Books
On ratings
Scores indicate “do I think should you read this” and not “is this quality”. There is plenty of good art I don’t personally like, and you probably have some gauge of the latter already, so all I can offer is the former.
I try to average ratings at ⭐️⭐️⭐️, following Tabelog’s rating system, to avoid compression.
- ⭐️: I don’t recommend.
- ⭐️⭐️/No rating: You won’t miss much by skipping.
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️ and above: Recommend.
Books I’ve read, most recently finished first; books without a finish date follow. See my shelf on Goodreads.
Ethan's books
Beautiful prose but troubling content. Don't choose this as your first foray into Chinese literature. I translated an interview of Lin Yi-Han here.
I read this in Japanese and found it accessible due to its length. The main character Furukura-san (who occupies the first half) and her interactions in the latter half with the book's deuteragonist, the free-rider Shiraha-san, are a stu...
Using this to stand for the full series. Read 1-11 in Chinese while abroad two years ago; read 12-20 in Japanese more recently. Neither main character is self-inserty (across two arcs) and the world is reasonable and well-developed. Cool...
Using this to stand for the whole series. Progress: Volumes 1-14 completed (for practice in Japanese).
