So You Want to Live the Slow Life? A Guide to Life in the Beastly Wilds, Vol. 2

So You Want to Live the Slow Life?, Book 2

By: Fuurou

Narrated by: Brian Nishii

Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

How to enjoy the slow life at home!

Mikura is finally starting to get used to his new life in the Beastly Wilds. Things were going great with his Beastfolk neighbors—until one day, he makes a seemingly innocent comment that turns his life completely upside down! Things only get even more interesting when a visit from his parents unearths a mysterious incident from his childhood adventures in the Beastly Wilds! What secrets are the Beastly Wilds keeping, and how will they change his relationship with Techi?

©2022 Fuurou (P)2023 Podium Audio

Next please

Hopefully book 3 will come out soon to audiobook so I can continue listening it’s a great story and I enjoy both the book and the narrator who reads the book for audiobook

Good

Nice and relaxing fantasy slice of life. . . . . . . . . 👍

A good second entry to the series

Wholesome and enjoyable. The narrator's accent compliments the setting of the story well. Looking forward to book three!

Peaceful and makes you hungry

This is a warm hearted story about friendship that's unforgettable and to love.😊 read or listen to it and you'll see what I mean. However if you like to cook get both so you can look over the recipes . Of course a cookbook is what you really needed to make the food like the main guy character . So everyone please read this and give the book good reviews so we can read more from this series and to the author please can we have a paperback cookbook?😔😉

Cooking show + Underdeveloped relationships.

The narrator was above average, stayed consistent with which voices he used for which characters and had just enough of them for this small group of characters.

As with the previous book, better than 50% by content of this book was an excuse for the author to show us how to cook some of their favorite dishes and to expound about preserving food. A man conveniently ends up with an inordinate amount of free time and a nearly free source of income. Stick him in a house with two food loving companions who ask all the obvious questions you'd want from an audience, and poof cooking show.

Despite that, the world building and cultural backstory are well developed and compelling. everything from the political situation to the history of the beast folk has been thought through. *side note: Mitochondrial DNA, is probably a good fantasy answer for the whole beast folk following the Mother's line thing.

In all of it, the part that really kept me from enjoying this simple slow story centered around cooking was the way the author conducted the relationship between Mikura (MC) and Techi (love interest). The trope of a cultural misunderstanding leading to a relationship is completely fine, but not actually committing any time to discussing feelings between them like actual adults was not. Any time after the misunderstanding would have worked. Rather than feeling like it was a natural progression of the situation, their relationship just felt like something that the author wanted to happen so it did. I fear an element of Japanese culture that I do not understand may be keeping me from understanding the MC's reasons here. I thought when his mother told him to pull his head out of his butt and think about things that that would be the time, but no. When a secret about his childhood and his memories is later revealed you could see further elements of their childhoods that could have played well into a deep well-developed relationship, but that wasn't how the author chose to do it.

If you enjoy hearing someone talk about cooking, learning about preserving food, and don't mind a little bit of a fantasy-esque story to string it all together then this book is for you.

If on the other hand you're very much in it for the characters and the relationships I believe you will find this to be an okay read but not very satisfying.

4 stars overall for world building
4 stars for the excellent narrator
3 stars for a relationship that just sorta happened