Earwen

God this book was so annoying!! Parts of it were really good but other parts just pissed me off.

First of all, Mor is an asshole. She has a bad case of I'm-not-like-the-other-girls. She ‘s so condescending toward the girls in her school. Sure most of them do treat her badly but even the ones that are supposedly her friends she treats like shit. She calls the girl who is her only constant friend through the book repeatedly stupid. There is another girl who is friendly to her and they have relatively similar interests. Mor finds her creepy. Of course this has nothing to do with the fact that she's a lesbian, oh no Mor unlike the other girls isn't homophobic. Therefore her stopping talking to her completely after telling her she's not interested is a coincidence too. Another girl is jewish and Mor is constantly jealous of her because she gets special food. She considers faking being jewish to get the same food. Seriously? This girl is 15!!

The whole book is incredibly weird about sex and sexuality. Mor out of the blue claims most people must like both men and women but not her, she only likes men. Because she is “peculiar”. Towards the end she meets a “beautiful boy” and the book more or less becomes about the shitty romance. The boy, Wim has a bad reputation, because his ex-girlfriend got pregnant and had to get an abortion, or that's what the rumors say. No one knows for sure. People still warn her away from him. Mor tells him that they were both stupid but the girl was even more so for making a big deal out of it. Wim repeatedly calls his exes morons, unlike Mor who is smart and reads science fiction. Mor is generally happy to hear this. It's infuriating. Oh and while I'm at the topic. God she keeps going on about how she doesn't want love or marriage, ever. She only wants a friendship where they sometimes have sex. And yet she's jealous over Wim, and there is stuff obviously indicating she's in love with him. I think Jo Walton really tried to have her this super special ahead of her times girl but couldn't let go of the dumb romance either.

However the worst bit -(tw csa) at some point in the story Mor's father while drunk attempts to sleep with her, she tells him off. Later thinks maybe she shouldn't have, because she doesn't really consider him her father. Which in itself, fair enough she hadn't met the man before a few months ago. But surely a 15 year old girl would have a stronger reaction to this? It's never brought up again it serves no purpose. Besides perhaps Jo Walkton trying to tell me that incest isn't that bad?

However this stupid annoying bullshit book was still fucking FUN I was going to give it 3 stars but typing up all that made me realize it doesn't really deserve it at all. I enjoyed Mor's voice in the first half I generally like young narrators. But honestly, I hadn't realized she was supposed to be 15!! She simultaneously manages to sound both like a 10 year old and a 80 year old. I also liked the parts she talked about books, though I can see it might be annoying to a lot of people. She just kept dumping book title after book title saying a few words if anything about them. The ones I did read I generally had a vastly different opinion on than her. But it was still fun. But you know what? I would have gotten the same experience going through someones goodreads list. It felt like and attempt to appeal to nostalgia. Oh she liked lord of the rings? Oh why, I love lord of the rings! This book is amazing! (This is hypothetical I in fact can't stand Lotr). The magic stuff was interesting too but in the end it ended in an unsatisfying stupid place when Wim got involved god forbid the love interest wont put his nose everywhere. I liked it much better when it was vague.
ANYWAY the longer I go on the lower I want to rate it, it was enjoyable so I guess I'll give it 2 stars and feel angry some more.

thank you goodreads for removing my rating and read dates from this because i dared add a missing tag to it today

NOT a good first japanese novel unless you are in a hurry to learn how to describe various gross smells

My opinion on the actual work is kind of mixed but I also feel like my jp level was below ideal for this, and any review would be unfair.
Not to mention, it took me about 2 years to read, which also isn't ideal for a decent review.

for the whole series: it starts of strong with its ups and downs, the best part is shortly after the first timeskip. After the 2nd timeskip it kind of goes to shit.
Great art throughout though.
Also there is a scene where a character is asked if he gained weight and he replies my suit is packed with explosives which i need to remember as a reply

i really tried with this book but I couldn't stand interested and it ultimately just put me in a reading slump. putting it down for now.