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I’m just connecting that the 瑕 in 完美无瑕 is the same as in 瑕疵. Makes it much easier to remember! 完美无瑕 (perfect, flawless) is in one of Mizuki’s voicelines, and I had to look up more precisely what 瑕 means, because I thought I didn’t know this character. Then I realised I actually knew it from 瑕疵!

I’ve been browsing Japanese mystery books, and I saw this title: ネタバレあり～双紋島の殺人～ by 下村 敦史, and it sounds so intriguing! I never read this author before, but they’ve written a lot of books. ネタバレあり seems to be the most recent one. I don’t know if it’s the best one to start exploring the author’s bibliography, but I find the concept really interesting (apparently, the novel opens with spoilers for the story), so it will probably be my next Japanese read.

Now that I finished the first volume of ZOO, I don’t know if I should continue with the second volume straight away, or read something else in between.

I found all 5 short stories in the first volume of the collection to be fascinating and unique. I read a lot of mysteries and similar sub-genres, so it’s rare to find a story that feels new or features something I never read before. Seven Rooms, So Far and Zoo all falls in this category, and the other two were also excellent, so it’s really an amazing collection. All short stories also have very impactful endings.

I’m also really surprised by the language level of the whole collection: it is very easy to read. Definitely something to recommend to language learners though it contains topic like child abuse, and some stories felt really depressing, so it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

I finished the last short story, the one that gives its name to the collection, Zoo. It was such a unique idea, I loved it very much. It was fascinating and strange, and at the same time disturbingly relatable? Obviously, not in the same context, but lying to oneself is really a commun thing we’re all doing, it’s just pushed to extremes in this short story.

I’m working on Corvus voicelines. I didn’t pull on her banner, but I got her P1 thanks to the 100 free pulls from the mid-year anniversary. I never really paid attention to her voicelines though, but I’m working on it now!

I still haven’t finished a single book in May… but maybe I can finish ZOO 1 today, I only have one short story left. I think that finishing a book will boost my motivation to read more. I started the month with a DNF, and I’ve been reading 얼굴들 for more than a month now…

I’m just realising now that I’ve already read 4 short stories of Zoo 1, and only the first one had character names. And even those were in katakana, so I didn’t really need to do a character list.

I finished the fourth short story 陽だまりの詩, a story of love and death. My least favourite so far, maybe because of the SF elements, though again, the end was excellent.

I finished the second part! I’m not reading this book as regularly as I should so every time I come back to it, I have to make an effort to remember what happened…

I finished chapter 1! All along I was wondering how this novel would turn into a honkaku mystery (as it was stated in one of the prefaces), because the beginning didn’t feel like one at all, but now I can see how it could end up being honkaku after all. It’s very intriguing in any case.

I found a word I learnt in the lyrics of a song! 滂沱 pāngtuó (to describe rain as pouring, flooding, torrential). I’m so glad when it happens, makes everything feel worth it. It’s typically the kind of word I would not have looked up, because not knowing it doesn’t not affect the comprehension of the sentence 我永遠不會忘記，大雨滂沱的夜裡 (…). It’s obvious it describes the rain, and because we already have 大雨, it’s also obvious that it describes a rain pouring down.
So it’s the kind of word I won’t look up when I see it in a novel, but because I’m studying song lyrics (meaning, actually looking up every word I don’t know, and look for metaphors or hidden references), I already had this word in my flashcards.
Small victory!!

脑袋里有了新的点子之后，就一直想实现它，否则的话就睡不着觉，连甜点也觉得不好吃了，对吗？

I finished the event story and the associated anecdotes. I loved it very much, and I really really love Aino! The additional anecdotes were very good too (I much prefer this format over the drink event we had last time).

I started the second short story: 山羊座的友人. I found the beginning very hard, I had to listen to it several times and even open the book to check out the names, because I could not remember them well as I didn’t know how they were written. After several attempts and giving up a few times before starting again, I think I’m now following much more easily. Still a challenging listen!

The difference in reading speed in all three languages is huge. I read the fastest in Japanese, then Simplified Chinese. Then I think there’s a huge gap, then Traditional Chinese, then the slowest is still Korean I think. And it’s not just the reading pace, but how fast I’ll get tired and will need a break.
Of course it also depends on the difficulty of the book.

I was hoping to finish the first chapter today, but reading in Traditional Chinese is quite tiring (even though the novel is not particularly difficult to read), so I’ll stop here for today.
One thing I noticed is that the ebook uses two different fonts (it happens often to differentiate between normal narration and a letter for example), and only one of these is customisable. That’s why I suddenly couldn’t change the font anymore. It’s unfortunate, as I’m afraid the font I can’t change will be the main one for the remaining of the book, and I really don’t like it.