かがみの孤城

Patience is key

This is one of my favorite books that I have read. Unfortunately, (as other reviewers have mentioned) that mostly has to do with the specular conclusion of the story has. Regardless, if you have the patience for it, I think it has high payoff.

＋Positives:

• Interesting, well-developed characters.

• Dialogue heavy (making it a fairly approachable N2 level read in my opinion).

• Strong conclusion.

• Unique story concept.

-Weaknesses:

• Very slow pacing (up until the final 25% of the book).

• -Tedious (sometimes boring) middle portion.

• Heavy kanji usage, sometimes using uncommon kanji (personally didn’t mind this, but thought I’d just add for anybody who doesn’t want to read a kanji-heavy novel).