[대여] 오늘 밤, 세계에서 이 사랑이 사라진다 해도

Heartfelt, bittersweet romance

Tohru is a high school student who lives an uneventful life. One day, a bully coerces him to confess to a girl at school named Maori, and she unexpectedly agrees to be his girlfriend as long as he follows some conditions...

I recommend going in blind. The book deals with amnesia (a pretty common trope), so I thought it was going in one direction, but then it took some unexpected twists and turns to tell a satisfying, emotional story. I was on the verge of tears multiple times throughout the novel :'(

In addition to romance/love, the book also handles some heavy themes — grief, memory, not living up to who you want to be, making hard choices for those you love — very thoroughly. I also thought all of the characters were really fleshed out, especially Izumi, Maori's friend.

I would definitely recommend this book for learners. It's YA, and I believe it was originally a light novel, so the paragraphs are quite short and simple. The vocabulary also wasn't difficult — the only difficult words that come to mind were technical terms related to amnesia/memory, and some specific names of Japanese literature awards.

One of my favorite YA novels I've read to date!