I'm trying to do this right now, in German. I grab my phone to look up words that are unfamiliar or that I just cannot remember. It's been 30 years since I took a German class. I found an ebook of Treasure Island translated into simplified German (man, if this is simplified, I definitely could not read something that was not). It's extremely slow going. I'm doing well if I can read and understand three pages at a time. But I feel really badass when I do read and understand whole passages!

I read The Sun Also Rises in high school and hated it. If you want to read something good but more accessible, Slaughterhouse Five is written in pretty simple prose and is a great, great book. If you don't object to reading something translated into English, Haruki Murakami writes in a very bare-bones style, but his books are amazing.

Thank you for the phone tip! I'm trying to learn Japanese on my own, and not knowing the pronunciation of unfamiliar words is really hindering me!