夜カフェ 1

A great first non-manga book!

This was my first book I read that wasn't a manga, and I think it was a great choice!

Language Learning: 5/5

The language itself was very easy to read, so the most difficult part was getting used to the intimidating "wall of text" that you don't get with manga. I originally found myself losing my place often because I wasn't used to a book format yet (pro tip: use a piece of paper to block the next line). But I found 夜カフェ was a great book to get over that hurdle due to the simple vocabulary and grammar structures!

There's a lot of cooking and crafts vocabulary (you'll recognize ぬう instantly by the end of this book). I didn't come across a lot of grammar that I didn't already know. To compare difficulty to other things: I'd say it's similar to ふらいんぐうぃっち (albeit with more to read since it's not a manga) or the intermediate stories on Satori Reader.

Enjoyment: 3/5

This is the kind of thing I would have read as a kid. Unfortunately, as an adult I didn't find it terribly thrilling (it is a children's book after all), but it was a good story. Enough to continue to volume 2 at least!

The main thing I enjoyed about this book was that the characters and their problems all felt very real. Nobody was a one-dimensional character in my opinion. And for anyone who was, they did not show up often and I'm assuming we will learn more about them in later books. I guess if that's not the case, I'll edit this review when/if I finish the series.

I recommend this book if you like slice-of-life and if you're okay with getting hungry every time you read (because there really is a lot of cooking in this book)