Short Stories in Japanese for Intermediate Learners: Read for pleasure at your level, expand your vocabulary and learn Japanese the fun way! (Teach Yourself)

A Tiring Read

My main takeaway from this book is that if you are at the skill level where you are able to read this book, then you really just owe it to yourself to read native material. The short stories are, for the most part, sooo lifeless, predictable, and poorly written that it really doesn't make sense why anyone would choose this over native material that is frankly much better written (and natural).

This book is strange. The vocab selection is pretty much perfect for the level of reader it is targeted at, but the actual writing is so stilted and choppy that it just becomes unbearable to read. It's as if I were to write the following in English: "Sally went to the store. Sally thought it was strange that apples were so expensive. Sally left the store. Sally got in the car and started the engine." Comparing to something like また、同じ夢を見ていた, the writing here insists on repeating the topic over and over again, which honestly treats the reader like they are a much lower level than they actually are, whereas in the native material, it feels natural and flows, without unnecessarily stating the topic of the sentence ad nauseum.

There are also frequent discrepancies between the audiobook and the written copy that might annoy you.

So yeah, I don't really recommend this book. Glad to be done with it.