What to read? Looking for suggestions.

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/65905102

What to read? Looking for suggestions. - Divisions by zero

Greetings and salutations. I’m looking for a nice story; an entertaining read; specifically with romance! Something serious and substantive, not the sort of thing you just turn your brain off to read. I’ve heard from a YTber I like that “Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki” is actually peak, and, by the synopsis, it does seem interesting; but after reading a few pages it seems so… Cringe. Admittedly, I’ve barely given it a shot. Is it worth the read? If anyone has some nice suggestions, please let me have them! I have the following on my TBR (in no particular order): + The Mimosa Confessions + Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki + Mokushiroku Arisu + Accel World (I remember watching the anime way back, so I thought it could be fun to read) + Re:Zero (I’m on Vol. 18) PLEASE PLEASE I’M BEGGING YOU I’M STARVING!!! I’M DYING!! HELP ME!! GIVE ME YOUR SUGGESTIONS!!!

You mention a couple LNs, so how about Sword Art Online? They even have audiobooks narrated by the English dub voice actors. They have the books that cover the anime through the fourth season as audiobooks, but the others are coming. And the books themselves? There’s like ten beyond the fourth season. Two in Moon Cradle, one is Kiss And Fly, a short story collection that includes a Mother’s Rosary prequel (Yuuki started out playing Animal Crossing in VR!!! Except they call it Serene Garden to avoid getting sued… just like the “photon swords” (lightsabers) in Phantom Bullet…)), And the rest are the Unital Ring series.
SAO might be a good pick. Thank you! Are the LNs better than the anime? I liked it, back in the day, but in retrospect it’s a little weak, IMO.

They are! The biggest criticisms I’ve heard about SAO are the comparisons to .hack, and the rapey bits. In the LNs, they’re not rapey bits. I haven’t gotten to the one with Suguha in Season 4, but the one with their pages in season 3 was absolutely rapey, and it was a bit worse in the books than in the show. The scene with Asuna in season 1, and the scene with Ashido in season 2, were a lot different in the books. In the fourth book (the second Fairy Dance book), Asuna is taunted, I think her shirt gets torn, but Rapey McRapeFace doesn’t like, put his hand down her pants or anything like he did in the anime. As for Ashido (Sinon), the guy just comes over and tried to kill her.

As for the .hack stuff, Kawahara-san’s never beating those allegations. I mean, he wrote the original SAO web novel while watching .hack//SIGN on TV and has said as much. So there are a bunch of comparisons. But .hack didn’t do anything original, either. Like the original SAO English dub (that is, Abridged) said, it all goes back to Everquest (and other MMOs). But .hack was very shallow, and SAO really only treads the same ground because they’re both about the same thing. And MMO tropes really feel tropey because… they are. So .hack is based on MMOs, and SAO is based on MMOs as well, but because .hack//SIGN was on TV when Reki Kawahara wrote his story, and he liked MMOs and he liked VR, so that’s something he was watching at the time. Anyway, with the show, you have SAO season 1, mainly the Aincrad arc, and you have .hack//SIGN, and you can see the similarities, but when you read the book, it goes so much deeper. And then it’s harder to see the similarities because the differences are greater.

(Disclaimer: I like both. I got into SAO because it was like .hack//SIGN for all the things I liked .hack//SIGN for… but it goes so much further than that.)

Thanks for your reply :D

I’m personally only interested in fantasy and/or isekai stories so I’m going to recommend my favorites in that genre:

Ascendance of a Bookworm - on the surface a nice little story about a reincarnated girl who wants to create books in a world where they are beyond her reach. Below the surface, the struggle and division between classes are a driving factor of the plot. It’s exceptionally well written, and the isekai aspect is more than just a narrative crutch. The main character also doesn’t get any op cheat powers. That the series is completed (and got an incredible ending) is either a pro or a con, depending on your disposition.

Cooking With Wild Game - Similar to Bookworm, this is another isekai story that features a underpowered main character and that is on the surface a lot different than what’s below. On the surface, it’s just some isekai MC cooking food for some woodland tribe. Below the surface, it’s another story about class divides. Also, just like Bookworm the stakes at play are constantly growing bigger. At first, it’s just between different tribes, then between the town and the tribes, then between the town and the nobles, then the duchy vs other duchies, and currently, there are the first signs that the stakes might involve other countries soon. It’s a very slow burn, but all the good characters are more lovable than in any other series.

Those two are locked in. 3rd place, on the other hand, is a bit more fluid. Changes for me depending on my mood. For the moment, let’s go with

The Otome Heroine’s Fight for Survival - another isekai (I know, shocking) story about a woman who gets reincarnated into the body of the heroine of an otome game (think very trope-y visual novel for girls). Technically, that’s not 100% true, but close enough for the sake of this recommendation here. She gets ousted by another reincarnated girl who assumes her position as the game’s heroine and instead starts to fight for herself in the wilderness. Over time, she becomes very overpowered with the help of some eccentric mentors she meets along the way. I love this series, especially for how ruthless MC is. For example, one group tries to kill her, she answers by completely annihilating said group to the point where members in other places start to whisper her name in fear. She’s the John Wick of the light novel world.

Those are my recommendations. You can also brows through the weekly “What have you read…” threads where we give quick impressions of the volumes we’ver read that week. Maybe something jumps out and interests you.

I’ve heard great things about Ascendance of a Bookworm (Ascendance of a GOATworm, as it’s often known), I guess this is as good a time as any to finally give it a shot :D
I’ve heard great things about Ascendance of a Bookworm (Ascendance of a GOATworm, as it’s often known), I guess this is as good a time as any to finally give it a shot :D