Reading Record 34

 Welp.

It's been a thing.

After the last three books being pretty serious, I wanted something lighter.

Nothing much on my to-read shelf fit the bill.  The closest I could come was one of those books that seem to have been published with the intention of putting them in the "cheap clearance" section of large bookstores.  😅  But that ended up being a DNS.  (A "Did Not Start," in other words.  I sat down to read it, thinking it was art history only to find it was a particularly dry and bland regular history...so I ended up just leafing through to look at the pictures then putting it away.  I've recently read a far more complete history of that culture, one that was much less dry and absolutely more readable.  No reason to force myself to read something inferior as well.)

So I turned to an ebook about CRPGs--Computer Role-Playing Games, that is--which is fascinating, but also almost 700 pages and very, um, stultifying in large chunks.  It's just not the sort of thing that's meant to be the only book you're reading, ya know?  I'm gonna keep picking at it on and off until I finish it, but 200 pages at a time was just the limit of what I could take.

Therefore, I decided to turn to something that wasn't on my to-read shelf.

I decided to reread something.  In part to refresh my memory before the next season of the adaptation starts, and in part because I wanted to revisit a few sections because I might want to write a wee bit of fan-fiction...

Thus, on Friday night I started rereading volume one of The Apothecary Diaries light novels by Natsu Hyuuga.

And having just finished the volume...yup, I can't help it.  Maomao is an icon.  She is a fantastic blend, and absolutely the aromantic poster child.

As always, I'm sort of torn on the whole "Jinshi" issue.  He's an entertaining, likable character, and it's funny just how pathetic he gets in his endless pursuit of Maomao, but no matter how pathetic or charming he is, that can't justify how he continues to romantically pursue her when she so blatantly is not interested.

And, frustratingly, I feel like we, the audience, are somehow supposed to be on his side in this.  Even though he is objectively acting incorrectly.  (Sure, he looks great in comparison to his grandfather, but...that's not enough to excuse his behavior.)

Original language:  Japanese