Boys love high school romance

This was a recommendation I found through Book Riot and I enjoyed it! Enoki is a high school student and a huge nerd. He has the whole nerd aesthetic; giant coke bottle glasses, dorky outfits, social anxiety and mainly keeps to himself and his two fellow club members. His engineering club is in danger of being shut down if they can’t get one more member, so he faces his fears and tries to hand out flyers, which doesn’t go well. Luckily Shirataki, a cool, good-looking student is kind to him and helps him collect his papers, and agrees to join the club so it doesn’t shut down.
In the process of Shirataki begins to get to know Enoki and admires him for his dedication and willingness to put in hard work. He finds Enoki amusing, and Enoki finds Shirataki intriguing, so the two develop a fast friendship.

Only the club president seems to understand what’s going on between them and has a bit of an arm-wrestling match for the chance to romance Enoki, which wakes Shirataki up to his feelings. After Enoki tries to help Shirataki reunite his family and stays with him for moral support, the two clearly are into one another and have a bit of a crisis trying to figure out these first feelings of love before admitting how they feel.

This was a pretty good boys’ love manga. I thought the relationship between Shirataki and Enoki moved along well and I did believe they were friends who respected one another before getting romantic. Trying to reunite Shirataki’s family was a nice scene as it showed how emotional the boys were, but how they began to understand that adult life (and his parent’s relationship) is a lot more nuanced and confusing than they could really fathom. The one thing I wasn’t a fan of was the sex scene in the end. It wasn’t terrible or anything, but it just feels like sometimes these boys love mangas feel compelled to include a sex scene even if it throws off the pacing of the story, which is how this felt. Not awful or anything, just the sweetness of the whole story felt like it was going to wrap up, and then BOOM they have to have awkward teenage sex. Not my jam but overall it didn’t change my opinion of the book too much.

Title: This Wonderful Season With you
Author: Atsuko Yusen
Format:  Paperback
Pages: 274
ISBN: 9781427867490

Three Descriptors: Emotional, Friends to Lovers, Oddly Paced,