I Want to be a Wall, Vol. 1

[cornerofmadness]

I Want to be a Wall, Vol. 1 by Honami Shirono

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I stumbled over this because I needed a book for a 'sexless marriage' prompt and I knew I wanted a lavender marriage. This fit the bill.

Yuriko is an aro-ace woman who is a huge fan of Boys Love manga/novels/anime. Gakurouta is a gay man in love with his straight best friend from school. Both seem to be exhausted by the pressure to marry and so they marry each other. I'm not sure they even really knew each other well before they marry. We don't get a lot of details about the marriage. It opens with them moving in together (with Yuriko's giant stash of BL literature.)

Gakurouta is very naive. He doesn't even really know about BL stuff but falls in love with reading hers (which she doesn't really want him to do). They don't know how really to live together. They don't know what foods they like (nor can they cook), They don't know how to deal with the newlywed sex jokes from everyone. They're pretty clueless about a lot of things really.

We get both their rather sad backstories, how he is hung up on his friend from school (who is still in the picture as a gardener and friend) and how she hides in BL otaku land because here she doesn't feel weird and on the outside which being aro-ace she still does (she didn't even have a term for it until college abroad).

It's a decent story with nice art but I'm not sure I'd want to read more of it as I'm not into contemporary manga.



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Check, Please! Book 2: Sticks & Scones

[cornerofmadness]

Check, Please! Book 2: Sticks & Scones by Ngozi Ukazu

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I didn't like this nearly as much as I liked the first two volumes. It tried to cram way way too much into it. Also I was much more bothered by the fact that Jack looks 40 and Bittle looks 12 than I was in the first book. I know they are only a few years apart but appearance wise you couldn't tell it.

But my issue with this as I said above, there's too much jammed in. We have the last two years Bittle has at college. Jack's first two years as a pro hockey player. The graduation of half of his friends. Coming out to his conservative southern family. Coming out as a pro athlete. Bittle being the head of the team in his senior year. And then on top of that was jammed in a championship season for Jack (which felt tacked on with not much emotional response to it).

I wish they would have trimmed off the championship thing at the very least. We didn't need that. We also didn't need the influx of new guys with their issues. It made everything feel scattered. The story wanted to sprawl everywhere. It's still sweet and Bittle is nothing but kindness, a total cinnamon roll. I just wish the story was tighter.



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