I chose this book for a very specific book bingo related reason, and if not for that, I would have DNFed it after the first few pages. I hope that this will be the worst book that I read in 2024, and that things will only get better from here.
You see, I wanted to read a Light Novel*. Well, it’s not so much that I “wanted to read” as I thought it would fit a prompt. In doing some research, I saw they had a reputation for being poorly written and/or poorly translated, but I also knew a lot of people enjoyed them. I asked around and got some recommendations, and unfortunately, the ones that my friends said were better-written were not available as ebooks from the library. So even though my friend said they couldn’t recommend it without the anime (and I didn’t feel like watching anime), I decided to get Ascendance of a Bookworm, Part 1, Volume 1 by Miya Kazuki (edited by quof, with illustrations by You Shiina). I mean the concept sounded cute, so how bad could it be?
Very bad, it turns out.
I mean, this isn’t the worst book I’ve ever read. Far from it. For the most part it wasn’t offensive or harmful (though I’ll get into some CWs later). It just featured very clunky writing, an annoying protagonist, and chapter after chapter of descriptions of chores. It turns out something can in fact be simultaneously boring and annoying.
The basic plot is that Urano, who is an over-the-top stereotype of a bookworm, is killed in a freakish accident and “reincarnated” as Myne, a young girl in a poor family in a fantasy world with a medieval level of technology. Upon learning that books are rare and costly, she embarks on a series of attempts to make her own books, including trying to weave papyrus and bake clay tablets.
This would be really cute and entertaining, except that Urano is The Worst. Before dying, she was on the verge of graduating. As Myne, she’s about six. Her personality seems to split the difference, coming across as a really spoiled, self-centered, mean tween. She is constantly whining and complaining, thinking rude thoughts about her new family (who have no idea she’s no longer the child they raised for the past half-dozen years!), and making selfish use of the family’s resources and her time, often refusing to help with chores and just being a little shit. Here’s a list of the things Urano cares about:
- Books
- Cleanliness
- Embarrassment
- Sometimes, just sometimes, her new older sister
She uses her friends, family, and anyone else she meets to further her goal of being able to make a book. If she does anything nice for someone else, it’s usually so they’ll give her something she needs, or otherwise help her. Otherwise she’s constantly judging them for not being up to the high standards of modern-day Japan.
She’s also such an annoying example of a “bookworm” that she made me want to like books less, just so I’d be less like her.
Because this is just the first part of the first volume of a longer series, Urano/Myne doesn’t get much of a character arc. We don’t see any real personality growth for her. She achieves some goals, but honestly, not a lot happens even though this book is several hundred pages long. It’s very slice-of-life-y, which could have been cozy with the right character, but with Urano/Myne, it was just annoying.
Upon reading the author’s note in the back, I found out this started out as a web novel, which explains a lot. This isn’t to say that I think all work that starts out self-published on the web is bad, merely that there’s zero editorial oversight, no one telling you “Could we have a few less descriptions of making shampoo and chopping veggies?” And publishers around the world seem all too eager to scoop up these web-based works when they get popular, and republish them with little to no change to make a fast buck.
If you’ve watched and enjoyed the anime, maybe there’s some extra enjoyment to be gained out of reading the book, but otherwise I can see no reason to recommend it.
CWs and TWs: There’s some descriptions of butchering animals. Mostly, though, I’d like to talk about the fact that Myne has a chronic illness (which likely led to her “death” and Urano’s ability to take over her body?), and Urano spends a lot of time thinking of herself as useless and a burden because she’s small for her age, tires easily, and gets bedridden with fevers if she exerts herself. Also, the way she constantly thinks of stuff in terms of how it was in Japan, versus in the modern times, verges on weirdly nationalistic at times and weirded me out.
Format and Source: I read this as an ebook from Pierce County Library System.
Book Bingo Prompts
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): Feel Like a Kid Again. First of all, Urano not only feels like a kid again, she IS a kid again. I can’t imagine how frustrating it would have been to suddenly be 6 again when I was in my early 20s. But also, reading this book made me feel like a kid again… in a bad way. Remember when adults would condescend to you, and when a lot of your media was just kinda crappy because companies felt they didn’t have to make a big effort to make stuff for kids, just make it good enough that you’d want to buy those tie-in toys? Yeah, this feels kind of like that.
Brick & Mortar: Genre you’ve never tried. This might be the hardest book bingo prompt I’ll ever do. Look, I’m in my 40s. Like Urano, I’ve been a bookworm my entire life. I also grew up poor in a town without a library, and with the nearest bookstore at least half an hour away, until we moved to the city when I was 12. And I’ve been doing book bingo challenges since 2020. What I’m saying is, in my life, I have dipped into A LOT of genres, whether because I was desperate for something to read, or because I read a review that made something outside my usual box sound interesting, or because book bingo made me do it. Most genres that I haven’t read are because they’re really antithetical to me, or just completely irrelevant. I had it narrowed down to Light Novel, Sports Romance (and I really don’t like sports), or Travelogue (and I may have read something at some point that would count for that). I probably should have tried my luck with a Sports Romance.
Current Bingo Challenge Progress
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 5 out of 25 prompts complete. 0 bingos.
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 2 out of 25 prompts complete. 0 bingos.
Brick & Mortar: 9 out of 25 prompts complete. 0 bingos.
*What is a Light Novel anyway? It’s not just a novel that happens to be light, like a cozy fantasy, but a specific style of Japanese book geared towards teens-and-twenties readers. They seem to deal with a lot of similar themes and tropes as manga and anime and some of them are adapted to or from or related to series in those formats.