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Why is this book popular?
I don't remember the movie well but it might keep you from falling asleep, unlike this book.
I have had the most enhanced experience reading this: reading a physical copy of the hardcover version that has bigger pages, a few drawings to help picture the situations and characters, while listening to the audiobook (whose voice for Jiji is quite annoying), and also while in the Learnnatively book club for motivation!
And I have heard several people say that they had previously stopped reading the book. I think we tend to assume that people quit because of the Japanese difficulty but I think the real reason is because the book is plain boring for adults. Kiki is a one-trick-pony who can fly on a broomstick. That's it. Most of the encounters are of low importance and are usually resolved by her flying. The more recent Zenitendou ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 series comes to mind with magical encounters but each of those situations are of far greater importance to the characters and have wide-ranging magic when compared to this Kiki's Delivery story.
The only real intrigue of the story is that she is going off to live on her own at the age of 13 (in modern times, people even double that age haven't left home yet), and then the nostalgia of life before the internet coupled with her living in some kind of European town perhaps based on Stockholm Sweden. And, the book starts off explaining that most of the magic has been forgotten so there is some small carrot of anticipation that Kiki will learn or rediscover other magic.