April 21, 2022

What you see is what you get

Started reading this because the cover art was cute and thinking I might enjoy a silly romcom — I quickly realized I was wrong and will stay away from those for a while. Cast is extremely annoying, most of all the main lead and the young sister mentioned in the title; the ones who aren't as annoying are underused. It has a lot of little clichés, nothing that would be terrible if the characters were better-written or even just more likeable, but as it is it just doesn't deliver. I could go on but honestly, it's just pretty mediocre. Maybe it just isn't for me though and some people will find enjoyment in it.

However, as alanguage learning material, this novel is kind of interesting, which is why I gave it two stars. I wouldn't say the grammar terribly complicated, but you have to realize there is a lot of otaku-related words and also references to internet jokes; I remember googling a whole sentence only for it to be a 2010's meme very much confined to Japanese internet. If you want to completely understand most of this, it's best if you know enough Japanese to navigate and read Japanese websites in order to search what you don't understand, because some words/expressions/jokes just won't be in English-only websites or dictionaries.

Although I wasn't enjoying the story all that much, as language learning material I actually found it pleasantly challenging. Maybe not a great pick for a first book though, unless you already have supplementary reading experience.

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