Part 1 Volume 1 Chapter 1: A New Life

A New Life (新しい生活, Atarashii Seikatsu) is the first chapter of the Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 1 Volume 1 light novel adaption.

Urano wakes up sick with a fever and realizes she has been reincarnated into a different world in the body of Myne, a sickly 5 year old girl (her memories of her old life having been reawakened by her near-death experience through sickness). She interacts with her family for the first time, gains Myne's memories, and begrudgingly accepts her new identity. Myne does her best to sort through her new memories, but the old Myne's limited vocabulary with which to understand her surroundings causes her memories to be of limited use in understanding the world where she has ended up. However, she realizes she and her family are accustomed to living an uncomfortable and dirty life similar to that of medieval times and is quite upset at losing of the conveniences and cleanliness of Japan. Myne is convinced that she can survive any situation with a book though, so she tries to ask her sister Tuuli to get her one, but her attempts fail when she is unable to translate the word for book from Japanese to her new world's language. Myne is depressed over her new life, but she cheers herself up with the idea of being able to read books that don't exist on Earth. She decides to rest and recover from her illness so she can read books without any worries, so she drifts off to sleep while praying to be gifted with a book to read as soon as possible, and hopefully an entire library.

After Urano Motosu's death, she hears a child's voice complaining about the heat as it gradually fades into silence, then she wakes up with a fever, barely able to move. She finds herself lying on a bed in an unknown dirty and uncomfortable environment, and sees in front of her a small, weak hand which moves according to her thoughts. Urano's last memory makes her realize that she has died from being crushed by books, which she becomes embarrassed and regretful over.

Eventually, Urano recovers emotionally enough to start examining her surroundings and she notes the lack of books in horror. At that point, a lovely but dirt-covered woman enters the room. Unrecognizable sounds come out of the woman's mouth, sounds which instantly cause a stream of memories flow into Urano's head. Overwhelmed by familiar memories and emotions that are not her own, she struggles to hold on to her identity as Urano. The woman calls out to her, worried, until Urano finally responds by calling her "Mom". From that moment, in which she accepts this strange woman as her mother, she becomes her new identity, Myne.

Although Myne has accepted her new identity, she is disturbed by the feelings of having memories of her family but not actually knowing them, so she avoids her mom's touch and makes the excuse of wanting to sleep to get her to leave the room. Myne sorts through her new memories, learning as much as she can from them, but is limited by her knowledge being suited to her age; she only knows the words a small child would, causing many of the conversations in her memories to be incomprehensible. She does, however, manage to learn that her family is made up of her green-haired and mom Effa, her blue haired soldier father Gunther, her green-haired sister Tuuli, and she remembers that her own hair is dark blue. The unusual hair colors make Myne realize that she is now in a different world. Myne is unworried however, as she thinks that she can survive anywhere if she has books. She has just started to search her memories to figure out where she can find one when her sister Tuuli realizes she is awake and enters the room, so she tries to ask Tuuli for a book. The word book comes out in Japanese, as that word wasn't in Myne's memories, so Tuli can't understand what Myne wants. Myne gets frustrated and resolves to learn as many new words as possible, thinking that it would hopefully be easy with all of her knowledge, and that if she framed it as necessary to read books, she wouldn't mind the effort. Tuuli mistakes the cause of Myne's frustration as being her illness and tries to feel her temperature with dirty hands, causing Myne to make an excuse to avoid her touch. However, Myne realizes right afterwards how dirty her own hands (and entire body) are. She wants a bath, but knows from her memories that baths and toilets don't exist in her new world. Myne compares the dirtiness and hardship of her current life to the cleanliness and convenience of her old life in Japan and becomes sad before cheering herself up with the thought that she'll be able to read new books that she couldn't on Earth. Myne decides to rest so she can become well enough to read books. As she falls back asleep, she prays to be granted at least a book to read as soon as possible, but hopefully an entire library as well.

Characters are listed in order of appearance.


 * Myne (first appearance)
 * Effa (first appearance)
 * Tuuli (first appearance)
 * Gunther (mentioned)


 * A short section where Urano hears the old Myne sucumb to her illness is added at the beginning of the chapter.
 * Urano is woken up by a noise, like in the web novel, but the light novel differs in that she never finds out that it is her Mom making the noise while cooking.
 * Urano thinking about her mother is moved from after she meets Myne's mother to before it in the light novel.
 * The light novel excludes Turi getting called away from Myne to help Effa with supper and Gunther arriving home from work just as supper is ready.


 * Urano awakens as Myne.
 * Myne's family is introduced.


 * Book
 * Letters
 * Written
 * Illustrations
 * Picture Book
 * Bath


 * Myne's auto-translator only works for words the previous Myne knew or which she learns in the new world's language.
 * Myne's family's appearance is described in this chapter.
 * Myne thinks Effa and Tuuli waste their beauty by being covered in dirt.
 * This chapter reveals that Myne had never seen her appearance before.
 * Her family doesn't own any mirrors, and although the chapter doesn't mention other ways of seeing her reflection, such as water, it is unlike she would have had access to them due to water being a limited resource inside and being unable to go outside because of her health.
 * Myne mentions books 3 times when listing things she misses from Japan.
 * Many small details about Urano are hidden within the chapter. She is revealed to:
 * have had black hair
 * been 22 years old
 * been a college student nearing graduation
 * have been hired to start her dream job working as a college librarian soon