For the final week of this year's summer reading program, we will discuss the final third of Re:Zero (volume 1) and Our Journey to the End of the Ceasing World. This is also your chance to discuss the two books as a whole, so feel free to share any general impressions.
Re:Zero
The final chapter of this volume was pretty exciting. I felt the author did a good job at writing a climactic action sequence detailing everyone’s struggle against Elsa. There are a few issues I had with the final act though:
- I’m not sure how I feel about Reinhard showing up just in time to save everyone. This is a trope I’m not fond of in any medium — I generally prefer it when the main characters work things out through their own merits and limitations.
- Loads of unanswered questions. Actually, pretty much every question I had over the course of this volume is left unanswered. I understand there are more volumes to be had in this series, but it still bothered me. We don’t even find out what the badge was! The thing everyone in the volume is fighting over! The lack of any kind of explanation over the Satella thing was also rather aggravating.
- I still have mixed feelings regarding Subaru’s… dumbness. Mainly I just don’t find most of his dialogue that funny, but there are times where he does go too far with his social ineptitude. His actions ultimately show his heart’s (overall) in the right place, but I can understand some readers not liking him.
- Elsa gets away at the end. Can this volume feel any more inconclusive? I get that this was originally a web novel series (and thus didn’t need to really follow a “series of books” structure), but still…
As always, feel free to guess what happens next. (e.g. What’s up with Felt at the end there? or How many more times must Subaru die to appease the fantasy world?) I don’t think anyone has commented on Re:Zero in these posts who hasn’t already seen the anime though. In which case, feel free to compare the novel to its anime adaptation.
Our Journey to the End of the Ceasing World
What do you think of this novel? Did anyone read it?
I’d like to say you all should have read it, but I personally just couldn’t get into this one. The final act was no different from the first two, and really not much of anything happens in this book as a whole. The author didn’t work with the premise in a way that I found interesting, and there was nothing to like about either of the main characters. While the boy was just thoroughly bland, I continually found the girl aggravating from start to finish. (She wasn’t quite as obnoxious as Ranta from Grimgar, at least?)
What do you think of the final vignette featuring the “princess” and the doctor? Any thoughts on either of them?
What does this story have to say about journeys? In what ways does the story being a travelogue affect its general themes and messages?
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As mentioned before, feel free to discuss any point you would like to bring up about either (or both) of these two books. General impressions, predictions for how the stories will play out, some compare/contrast between the two books, or any random observations and things you'd like to analyze are all fair game.