The game is much better, and everything makes much more sense later on

This was an interesting video, as I've never seen someone introduced to NieR Replicant in other media that it wasn't Automata (the most popular sequel game) or the actual game. Some things that I disliked on the book is that they completely skipped the prologue with the siblings in 2053, it's such an interesting sequence how after that there's a whole time skip to 3465, you're introduced to the same pair of siblings now living on this village somehow; and this is something that gets stuck on your mind until it's finally answered moments before credits are rolling out. The other one is that Devola and Popola working as overseers on Project Gestalt isn't something to be known until the very end of the story, but I can't give more details as that would spoil more than making a point of out it. Honestly, just like in the game, the later half of the story is where all the good stuff happens, it just feels like everything here was necessary to get introduced to everyone and just it, but the second half does a perfect job on giving each "location" a memorable close that I can't blame the first half on being slow, so I would 100% encourage you to get it if you find it discounted as well.

If your're looking for Japanese books, I highly recommend Kokoro by Natsume Soseki :)