面白い日本語で書いてある青春向けの本をお

[hokushika]

Hey, after studying Japanese for about three years, I really want to try and read something other than textbooks; you know-real reading. I've tried the Nihongo Journal, but that is going (or already has gone) out of print. Ordinary adult novels and newspapers are still a way above my head (just sat 2kyuu) so thought that childrens/ "young adults" books might be the way to go. I just bought a couple of books called 日本の昔語り、and while I'm learning lots of new vocab (and a bit about Japanese culture at the same time), the language is a bit odd, and there is very limited use of kanji. I'm also reading ”ライオンと魔女" which, while being a similar level and much more everyday Japanese suffers from the same kanji deficiency problem. My question is, does anyone have any reccommendations for novels written in Japanese which

1) Have a difficulty level suitable for about 13- 15 year old Japanese kids (2kyuu ish)
2) Would be interesting for an adult to read, and
3) Use plenty of kanji (with furigana for the more difficult vocab, obviously)

I live in Japan, so it shouldn't be too hard to track down any titles. Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks

[Shaydwyrm]

Harry Potter might be a good place to start - it has furigana for most even remotely tricky kanji words. Manga are good too, though they tend to have furigana over all the kanji, which may not be what you want. I tend to read 名探偵コナン for fun when I don't feel like struggling through unknown compounds.

The first furigana-free book I've tried is a book of short stories by 吉本バナナ. The language is relatively easy, and I find that I know enough words that I can push through even if I miss a few. I think most of her books are written at the same generally readable level, so if you're interested I would suggest wandering over to the nearest BookOff and seeing which ones are on the 100円 shelf.