Miya Kazuki

Urano is a Japanese college graduate who's absolutely obsessed with books and reading. Both she and her mom are thrilled when she gets a job at a library, but before she even has a chance to start, an earthquake causes Urano's book collection to fall on her and kill her. She wakes up in the body of a sickly 5-year-old child named Myne.

Although Myne's memories tell her that she loves her parents and older sister and they love her back, it's a little difficult for her to connect with them show more emotionally, since they feel mostly like strangers to her. Still, she tries to adjust to her life as best as possible, arranging things so that both she and her new family's cleanliness is improved and trying to make something resembling Japanese food without any of the proper ingredients, not even rice. The thing that's hardest for her to take, however, is the complete lack of books. The nobility can afford books, but poor commoners like her own family can't. Rather than succumb to despair, however, Myne/Urano (who I will refer to as Myne from here on out, although the real Myne is technically dead) decides that she will somehow make her own books.

As is the case with many, many recent light novels, I like the idea behind this series more than its execution. In the afterword, the author says they (I think the author is female, but I'm not 100% sure) refused to abridge Part 1 into a single volume, which I think was a mistake. I wish Japanese light novel publishers/editors were a bit firmer with their authors - far too many light novels are filled with self-indulgent bloat, and Ascendance of a Bookworm is no exception.

As I learned with My Next Life as a Villainess, though, I can be more forgiving of problems in light novels if aspects of them overlap with my interests. In this instance, the book got points for having a book-loving heroine, and the self-indulgent bloat was mostly focused on Myne's efforts at bookmaking. I was interested to see what she'd come up with next and how she'd manage it, considering that it took her weeks just to work up the strength to walk to the forest on her own.

But was it really necessary to go into that much detail on several of Myne's attempts to make something paper- or book-like? Probably not. Same with Myne's various food-making, cleanliness, and personal hygiene efforts. Literally every idea Myne had involved a long, multi-step process to figure out if this world even had the supplies she needed, if those supplies were accessible in some way to commoners, and then how to get those supplies and use them, considering that Myne's body was so weak that overexerting herself could result in being bedridden with a fever for multiple days.

Myne won me over at the very beginning due to her love of books. She was the sort of person who'd find a way to read whenever she could, and she didn't care about anything except making sure she continued to have access to books and reading time. It didn't bother her if other people thought she was odd. However, this single-minded focus eventually began to wear on me. For one thing, in a world like the one she ended up in, it made Myne seem immensely selfish. Her family was literally dirt poor, and she kept asking for things with barely a thought as to whether they could afford them or spare the time to get them. For another, she'd occasionally have tantrums more appropriate to her physical age than supposed mental age when things didn't go her way. Honestly, Tuuli, Myne's 6 or 7 year old sister, usually came across as more mature than Myne, whose mind was supposedly that of a college graduate.

Like many recent light novels, this was unfortunately written primarily in the first person. The author knew enough about POV to realize that different first person narrators would have different sets of knowledge (there were a couple bonus stories written from a couple non-Myne POVs), but not enough to create truly distinct voices (or maybe that was a translation issue?). Also, as with other J-Novel Club books I've read, there were several typos that really should have been caught before this made it to print - a sentence with really odd comma usage, a stray "1" at the end of a sentence, incorrect words like "first" instead of "fist," etc.

Despite my issues with this book, I'm glad I have the next one and can continue on. The end of the volume introduced a few characters and a shift in the storyline that I'm very interested in seeing play out. Although I'm sure that Myne will continue to be more focused on books than anything else, it looks like the series may add some economic aspects, similar to Spice & Wolf and Accomplishments of the Duke's Daughter. And since that may mean more appearances by one of my favorite characters in this book, a traveling merchant turned soldier named Otto (whose level of devotion to his wife makes him this series' version of Maes Hughes), I'm looking forward to it even more.

I really wish this had been the more tightly written novel it could have been, but so far this is decent.

Extras:

A folded page with full-color illustrations on both sides, black-and-white illustrations throughout, a map of the portion of the town Myne has access to, a drawing of Myne's family's home, and two bonus short stories, one from Lutz's POV and one prequel from Urano's friend Shuu's POV.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

My husband introduced me to TV series and I fell in love with Urano/Myne. When I couldn't wait to find out what happened next, I bought this book (ebook). It’s been my favorite book series ever since. Unlike Familiar_Diversions, I love the details in this book.
When Urano dies in an earthquake, buried in her beloved books, she wakes up in the body of Myne. Myne is 5, very sick, and the 2nd child of poor parents. Unfortunately, Urano retains her memories and her obsession with reading. show more Learning to adapt is hard. Books and writing materials are out of the reach of the average person. Basic hygiene is primitive and the cooking doesn’t meet her expectations of taste. Myne decides to remedy these lacks.

My star ratings: 1 = couldn't complete it. 2 = Not good but I could finish it 3= Good book 4= Really Good 5= Great book that I will/have reread show less

In order for Myne and Lutz to become the official apprentices of Benno, a merchant, they must first create prototypes of the paper Myne told Benno about. Myne soon realizes she may have bitten off more than she can chew, even with Lutz's help - the prototypes will require supplies and equipment that will take them ages to make. However, the two of them aren't doing this alone anymore. As Myne learns more about how apprenticeships and the world of merchants works, she comes closer to her show more ultimate goal, obtaining a book. The hairpin Myne made for Tuuli also makes a reappearance, and turns out to be more profitable than Myne could have imagined.

This volume had most of the same issues the first one had. Certain parts of the story were more detailed than they really needed to be, and the story and overall pacing still suffered a bit from the author's unwillingness to cut out self-indulgent bloat. Myne was still selfish and more emotionally invested in her goal of creating a book than in the human beings around her who cared for her - Urano had lived in this world for a year as Myne, by this point, so this bothered me even more this time around than it did in the first volume.

Even so, I thought this particular volume was a good deal better than the first one. Instead of every one of Myne's ideas getting bogged down by what she, a frail 6-year-old child, could accomplish or talk others into doing for her, this time around Myne had funding and assistance from adults. It was incredibly refreshing not to have to read about, say, Myne's painstaking efforts to either acquire the materials to make a pot or the funds to buy one before she could even begin to try to make paper.

One of the author's weak areas seems to be creating characters with interesting/unique personalities - nearly everyone reminds me of characters I've seen before in other series, and it probably doesn't help that Myne generally isn't interested enough in people to get to know them on more than just a surface level. Still, one thing this volume did do was introduce characters who opened up Myne's world in fun new ways. I'm partial to fantasy merchants, so Benno was a favorite of mine, and I particularly enjoyed his scenes with the guildmaster of the Merchants' Guild. And Lutz, Myne's friend, grew on me a lot.

As far as the author's use of great gobs of detail went, I enjoyed most of the paper-making process and the info Myne learned about the economics of this world but felt that the hairpin stuff bogged the story down. It also felt kind of weird that Myne went from "I'm giving my family part of my pay in an act of filial piety" (when she was paid to make paper) to "I'm paying my family members to do temp work for me" (when she was paid for hairpins).

Myne's illness has added more of a sense of urgency to the series, so I'm looking forward to seeing where that goes. Since I doubt the author plans to kill Myne off anytime soon, at some point nobles are going to be added to the cast of characters. Here's hoping their presence crowds out some of the more annoying additions to the cast. Myne's obsession with books and paper can be a bit much as it is, I really don't need Freida's obsession with money on top of that.

Extras:

A folded page with full-color illustrations on both sides, black-and-white illustrations throughout, a map of the portion of the town Myne has access to, a drawing of Myne's family's home, and two bonus short stories, one from Corinna's POV and one from Myne's mother's POV.

While I was okay with the bonus stories in the first volume, the ones in this one were pretty bad. Corinna's story, in particular, would have been better off in the trash. It was a flashback to Otto's "courtship" of her - meeting her when she was still 6 months away from being legally considered an adult and falling instantly in love with her, and then basically giving up his entire life over the course of two or three days until she was essentially boxed into two options, marrying the youngest son of the guildmaster or marrying Otto. She seemed okay with her final decision, but it didn't paint Otto in a good light. I also very much disliked the part where Corinna (jokingly? I hope?) suggested that Myne could end up marrying Benno if his work makes him too busy to find a wife. Myne is six and Benno is maybe in his twenties. No. Just no. Light novel authors (and manga authors, you know who you are), please stop doing this.

Effa's story was just boring, and the author or translator's attempt at giving her a "voice" was dry and unconvincing. Pretty much the only reason I'd recommend reading either of these two stories is because they contain some character background info that I don't think gets brought up at all in the main story.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

As the series nears it conclusions, a lot of threads are beginning to be woven together. I love that Myne has developed as a character. She is enthusiastic, obsessed and in some ways emotionally stunted. She can't read people or the situation very well but she is trying hard. She is relatable as a non-perfect person who adores reading and books so much that her biggest goal is to be a librarian. She tries to do the right thing, even though her idea of right doesn't always mesh with the world show more around her. show less