Man, this one took me forever to read. I feel like I read it in bursts, depending on how interested I was in what was happening. There was a point about 60% of the way through where I thought, "fuck, should I even keep reading?" but I'm glad I stuck with it because right after that, things got really juicy again lol. Anyway, this felt like a more interesting and mature version of Twilight. And I make that comparison not just because this book is about vampires (and witches, and daemons), but because there are scenes that feel like they were lifted straight from Twilight lol. I don't know if this is one of those books that started off as fanfiction or if the author just really liked Twilight and took heavy inspiration from it. Either way, they amused me more than they annoyed me, so whatever I suppose.

I think the pacing felt a bit off on this one, though it wasn't the worst thing in the world. There are just a lot of places where the plot slows down heavily and there's a lot of academic talk and a lot of not doing much. Which is fine! I don't mind when things slow down and we get a chance to know the characters. There were just times when that felt a bit heavy handed and it just felt... sooooo slow lol.

I'm glad I didn't read any reviews before reading this because it seems like a lot of the ones on the main page of goodreads are all bad lol. I do think a lot of them make good points, but overall I did enjoy myself. I think the world is interesting, the magic is really interesting, and I really like the characters. I think what helped me like it too is that I actually decided to read this book because I watched two episodes of the tv show and thought it looked cool. Then I decided that I wanted to read the book before finishing the TV show lol. So it helped having some visuals of characters and the setting already in my head when I started reading, and it just made it feel a bit more immersive for me (I do have imagery in my head when I read but it's not as detailed if I don't have specific images ahead of time).

All in all I will probably try out the sequels! I'm interested to see where this goes and to see Diana get stronger. Although looking at the synopsis of the second book, it looks like it's going to be less of a training arc and more Matthew stuff so... idk that's a little disappointing, but I guess we'll see. I'm not sure when I'll read it - I have it on hold at the library and the next one isn't available for 5 more weeks. Not sure if I'm curious enough yet to buy it.

Author:: Mashimesa Emoto
Rating: ★★★✭☆
Dates read: November 12 - November 17, 2024
Format: ebook
Page count: 256

Thoughts: So, my main issue with this is how I feel with most light novels I've tried to read, aside from Ascendance of a Bookworm, and that is that the writing just feels simplistic and repetitive. The author will write something in a pretty simple way, and then "explain" it in the next sentence. Sometimes it's something I can overlook, and sometimes it feels irritating. During this particular volume there were definitely parts where it annoyed me and parts where I didn't mind at all.

That all being said, I feel like there was a tiny bit of relationship progress between Mell and Zara, which was good to see. I saw on Anilist that this series only has 7 volumes, so I'm curious to see if they're actually going to get together by the end of it or if they'll just live as besties forever lol. Mell is one of those characters who is totally oblivious to her own feelings so... I guess we'll see. At the rate that things are happening right now, it doesn't really feel likely.

This volume introduced a new character, Ciel Aiskoletta. And a cute little radish freak named Komerv who I love. Anyway, Ciel is... interesting? He doesn't particularly stand out aside from never taking his helmet off, so I'm not sure how to feel about him. His presence feels very temporary to me, and I was really surprised that he moved in with Mell and Zara. It felt very random, so, idk. I hope he becomes more of a staple character, because right now he just feels like he's just... there.