I'll copy @HarmlessDave's format.

Forget Being the Villainess, I Want to Be an Adventurer! - Could not stand it. Barely finished v1, never gave v2 a thought.

Did I Seriously Just Get Reincarnated as My Gag Character?! - Never finished v1. Something just was meh. But I honestly never gave it a fair shake. I should try it now.

Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles - I got to v17 before getting tired of it. I keep thinking I want to pick it back up, because I thought the world design was interesting, but I never do.

@myskaros

FYI, In Arifureta V5 P5, the wrong image is currently shown. It's currently an image of a bald guy lying on a sofa, but I think it should be Shizuku petting a cat. I think this may be something that got scrambled when you did your system upgrade a few months ago, the filename is consistent with the new naming conventions.

Since my last post, the largest gap - volumes Part 5, Volume 2 - P5, V11 have all been added, with only the last (Part 5, Volume 12) not being added.
The two volumes [[ Part 4, Volume 4 Part 4, Volume 6 ]] are still missing on Overdrive.

However, I didn't consider checking hoopla for books before!
While neither Overdrive or hoopla had a full set, each managed to fill the gaps in the other, so I finally got to find out what happened next!
Specifically, these two that were missing on Overdrive/Libby were on hoopla:
Part 4, Volume 4
Part 4, Volume 6

So, anyone else trying to finish the series but stymied by app availability might have a better chance if they check both Overdrive/Libby and hoopla. I did notice that different libraries had different stuff available on hoopla, so even though Bookworm is in the hoopla app, it might not be available through your local library. One of my libraries that had more of Bookworm on Overdrive, didn't have any of it on hoopla.

That does explain why it feels like offerings have gotten less variety. Though this is not very surprising.

@xdrfiredogx said in A Solid Selection for Spooky Season!:

The bland protag and paint by numbers story means that I dropped the Seirei Gensouki novels like 3rd period French, so that's a hard pass, and I'm caught up on Bakarina. I could try DLR, but my tolerance for super lucky, super OP isekai tends to be rather low...

The supporting cast is fun and grows over time, and the super luck isn't as strong as tearmoon or grieving souls. It might not be your cup of tea but you might try it while it's here.

Combat Baker is an absurd series, in all the right ways. Lud has perpetual Mean Face going, so he endlessly scares all the small children he wants nothing more than to bake treats for, and at every twist and turn folks keep dragging him into their fights when he's really just trying to get the perfect rise on his souffle!

The setting is interesting as well... think slightly steampunk Victorian aged Europe, except this version is what has arisen after civilization rose up to our level, and then collapsed into the dark ages, taking all that knowledge and history with it.

It's been ages now, but I remember really liking it... I might have to find time for a re-read

@myskaros Oh, I should've been born an American then. So I would have a day off on my birthday instead of having to go back to work. 😜

Ah, I looked it up. It's not a fixed date so it would only be a holiday when it's the first Monday in September.

@jpwong thanks a lot!
@Rahul-Balaggan thanks a lot! Wish you and your team a safe journey back home!

Nice to have Dahlia on catchup during the same month the anime is coming out. Quite an enjoyable series (with a misleading title) about a magic tool maker coming into her own. The romance is definitely sloooowww burn though. Nothing else quite to my tastes this month, but I do quite enjoy Dahlia.

'catchup' tag needed.

Oh wow. I guess I really have been too busy with work the past few of weeks. Never saw this news until today.

Excited that Hero & the Sage is licensed! I enjoyed the (fan-translated) manga and was looking forward that somebody would license the LN. I'll check that out soon.

Since June 1 falls on a weekend, catchups will be switching on Monday instead! Finish up your May catchup reading before then!

@saidahgilbert - it was a big shift from a mix of adventure and family time to 100% family time, and I agree the author didn't pull it off. I don't regret reading volumes 3-4 but I understand skipping them for being too much sugar without any spice.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but the April catchup switch will be slightly delayed. We hope to have it changed before end of US business, but it should definitely happen by tomorrow at the latest. Thank you for your patience!

@HarmlessDave said in Love Is in the Air for February's Catchups!:

The bad: Rentt loves to ramble in his conversations and especially his inner monologue. I've compared him to Mojo Jojo on more than one occasion. He will begin to ramble about one thing, then take off on a tangent and ramble about that. Unless you enjoy ramble-ception you'll need to learn to skim past pointless paragraphs now and then.

This to me is a highly attractive, unique quality. The way Rentt's thoughts flow, branch off, circle around, simmer and inform his attitude and actions is the closest reflection in literature I can recall (and I've been an avid reader for 5 decades) to what happens in my own head. Even if personality wise there are few parallels, to me it is most delightful to look from the side at someone looking from the side at themselves how they look from the side at what they're thinking.

I have not missed a word from that novel! (Except for the few longish fights, that has never been attractive to me and I skim/skip over any fight sequence longer than 1-2 paragraphs in anything I read - including those in works I love)

Slayers: Volume 1 by Hajime Kanzaka is now available as a DRM-free mp3 audiobook on Downpour.com
https://www.downpour.com/slayers-volume-1?sp=794225

The publisher is listed as "Findaway World". I did some searches for that publisher and "light novel" and "Young Adult Fiction" and found some more audiobook light novels by J-Novel Club and Seven Seas. Findaway publishes other audiobooks too.

The searches:
https://www.downpour.com/catalogsearch/result/?q="findaway world"#q=light novel&idx=live_downpour_en_en_products&p=0&dFR[imprint][0]=Findaway World%2C LLC&is_v=1

https://www.downpour.com/catalogsearch/result/?q="findaway world"#q=&idx=live_downpour_en_en_products&p=0&dFR[imprint][0]=Findaway World%2C LLC&fR[categories_without_path][0]=Young Adult Fiction&is_v=1

Some of the lightnovels.

Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire: Volume 1 by Hayaken
https://www.downpour.com/catalog/product/view/id/832611/s/reborn-to-master-the-blade/?sp=832612

The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent (Light Novel) Vol. 1 by Yuka Tachibana
https://www.downpour.com/the-saint-s-magic-power-is-omnipotent-light-novel-vol-1?sp=796306

Yen Audio titles are also available on Downpour.com
https://www.downpour.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=yen audio#q=yen audio&idx=live_downpour_en_en_products&p=0&dFR[imprint][0]=Yen Audio&is_v=1

Including:
The Miracles of the Namiya General Store by Keigo Higashino
https://www.downpour.com/the-miracles-of-the-namiya-general-store?sp=730497
Not a light novel, but a time-travel letter-writing mystery.

I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, Vol. 1 by Kisetsu Morita,
release scheduled for February
https://www.downpour.com/catalog/product/view/id/873529/s/i-ve-been-killing-slimes-for-300-years-and-maxed-out-my-level-vol-1/?sp=873530

@kuali said in Happy 2024! New Catchups for Members!:

Death's Daughter and the Ebony Blade: I'm a big fan of this one. You can never have too many cake-powered killing machines on your reading list.
That said, I will suggest that anyone reading this on catchup stop at the end of Volume 6. Volume 7 is more or less a prelude to the series' climax, and makes for an unsatisfying experience if read by itself - since it is basically all setup for a volume or volumes that aren't even in pre-pub yet. Better to save that one for when the series is finished.

Or at least until volume 7b comes out. Note that the latest to pre-pub was only the first half of volume 7. Volume 7 spans 2 books. (That's why the "Exordium" suffix on it, that's basically a really fancy way to say "part 1" without using the word "part" since JNC uses "part" for something else)

@Travis-Butler said in Wrapping Up the Year with December Catchups:

Or to put it another way, saying it’s a prologue is no excuse. An author has to catch and hold the readers’ interest from the start; expecting them to go through three slow books just to get to the real conflict in book four doesn’t work.

Like the people who say Final Fantasy < N > gets good after the first 30 hours of tedium, or TV show X gets good after season 1, which you can't skip if you want to understand season 2-on.

Not all of us have that much patience :)