"Kare" First Love
Kare First Love

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This was one of the manga's I read while in high school. I came back to it about 7 years later and enjoyed it just as much. It's a cute story and the fact that the relationship between the characters flourishes the way it does, warms my heart. It hit a lot of the pressure points most girls have when it comes to strict families and upbringing to start understanding that it's okay to have a boyfriend. Also stresses a good part about how she deals with a teenage boys libido with the way she is. The insecurities and all make it very real. It ... felt like a touch of slice-of-life but not as "depressive-ness" I guess?

I also love the guy's point of view where it's not all about the girl. He also has a life of his own and he's pursuing that. He's ambitious and passionate about his photography which really adds to the story.

Kare First Love features the kind of tropey set-up I really personally dislike. Karin is super nerdy, mousy, has no real friends, and is a constant target of bullying. Understandably, this makes her really suspicious and even a little hostile to any popular person that acts nice to her, as she's had so many bad experiences, she can only assume they're making fun of her or have some other ulterior motive. However, this also means that's she's basically completely unlikable, with no redeeming features except surprise, surprise she's just so cute when she's not wearing glasses, as if somehow glasses can somehow trick everyone into ... thinking she's just so ugly. For some reason, Kiriya alone notices how cute she is, and even though she continues to be a little hostile, he's just so interested in pursuing her, I guess mostly on the basis of she's just so cute when she's not wearing glasses. For some people this might be fun wish fulfillment, but I personally can't enjoy a romance where I can't understand why one of the characters would be so into the other. The other thing about this one that's a turn off for me is the focus on bullying, which is rather realistic and therefore can be hard to read.

My review may be a bit skewed since I dropped the book like, 3 chapters in.

But I've never wished so desperately to be a character in a book before (okay I have HAHA)

If I ever met Kara I would do this:
*knock knock tok tok* on her head. "Excuse me where's your brain?? Have you tried looking in the dustbin?" *opens dustbin* "OH wait, even the dustbin doesn't want your brain!"

I was so fed up with her. Ugh. I CANNOT understand why she was so submissive towards the mean girls but towards the ML (sorry, can't rmb his name) she was so aggressive? The difference ... in attitude is just wow.

I am not hating on the author, it's just that I didn't really enjoy this. I hope I didn't offend those who enjoyed this book! See you all :)