Heat Factor: Some scorching kisses!
Character Chemistry: There’s a lot of high school angst here, but it was a bit much for me
Plot: Seryo’s quest for love has become something of a joke at school, and Shino, believing the joke to be all it is, asks Seryo to date him for the week
Overall: Loved the concept, so-so on the execution
Shino is a third-year high-school-equivalent student (they’re in a fancy Japanese private school), who has terrible luck dating because the girls at school want him to be someone he’s not. Seryo is a first-year who’s known for accepting whomever asks him for a date on Monday morning and dumping them by the end of the week. The two boys meet by chance one afternoon, and Shino starts poking at Seryo about his dating, asking, “why not go out with me?” Seryo says “yes,” but only after an interruption, which apparently confuses Shino enough that he doesn’t understand why Seryo is befriending him later. Kisses clear things up enough to remove the doubt regarding the dating, but not the doubt regarding the feelings.
Also, there’s a sub-plot about Seryo having baggage with another Shino, who is, I guess, his brother’s sometimes girlfriend? Who also dated Seryo? Or cheated on Seryo’s brother with Seryo? I didn’t love that storyline because if I interpreted it correctly: gross. And if I didn’t interpret it correctly then it doesn’t make sense. Anyway, because of Seryo’s baggage, protagonist-Shino is also referred to by his given name of Yuzuru.
I bought this book because someone was big mad about this book’s plotline similarities to Date Me, Bryson Keller by Kevin Van Whye, and I really enjoyed that book and wanted to know what was up. My TL;DR comment regarding idea theft is: 1) that’s not how intellectual property works and 2) the stories are really not the same. Or even really trying to do the same thing.
Anyway.
One review I read of this book says simply, “Gosh teen boys are dumb and bad at communicating.” And that’s about the sum of things. The hangup for me with respect to this book, I think, is that there’s a lot of internal processing and presuming to understand what’s going on. Shino is completely oblivious to Seryo’s interest and thinks that the relationship is a joke, while Seryo is completely unaware that everyone in school thinks his quest for true love is a game he plays with all the girls each week. Unless you’re really excited about teen boys being obliviots, in which case you might really like it.
One other thing to consider is that there are many really excellent slow burn elements in this story as the boys try to figure out what the other is thinking and decide how (if) to reveal what they’re thinking.
Buy Now: Amazon
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