Adachi and Shimamura (Light Novel) Vol. 1

De: Hitoma Iruma

Narrado por: Analise Scarpaci

What A Girl Wants

Adachi is skipping class when she first meets fellow truant Shimamura in the gym loft, and just like that, a friendship is born. Except now Adachi's having dreams about kissing her, and she doesn't know what that means, but she's pretty sure it's not something you do with a friend.

What are these strange feelings she has when she thinks of Shimamura? And is it possible Shimamura feels the same way?

©2013 Hitoma Iruma (P)2013 Hitoma Iruma

Really really good and relatable and cute

Yearning, feeling awkward but trying to push through and better know that person you like ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Cute and Very Japanese

Why do I say it's very Japanese? Well, there is a girl with glowing blue hair, eyes, and eyebrows that says she is a space alien from the future, and everyone just sort of rolls with it. As for the main plot, it captures well the awkwardness of young love. Very cute.

Yuri at its finest!

This story is probably my favorite romance story I've ever read. The book is a slow burn, but it's a good burn that warms the soul. I love seeing Adachi and Shimamura's relationship slowly grow into a bond that transcends time itself. Hitoma Iruma knows how to write characters that love to sit around and do nothing and make them into compelling people with depth and agency.
Analise Scarpaci has done a wonderful job at bringing this first volume to life. Whether you are going into this series brand new or wanting to experience the first volume again, I give my highest recommendation to this audiobook! I await the next volume with great anticipation.

The story I love most.

Adachi and Shimamura is one of my favorite Light Novels, I own all of them and seeing them getting a audio version is incredible. The performance was honestly pretty good too, definitely surprised me.

Fantastic

I love the series can't wait for more and amazing voice work.i can't wait to see how the series progresses.

A slow-burn love story and a perfect narrator

I've already read the entire Adachi and Shimamura series, and it's one my all-time favorites, so I already knew this book well. I was excited when I heard an audio book was being released, and mercifully, I only found out a couple of weeks before the release date, so I didn't have an agonizing wait. My only two concerns were: 1) Would the narrator fit and be good, and 2) Why wasn't it showing up on Audible even mere days before the release-- was Audible not going to get it? The latter wasn't a super big issue, because I knew I could still get it elsewhere. The former was the bigger question, and luckily any doubts or concerns proved to be unnecessary.

Performance: Analise Scarpaci is great. She gives a sincere performance with life and character. She does what the best narrators paired with the right material do: make it feel like a performance, or radio drama, and not someone just sitting there reading a book into a microphone. The voices she uses for the main characters sound almost exactly as I pictured when I read the books. The minor characters aren't quite as close to what I pictured, maybe 90% there, but that's on me, and they're still really great.

Story: Adachi and Shimamura is a translation of a Japanese light novel. If you don't already know, it's a slice-of-life yuri (girls' love) story. In English there are currently (as of the release of this audio book) 11 novels and 1 book of short stories, with more novels on the way. The series tells the story of two high-school girls who meet while skipping class and hiding out in the gym loft. They eventually become friends, and eventually their feelings change and grow. It's usually not a very smooth journey though, because in their changing and growing they're not always on the same page. It's a very slow-burn story, so if that's not your thing, be warned. It's also not lurid at all. But what's great about the series is how real the main characters feel. The book's point-of-view switches between the two characters from time to time; sometimes chapter by chapter, sometimes within the chapter. The audio book makes those switches easier to follow due to the changes in character voice. Shimamura is the initial POV character, and we learn that even at her young age, she's a bit burnt out on life. Adachi is shyer and more introverted than Shimamura. As they spend their days hiding out in the gym, they don't even know how to have a decent conversation with each other. Conversations start and fizzle all the time. So, they're not really meeting there as friends, more like simply sharing a space. But little by little they get to know each other, and slowly, a bond grows. For me, the characters felt so real that I didn't mind the pacing; they became people I knew and cared about, whose story I wanted to follow, even though there were times when they let me down or made me mad. Be aware though that there's one secondary character who may seem odd and out of place. I grew to really like that character though. Some people feel differently. I say just go with it and it'll be fine.

By the way, there's a 12-episode anime that covers the first 3 books or so. It's good, but not nearly as good as the novels, because in the books we're in the characters' heads, seeing it all from that POV and hearing all of their innermost thoughts, and almost all of that had to go for the anime. I think it works best if you've already read the books. Also, there's a manga that's currently at volume 5, but again, as well done as it is, it doesn't hold a candle to the novels. But the fact that there's an anime, manga, and audio book shows how popular and loved the series is. The average rating of the novels on Amazon is 4.8.

I really hope the rest of the series also gets the audio book treatment, especially with Analise narrating!

Great start to a lovely slow burn romance

This was a relatively short but incredibly engrossing listen, I hope so so so much that they intend to adapt the rest of the series to audiobook (I will literally buy them all even though I've read the books twice plus the manga). Analise Scarpaci had distinct and very fitting voices for each of the characters, I really couldn't imagine a better reader for them after just this one short volume.

As for the story, it's pretty much what it says on the tin, but I urge you to give it a shot if you're even slightly interested in the synopsis. The inner thoughts of the characters and their constant introspection really hits for me, probably one of the more relatable teenage love stories, in my personal opinion.

Can't wait for more, I've been refreshing the page for a month already!

Love it

Love this story, and the narrator did an amazing job. Hope there is more to come.

Wasted potential

Very good narrator, but her talent is wasted on this. Cutting out the "lol random" alien would greatly improve the story, but sadly that would be half the book. It's such a stark contrast to the genuine and grounded story it's trying to tell and actively takes away from it.