Weak Yen Book Recommendations

With the Yen plummeting, it‘s the perfect time to buy way too many books!

In that sense, I wanted to start a discussion about your favorite books you‘ve read in Japanese and – since this is a Language Learning subreddit – what level you think they‘d be appropriate for.

I‘ll start with 何者 (Nanimono) by 朝井リョウ (Asai Ryō).

It‘s a novel about a group of college acquaintances who go through the post-graduation job application phase together and try to figure who they (and the others) really are. It incorporates Tweets both in the story and the actual format of the book, which is really cool in my opinion. I also heard that it got adapted into a TV drama which is pretty popular, but I haven‘t look into that any further.

Language-wise, I would put it at N3/N2, depending on how high your tolerance is. I’m around N2 and read the book without lookups on the train to work and had no issues. The vocabulary is mostly focused on daily life and while there are some grammar structures I didn‘t know before, they are used frequently, so I came to know them pretty quickly.

I would love to hear your opinions/recommendations/favourite book or hidden gem you read recently that everyone else should definitely pick up.