Musume ja Nakute Mama ga Suki nano!?
You Like Me, Not My Daughter?!

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I'm writing this review for the light novel version. If you don't want to read the novel, and want to instead check out the manga. Go ahead, the art is incredible.

I will also keep the review very short. So you can enjoy the book if you like the premise.

For how it is adapted, I only read the initial chapters of the manga before jumping through the novel, but if you want more to the series. The novel is the way.

First. The pacing of the story
It's just a standard slow start and ramping up as the story progresses. Each volume is only a hundred plus pages ... long, but it doesn't really feel like a short read. Some parts may feel like a drag to read, but once it gets going it'll get exciting. But note that this is purely subjective.

Characters
This is where the series shines the best. Most of the characters are written very well, and are given ample amount of screen time for their development. I won't go much into it because for the sake of no spoilers. Also, the relationship between the main characters are the forefront of story. So you don't have to worry about side stories that doesn't interest you.

Conflict and Plot
You already probably get a gist of what the conflict are. But I won't go further more about this since it'll spoil the story. Also, even though the series is a "taboo", somewhat. No NTR, incest, or anything like that sort of stuff. It is surprisingly vanilla as it gets. Plot wise, every volume has unexpected turns of events. If you worry that it gets bland. In my subjective opinion, later parts will get better.

Conclusion
The story is vanilla and well written. If you like real life relationship that involves family and, relationship, and work. Then, I think the this book is for you. I really enjoyed reading it. It really came to me when I realized how fond I was with the characters. I did feel emotional after I was done with the series after I've picked it up in 2023 when it got translated. I will also say, unashamedly, that this is a hidden gem or underrated. Anyway, this is the first review I've written. Score S tier.

I don't have any problem with the taboo relationship, in fact it's my favorite tag.
But here's what I want to say for this work after reading the first volume:

- Only a single internal conflict in just one character and it just run around at the same circle. No one opposing the idea. Since the theme is "taboo relationship", it just feels weird that everyone accepted that.

- Flat storyline. It's basically only from my perspective that everything in this LN just a very flat romcom with nothing to be amazed of except the age gap romance concept.

- Very typical delaying relationship just because this is a ... 'Light Novel' series.

Pain to read something with straight face from the prologue untill epilogue. I can enjoy tbh, but it's just plain enjoyment to kill time.

Not much is released so my opinion may change but all in all... this is awful.
I won't even tackle the "taboo" part of this relationship.

tl;dr - All potential material has been written over giving you only a shallow rendition of what could but shouldn't be.

The most unique part of this relationship is that there is a very significant age gap and that the way these characters met involved 1 character going through various stages of early mental development/maturity while the other character witnessed this growth but goes through completely different life stages. IMO the author glosses over the difficulty that ... would arise from such a disparity and instead tries to turn this into your average romcom while finding every unrealistic support structure to force this to happen.

1st, there is NO way someone can say that a 10 year old has the maturity necessary for a properly functioning adult so by every means he had to go through various stages of very key childhood development. What "love" he had at 10 years old is by my standards at best a crush because I believe "romantic love" is forged from the development of a relationship through mutual understanding while overcoming obstacles TOGETHER. From what was described (because we essentially SKIP the childhood portion of the story and only fed flashbacks which I'd call the potential "Usagi Drop" chapters) he spent 10 years in a very one-sided relationship with our female lead. These 10 years are VERY crucial to see in the development of the male lead and how he handles it. He carried this crush for all these years and we simply gloss over with just flashbacks on how it has influenced him and the decisions he made. Anybody knows a lot happens from elementary>middle school>high school or we wouldn't have such a rich "slice of life" genre. What would be incredibly unique to this story would be for us to "see" this development and how despite social norms he is wholesomely carrying this crush. Instead we skip over all of that potential material and instead dive straight into fan service scenes (literally before some chapters they put NSFW). I'm not suggesting we spend 100 chapters on this, but at least some dedicated chapters on the challenges he faced in middle school and high school for carrying this crush (because to say it was all smooth sailing is an example of what I'd call an "unrealistic support structure")

2nd, while talking about unrealistic support structures... how is every character ok with this?! Literally, there is no opposition in this story. Only your basic romcom silliness of the 2 leads bumbling around each other but again, glossing over the unique challenges this relationship could potentially create. At best the characters are only faced with 1 challenge which makes this story very linear and extremely shallow. Depth could be shown by how they created this support structure for this relationship but instead... we gloss over all of that and just sprinkle some glitter on it.

I could write a lot more but all in all, this story falls flat. There is no depth in either the characters or the story and all potential material to provide depth has already been written over with cupcakes and rainbows. All of the interactions instead feel forced and extremely uncomfortable. The only excuse you can make for all of these flaws is... because such a relationship based on realism would be quite unhealthy and toxic otherwise. Therefore the only possible way to write such a story is to gloss over all potential problems to create the most nonsensical and self-gratifying fantasy.

If you want romcom cuteness there is much better material nearly anywhere else (or if you want fan service pick up a random shounen)