僕と死神の七日間

Good introductory LN for people who've never read (light) novels

The feature that stood out the most to me while reading this book is how direct and straightforward the writing is. It is really the opposite of flowery poetic ambiguous writing. On the one hand, it means this book has no chance of ever winning a literary prize, but on the other hand, it is perfect for language learners!

Fantastic

This book hit me in the feels (as I thought it might) and it did it really well. The writing was relatively simple yet poignant, ranging from funny to heart wrenching depending on the moment.

I really enjoyed getting to know the main character and his grim reaper stalker companion, as well as hearing about the MC's brother. The plot was also intriguing, as it mostly stayed in the present but occasionally gave the perspective of Masato before and up to his death and his patient in the hospital. The plot was also very twisty-turny: I thought that Masato's 死神 and the MC's 死神 were the same until close to the end, so I was quite surprised to find out otherwise. I was also quite relieved by the ending, ngl.

Overall, this was a really good book and I'd highly recommend it! It reminded me a bit of コーヒーが冷めないうちに and エリアの騎士, but with the added 死神 effect. Be prepared to cry while reading though. 5 stars.

Japanese Difficulty: The grammar used isn't super difficult; there are a smattering of N1 and N2 grammar points but they're easy enough to look up.

There's more furigana than normally given in a non-children's novel (I suppose because this is YA and not adult?), and it's used every time the chosen word comes up. Examples are 僕 or 彼女, which are used quite often and were always glossed.

The vocabulary isn't too hard, but there are various words related to grief, death, lingering attachments, and related emotions that will likely require lookups for an improved reading experience.