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The event has ended… it was so great! I loved it! Gameplay is about close to zero, but it was fun to try to predict the outcome and watch the match. I also really liked the live aspect of it and the competition format.

I think I will skip my daily wuxia chapter today… I had a very bad night and a stressful morning, and I feel very tired now. I did finish my Japanese book because it was easy to read, but now I’m afraid I won’t be focused enough for 多情剑客无情剑. I’m also not in the middle of anything too intense (in the story) right now, so today feels like the perfect day to skip the chapter.

I like having detailed stats that count pages and number of books separately.

So far I read the same number of books as in August, but read a lot less (the month is not over). But I’m about the same point as the whole month of June even though there’s still 11 days in October, and I considered June a ver good reading month at the time. I’m definitely reading more these days.

一次元の挿し木 has an interesting plot and setting, but there are too many things that were problematic to me, some might be a question of taste, but I also do think that some are inherent flaws.

To me this novel felt like reading a summary of the novel rather than the novel itself. It opens several interesting topics but elaborates on none of them, characters feel extremely shallow, even Haruka with whom we spend the most time with. It feels like the novel is constantly rushing towards the next scene, without taking the time to give depth to existing elements. It’s a shame because some of these elements (the relationship between the pharmacology company and the sect, the clone and DNA stuff, the family drama and relationships) were really interesting and worth developing more, but because everything feels so rushed, I didn’t find any of what is described particularly engaging.

One thing that I usually dislike and found very pronounced in this novel, is that the plot comes first, and to make the plot possible, the author ends up writing character decisions that do not really make sense or lack motive. To make the plot progress, we have resolutions that come too easily and are not realistic (like staging a false kidnapping to make someone reveal everything they know), or on the contrary artificial obstacles (everyone knew something but everyone decided to hide it from Haruka). All these little things made the mystery lose its power. Shiharu’s decision and motive in particular feels difficult to understand and the reason given is not convincing.

There were a little bit too many twists too, but in the end, the real truth was quite underwhelming for me. Characters from the research expedition felt strangely absent from the story, only appearing when it was convenient. And overall, their decisions and actions could have been easier to understand if the novel had spent more time on it.

I also found that the multiple points of view narration was a bit artificial. I love multiple points of view when it brings something to how the reader perceives the story as a whole, but here, characters simply take the focus when it’s their time to narrate what happened. So we get the point of view of a character we never got before just because we reached the point of the plot where it’s their turn to reveal what they know. The truth is then revealed by these multiple characters, instead of being the result of a real investigation.

Overall, I found that this book felt a lot like a film. The time it takes to read, the way it’s structured and the way it’s narrated, it felt more like watching a movie than reading a book. This might be the reason why the novel is so popular, it’s easy to read and entertaining. I do think though, that a book looking like a film ends up lacking both the film’s power (image, sound, acting, music, voice. light…), and what makes a novel compelling.

It’s an entertaining novel overall that reads extremely quickly (I had to double check that the paper book is really 384 pages, it felt like reading a 200 pages book), but I really don’t understand the hype around it…

I can’t believe I really did finish it today! I found the story more engaging at some point, but the last two chapters confirmed that the book was not for me to begin with.

Finished chapter 6 too, just one more to go. I’m feeling very tired now though, but I’ll probably finish later.

Finished chapter 5! Woke up at night again, which gives me a lot of time to read.

Beginning is really great! I’m also remembering things from the first volume while reading.

I decided to buy 不可知論偵探2：惡人正機篇! Looking at the books read in October so far, I did love a couple of them, but overall, I was not so enthusiastic about my books as I usually am. (It’s the same for the films I watched, so this might just be a me problem?) Anyway, I thought a manga would be a good way to change things up. I almost never read manga, but I really loved the first volume of this series, and I think I’m going to love the second one too!

It’s also part of the readmoo reading challenge.

The book is really fast-paced now.

I only have 7 new words available! I need to add more today! I don’t know if I’ll find the time to though…

I finished chapter 3, the pace is picking up, and the novel reads very easily and quickly. I’ll probably continue a little bit more today.

I’m thinking that at some point I’ll start Where Winds Meet again, I mean a new account, and play the story more thoroughly, study passages, read everything and look up words.

I was devastated after chapter 1, it made me drop the game, and I never really came back to it. Now that I know what’s going to happen, I won’t be affect by it as much. I could go with story mode so that combat is easy and I don’t need to farm as much and level my stuff. I still don’t know if I want to play the whole game or just do the main story, but side quests were very good too.

I’m not playing Reverse 1999 at the moment. This patch is really not for me, I tried to play through the story, but I find it extremely boring so I’m going to skip the last chapters. I’m not a big fan of the two featured characters, and I skipped the story of Everecho. Maybe I’ll just play for the main story patches or occasional stories I like, but I’m not hyped at all for the one to come…

Having three games was a bit too much, but if I ended up putting R1999 aside, then I’ll have time for WWM. And there’s no pressure to play every day anyway.

It’s so exciting to get to choose a new book to read, especially for the Chinese slot, since I’ve been enjoying reading Taiwanese novels the most lately. There are so many things I want to read too.

• I could choose something from the Readmoo Reading challenge list
• Continue reading authors I like or try a second book from an author I only read once.
• Grab another collection from the MWT Award
• Continue reading the winners of the 謎團小說獎. the contest for books based on historical cases.
• There are other things I wanted to try, like the Hong Kong collection 偵探冰室, or I could just browse Readmoo.

Maybe the best thing right now is to pick something from the readmoo challenge given that I’m a little behind. One of the books on the list is a manga, 不可知論偵探2：惡人正機篇, which could be a nice change. I can’t remember when I read the first one, maybe a year ago? So it was quite some time… the reason why I never gotten around to reading the second one is that I don’t like reading manga on the ereader. But now that I have the Lenovo tablet, I could try there! It’s the perfect size, heavier than the Boox, but still portable enough. It’s a good opportunity to try, because if it works, I could read more manga in the future.

The problem is how to treat them on the website, it doesn’t seem fair to treat them like novels with page count… so maybe they’ll join audiobooks as side reads.

Sometimes there are true leech characters, they only need to appear in a word, and I start mixing up meanings and all… it’s the case for 寥. I can’t remember 寥寥 or 寂寥 (their ease is so low… ), though there’s nothing hard in it.

Wow, this chapter was so depressing…

Started chapter 3, the plot is good, but I really don’t enjoy reading it…

Finally built Vesna? Not great, but good enough I guess… I have do many characters to build this patch, I can’t really afford to farm artifacts so that’s her build.

I’ll never play Vesna over Mizuki anyway, I pulled her mostly because I like her and she’s great for exploration, but I don’t care if she doesn’t deal that much damage…

I did craft Emberwell R5 for her, I think it’s a tiny bit better than the BP sword?