NickT Wrote:In Japanese?

Most people I have heard recommend it read it in English. I tried it in Japanese and to be honest I struggled...

Yeah I read it in Japanese. It was more difficult than most of the other books I've read but it's worth it. I'd recommend you give it another go if it's been a while since you gave up on it.

If you're looking for a little bit of a challenge, I just wanted to say that I definitely recommend the 十二国記 series by 小野不由美 (and they are incidentally included in the innocent book selection~!)

The genre is kind of fantasy/historical, but a lot of the story elements are taken right out of classical Chinese mythology/religious beliefs. It's a bit of a difficult read because of that, but if you like learning that kind of stuff right along with your learning of Japanese I don't think you can ask for a better source. There actually was an anime series made out of a couple of the books too (titled 'The Twelve Kingdoms' in English) that isn't bad either !