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(4.40/5)This book has everything you could wish for as a language learner. The story is always very enjoyable and interesting, but keeping a familiar setup for every chapter. Indeed, while every chapter is focused around one character/snack, some elements always come back, particularly in description of the snack shop. So, if you're not very used to reading descriptions this is a great entry into that, as you will keep seeing similar descriptions.
That doesn't mean that this book is boring however, as while some things stay the same, a lot changes from chapter to chapter. I have gotten surprised all throughout this book, with an unexpected twist in every single chapter. And for the language learning aspect, as each chapter has a different focus, there's also a lot of topic related vocab.
My only caveat would be that there's a substantial amount of mimetic words and onomatopoeia used, so that can be a bit disconcerting at first if you're not used to it. It gets easier however, as a lot of those words are used several times throughout the book, so you have the opportunity to learn them as you read. Other than that, vocab can be pretty varied, but as long as you've gotten the vocab in the first half of the chapter, you're mostly good to go.
As for grammar, that was really the easiest part imo. That's not to say that there aren't a variety of grammar points used, but the sentences themselves are mostly simple and straightforward, so I wasn't struggling like I might've with books around the same level where vocab is easier but grammar more complex.
Also, a note about the audiobook, I really recommend listening along to it if you have access to it! The voice acting is pretty good, so it can only be a plus to actually reading it.
A mysterious shop appears to a new character every chapter, and they obtain an unusual snack from the enigmatic shopkeeper. As you might expect, surprising things occur to those who eat these magical treats...
There is a formula to the stories - a customer buys or steals! a product from the shop which has an interesting name, and eating it causes surprising things to happen - but the plots and characters are so different that it doesn't feel repetitive.
I found the grammar relatively simple, but the vocabulary was a bit trickier: different characters, settings, and storylines every chapter means that there's a wide range of vocab, including plenty of onomatopoeia and mimetic words. The stories themselves are easy to follow and include lots of dialogue.
I really enjoyed this book, and was intrigued to see what unexpected twists awaited the unsuspecting characters in each story. The mystery and anticipation makes it easy to devour the book, and now that I've finished the first volume, I’ll definitely be reading more from the series.
A fun short story collection about a magic snack shop.
This book contains a prolog, epilog, and five short stories about people who visit a magic snack shop. The shop sells them a treat which can give them whatever they want, but there's always a catch. Depending on whether or not they read the warning (no one ever does!) and on how brave / clever / diligent / etc a person is, they might benefit or end up in a bad state.
This book is very fun and each of the stories contains some repeated content, which is great for learners. The protagonist will always discover a shop in an alley, meet a woman whose appearance is described in detail, be gripped with an intense desire to own the snack she suggests, etc. But each story's plot is also distinct.
Quick, Engaging Read
This was a quick read! I was unsure if it was for me after the first story, but there was a nice amount of variety in terms of the plot of each story and the characters involved. I particularly liked the ghost story and the tree story. I plan to read the next one at some point since they're available at my local library.
From a Korean perspective, I read the physical version along with the audiobook, which made things a bit smoother since I could guess some words from context and the tone of the narrator's voice. However, since each story has a different setting and kind of sweet, a lot of the words are specific to that story and aren't repeated throughout the entire book. I ended up looking up quite a lot of words despite the simple grammar. With that being said, I also finished the book in four days, so clearly it wasn't that hard to read.
I listened to the audiobook for this. I could follow it without thinking pretty much, as it’s about 5 levels below my ‘ideal’ reading level on LN. There are a lot of fun descriptive words and onomatopoeia, which I usually just get the ‘vibe’ of from the sentence. The voice acting also helps with that for me. For the audio, I found the voices fun and not too over the top. There’s some extra background sounds added which are fine (e.g. crunching noises when someone eats, footsteps noises, etc).
I did have a little trouble because it’s translated from Japanese, so all the characters have Japanese names which I can never keep track of lol. And took me too long to realize they were paying with yen (엔?) haha. Prob would’ve been fine if I were reading it though.