Specs
Reviews
(3.88/5)More enjoyable than the first volume
While the first novel is basically a collection of entirely separate adventures, this volume has more of a cohesive story. It’s still structured in an adventure-of-the-week fashion, but events now have consequences throughout the whole book. I especially loved a segment roughly in the middle of the book where after being faced with some prejudices people have about witches, Kiki falls into a bit of a slump and it takes her a few chapters to get fully back on track. All in all, if you’ve read and enjoyed the first volume, I would definitely encourage you to read the second one as well!
This volume is more of a continuous story than the first one. Each chapter certainly has its own adventure, but now major things that happen in one chapter have effects that reverberate through the book and need to be dealt with. It gets more into Kiki’s personality, her worries, and her character development as she tackles the question of her degree of responsibility in the way that customers choose to use her delivery service.
The language is still at roughly the same level as the first volume, although I feel like Kadono’s writing style and favorite words changed a little during the years between books. For a beginning/intermediate learner, that’s more new vocabulary to learn in each chapter. I think the grammar level is about the same; it doesn’t map to JLPT levels well, but I think by the beginning of N3 one might have most of the grammar needed, possibly even by the end of N4. The writing style and word choice is slightly old-fashioned, which is part of the charm, and maybe a little frustrating if you want to focus on current vocabulary.
