あなた

Can't remember where or who recommended this one, but it was a good pick early into my year of trying read as many Japanese books as possible. I did struggle with some of the grammer, but I'm glad I stuck with this because this story is nuts. It's sort of a crime/mystery/soap opera, a man commits a crime and leave behind his girlfriend, then comes to town decades later as a successful hotelier. I won't spoil what happens but the twists were crazy and the ending was insane. Definitely a bit of a shocker, and does a good job fleshing out its cast in the span of about 100 or so pages.

In terms of language learning, the vocab was pretty commonplace and real-world, but the grammar was occasionally quite challenging and maybe just a bit higher than I should've attempted, but I'm glad I stuck with it and I picked up a couple interesting new kanji versions of words.