Patachu wrote: |
Light enough that you can finish it in an evening, but challenging enough that doing so will make you feel satisfied. |
That's about it in a nutshell. Not being used to light/young adult novels, I was surprised how quickly I passed through it. I knew it was called a light novel for a reason, but I was like "wow!" (This impression was built due to my ridiculous routine to finish 600+ pages of books in a matter of hours ie. Clancy, so take it with a pack of salt ) .
Anyhow, I made sure to pace myself and took my time to enjoy my favorite series. Quality over quantity, as they say. The review was spot on and Andrew and the team did a terrific job. The next novel is looking great, as well.
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I wouldn't say that this was all that much more expensive than a lot of other really popular genre fiction paperbacks. The Young Wizards Series, for instance, a popular little series which combines fantasy with science fiction (think "Asimov meets fantasy mysticism and a touch of mythology and folklore" in the Young Adult demographic, and you'd get the basic idea)? The paperback editions for the series are MSRP $7.95. I think they've got about the same number of pages, too, give or take. Maybe a little longer, but then, they've got little to no extras - I think one of them that was based on Irish folklore had a bit in the back explaining some of that and noting references, but as the books are written in English, there are no translation notes. There are also no other extras of the like found in Boogiepop and Others' paperback, and plus, remember, you're paying for a translation. Translated books, especially ones of high quality, very often cost a little more precisely because they're usually more expensive to acquire and publish.
I may or may not give this one a shot at some point - I wasn't fond of the anime ("ooh, look at us be all artsy while we **** with your mind and confuse the hell out of you poor saps who don't have a clue what's going on!" was the impression I got. And mind you, I was able to watch Eva and the movie Utena and just think "This is a 'mind****'? Sure, it's weird and all symbolic and easily interpreted several different ways, but it's not THAT confusing..."), but seeing as this fills in some blanks, maybe it would be better. Either way, though, the price doesn't sound exorbitant to me compared to other genre fiction paperbacks nowadays, especially for all the little extras.
-Andromeda
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