Yagi the Bookshop Goat
What an ADORABLY WHIMSICAL premise!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kyaaaa how silly, how cute, how heart face emoji! No, but literally so cute I'll never forget how cute this silly little premise was and the art style that matches it in cuteness. He wants to work around book because he loves books, but they don't want to let him work around books because he is a goat so he can't help but eat paper! Bro, come on.... it don't get cuter than that! Honestly, if I could rate this based off of the premise and the first chapter alone, I would give it a 9.4 for SURE. But alas, I read the rest of the story and now have to know a couple of decimal points off lol. Nothing about the story was horrendous or anything, but the story simply and unfortunately does not live up to it's delightful premise. Also, the implied but not explicitly stated age gap between the couple is an upsetting detail I wish was never added. It truly put a slight damper on things. If it wasn't for the lovely premise and opening pages, I would be giving this story a 9.2something. But considering the fluffy af premise and opening pages and basic world-building set up, I'll give it a 9.3 and call it a day *shrug* P.S. Must throw in a little tiny extra piece of brownie point for the cutie ass title too <3
Hold Me Tight
(not in proper timeline order) REVIEW AFTER FIRST, INCOMPLETE READ: most overrated BL I’ve ever read like jeez bro 9.6 fucking stars??? Really? And it was way too long it dragged out way longer then it should have, I swear I barely finished it . And the “characters”? Caricatures is more like it, boy were they typical as shit. Also how dare in top of all this other stuff, the sex scenes all be bad???? (or at least not to my taste). man, how annoying. (but also... after all that being said... there were still moments that made me just... uwu) REVIEW AFTER COMPLETION: So………. It is clear from my first review….. That I was a MAJOR HATER skskkskskskskkskss Lmfao why was I such a hater? Hahahaha I couldn’t stand this shit hahahaha. OMG breath, it is actually absolutely batshit crazy how much of a different tune I am singing now that this shit is over. So looking back, it seems as though I wrote my first review for this on Jan 11, 2021, which is when there were 108 chapters posted on, out of the 173 total there are now. I don’t know man…. Something about these last 60 something chapters must have really changed my mind? LOL. (This is why I try not to read unfinished works haha.) Anyway, moving onto this final, once and for all review: I LOVED it. Ahhh it’s a very guilty pleasure. I can’t help it. I couldn’t help it if I tried! Keeping up with the ins and outs and ups and downs of Felix and Giovanni’s relationship was the soapiest opera-iest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I did it for like, 2 years lol. I did it for two years, and that’s with me already being two years and over a hundred chapters late to the game! I honestly can’t imagine how the girls who read this story for FOUR years are feeling now that it’s over! Felix will ALWAYS () and forever be my darling baby boy and no one and nothing could ever make me say otherwise. He is the cutest thing that has ever graced the face of this planet and I’d kill for his happiness. Now…Giovanni?
Hyanghyeon Text
I had the time of my life…. a. fucking. ball. This is a feeling I haven’t felt since reading Love Shuttle (which makes sense because it’s the same beautiful author!!!) key characteristics about this author: aesthetically pleasing muted color palette, the way she draws eyebrows behind bangs, the way she draws blush to look so damn seductive, sex scenes only a true woman of culture could create, an absolute cutie head of an MC, some of the most respectful and courteous yet hot tops in all of BL, etc…. (oh yeah and also….. her OBSESSION with incest ). lmfao, like…. girl FRIEND what do we need to do to help you get that out of your system once and for all?? . Lmfao, lemme stop. If that’s what she trying to do… that’s what she tryin to do lol. I’ve only read two of her works…. but why have I seen 3 INTENSE cases of brotherly incest
My Suha
I’m not happy to have read this. Given the score it has and the art style and length though, me reading it was pretty inevitable unfortunately. *sigh* where to start? Ultimately, I just don’t like the the things this author has going on in her head. I really, really don’t. Suha and Jiwoon’s relationship was 100% worse than she was trying to make it seem like it was and that irked me. Jiwoon did shit all the time to prove that. From the get go, the thing that turned me off and pissed me off was the scene where he had sex with Suha in his office and then opened the door to let a third unaffiliated party see into to the room and look at the sleeping Suha lying on the couch with no clothes on…… (and probs cum still dripping out of his fucking ass bro). Like………….. I’m disgusted. That was a humongous invasion of privacy and trust. And the story ends without Suha ever knowing that such a thing happened. He goes on to develop a relation with the character that saw him not knowing this person saw him in that state. Actually sickening. While that is near the worst of his transgressions there are many many more. In BL there are often tops who range from problematic to toxic to abusive. Very, very often. But one of the things that makes the audience put up with this is that in addition to being problematic-abusive, the top is also 1) hot and 2) powerful. Wether that power comes from money, social standing, or actual physical or magical powers, he is often just so powerful that no one could ever step to him. This hot, abusive, powerful top may hurt the MC many times in the story, but you know what they won’t do? Let another motherfucker get away with hurting them. Jiwoon May be hot and toxic but he is not nearly powerful enough to fall into the same category as these aforementioned tops. In fact Suha has many ops in his life who are more powerful than Jiwoon and have active plans to hurt him. I have absolutely zero confidence in Jiwoon’s capabilities to protect Suha. Jiwoon himself does not have confidence in that. And yet Jiwoon insists on keeping Suha. BIG BETA CUCK LOSER ENERGY. You cannot have what you cannot keep. You should not be longing for what you cannot keep. Get your shit together and be able to take care of Suha. Maybe then you deserve to be with him as much as you act like you do. Just sickening bro. You can’t protect him and him just being with you has his ops trying to hurt him even more than they were before he was with you. And what do you do instead of worrying about becoming stronger/strong enough to fight his ops? You worry about taking away his freedom to try and hide him away from your ops like the loser you are. Jesus he was such a loser. Look, I’ll be real with you……. A whole lot about Jiwoon reminded me of Rosie in the worst way possible. Like Rosie he was toxic abandonment issues personified. Like Rosie he had serious mental health problems to work out through. He lied to, manipulated, and exploited Suha so many times in the name of his extreme insecurities. Then when confronted, he felt no remorse and still insisted he was right. Poor Suha who is already carrying so much baggage and trauma is having his trust betrayed again and again and for what bro? So that you can be with him Jiwoon? You don’t want Suha being a well adjusted and mentally healthy individual because you aren’t one yourself? He literally said some shit about how Suha has people who love him and he doesn’t and why can’t Suha just love only him and isolate himself from the rest of the world to make Jiwoon feel better about the fact that he thinks Suha will leave him? Throwing up in my fucking mouth right now bro. There is actually so much more shit I could talk about Jiwoon’s character in particular, but I’ll stop there because I’m getting super annoyed just writing this. Whatever. Jiwoon was hella bad and Suha deserved so so sooooo much better. But I understand why they remained together. What I don’t understand though, is why the story ended without Jiwoon promising to do things to get better of change his ways. All we end with is Jiwoon (half-heartedly) agreeing with Suha that what he did was wrong— something that he is obviously only doing because Suha is back in his arms after abandoning him once. Bro, it’s just very clear to me that Jiwoon will 10000% repeat these types of toxic actions because there was no fucking resolution to the problems they stem from. Suha eventually just got a little lonely again and very very horny again and felt sad for him since he was hospitalized as a result of their break and was like “meh, let’s take him back”. Had Suha agreed to take him back with the condition being that Jiwoon get therapy, that’d be one thing. Is Suha agreed to take him back under the condition that Jiwoon sans therapy try to fix his mental problems himself, that would not have been a good one either but at least it would have been respectfully mid. But no, just to leave it like that? Gross as fuck. Upsetting moves by the author. Lol, that took so much out of me that there is barely any room left in this review for me to talk about anything else about the story haha. Um, let’s see. Suha was a hot bad bitch power bottom and we loved to see it. Art was nice. Ugh, lol I don’t even want to talk about any good parts I’m so annoyed. Haha, we’ll let’s just say there were good parts or whatever but nothing enough to overshadow the bad. Lowkey wish I could unread this lol. It gets a 9.1 P.S. the author says she is writing side stories featuring the red head villain and Suha’s protective older brother figure ad the couple. that’s the most sickening and unfunny thing I’ve hear in week. remember how I said she was sick? and considering the way she handled the main story, there’s no way in HELL I’d trust her to handle this side story (which requires even more care than the main story did!) even remotely decently.
BL Motel
Overall, the art is the biggest pitfall of this story. The author knows this and mentioned it in her creator’s note at the end. It’s such a shame because her story writing skills are so so sooooo good and her art isn’t even in the realm of catching up to match it. I am all for giving this author grace though, because this is her debut! More than grace, she deserves huge props because this was super good for a debut and I just KNOW she will come back with more work in the future that is even better because her art will have improved. Over the four years she was working on this story, her art already improved so drastically, so I have faith that she’ll only keep getting better now that it’s done . Worst part of the story was the art, but the best part of the story was the characters. This author killed it with these characters and made it look easy!!! They’re entirely too enjoyable and make you never want the story to end! In particular Jiwon and Dongho are now some of my favorite BL characters of all time! They were both absolutely adorable and dynamic and cheeky and killed in every category!!! Bad bitches the two of them for sure! I don’t have as much love for Jaewhan, but I’d be totally lying if I said he wasn’t well written. Byul is the least well written of the bunch and has the least dimension. But it’s in a way that’s like if you put Byul in a different story he would still be good and well written. It’s just that since the other 3/4 main characters here are exceptionally well done, that Byul who is only averagely well done sticks out as the weakest link. That imbalance is sad and it coupled with the fact that the first couple doesn’t really get enough screen time towards the end made me a bit sad. (Thankfully the second couple had MORE than enough goodness to keep the girls happy!!!!) overall though these four characters were good, and the two couples they made up were great! These couples modeled gorgeous communication skills that every other BL couple should really be taking notes on lol. Such normal happy and healthy love went on in the story it was seriously so good in that sense. Now… sex. The sexual scenes and dialogue and build up themselves were not phenomenal. But the vibe? The essence? The concepts? PHENOMENAL, and shockingly so! The art is subpar and this her first story, but her intentions and vision for these sex scenes and everything surrounding them really truly shine through the cracks in the best of ways!!!!!! I am patiently awaiting the day that she has worked in her craft and gotten her skills strong enough to give me some sex scenes that accurately portray the near-perfection she has in mind for them! Lol, that sounds so extreme, but I mean it! She and I?????? We certainly think alike . The number of times while reading this I stopped and remarked to myself about how much of a “true woman of culture” the author was? The answer is MANY! lol. This manwha was really good and one of my new favs. I wish I could give it higher if a score than I will give it. If this manwha had averagely good decent art, instead of quite poor art, I would have given this a 9.55. If 1) it had good art, 2) was more tight/concise (at least 30 chapters shorter), and 3) Byul had more character development to make him a more interesting and likable character by the end of the story, I would have given this a 9.6. Alas, because of the art and those other two biggest problems, I’ll have to settle on giving this a 9.5 P.S.: this is a story I will 1000000000000% come back and re-read in the future (maybe more than once even!) because of how genuinely good it was and how little of its goodness I was able to capture in the first review alone. I’ll def follow up in my second review with more dissecting of the many moving parts of this piece that awed and inspired me as a reader and a writer myself. P.S.: I barely touched on it in the main review but….. DONGHO IS MY EVERYTHING. He’s the baddest bitch. He’s the cutest baby. He’s the slyest brat. He’s the most assertive lover. And Al of this at his YOUNG AF age?!?!?! I thought this multiple times while reading but, that kid is going to have the entire world eating out of the palm of his hands one day if he continues to get better and better at the exponential rate he is going right now. It’s honestly insane. I was so UTTERLY OBSESSED with him by the story’s end, that it is remarkably hard to believe that I found him a bit annoying when he was first introduced!
Love So Pure
This story was broken into three seasons. The first season was the first couple. The second season was the second couple (told during the exact same time period wherein the first couple’s story took place). The third seasons was tying loose ends and creating a perfect happily ever after. I liked this breakdown composition. The second and third seasons were RAGING successes, but the first season was really upsetting to me. The first couple has issues that were not addressed and where we left them off they were still pretty toxic as a couple. The author never felt the need to address them ever again though, lol. It’s as if we stopped their story 3/4 way through it. The first couple’s story never getting finished and us leaving them as toxic as they were, was my only problem in this whole thing. It’s a real fucking shame considering how much I adored the last two thirds of this manwha. A magical cast that consists almost exclusively of queer neurodivergent people! I’ve literally never ever seen that happen in any work of fiction ever, so it was fantastic. We really took the time to explore each of them as individuals and their backgrounds and stories. Something else I’ve never seen done before in this way is the story line of the lesbian with autism. It was truly eye opening for me and expanded my worldview! Many authors would have ended this at the second season, and if this author had done that it would have been an okay ending. But her taking a third season to stitch ever single one of our characters into a gigantic beautiful found family that all takes a vacation together??????? Jesus Christ that was endearing
Exotic Love
I liked this so much more than I expected. The worst parts of it was, unfortunately the art and the translation. The best parts were the angst and the angst, lol. I know I can’t actually hold the poor translation I was reading against the story itself because I’m obvi reading illegally. So, as usually, I won’t actually factor it into the score at all. But the art? That’s fair game. The art style was very much giving “an artist who just got done being a beginner”. Like they aren’t a beginner, and you can tell by the amount of “polish”. But they can’t have been a beginner too long ago. What makes me say that? Such extremely noticeable disproportionate anatomy. It’s really actually so sad because the anatomy of the characters is like, this only problem! All of the rest of the art is just fine! And man, I wish I could say you stop noticing it at a certain point or that this is one of those where the artist’s skills grows during the publication of the story to the point where it isn’t a thing by the end, but…. neither of those is true here. *sigh* So yeah, the anatomy issues through me off and never really went away. While they didn’t go away or get less noticeable, I aa a reader began to notice how bad it was as thing went on because of how goooooood the story was getting! The angst was so yummy delicious in this one lol. I mean a really delightful concoction of toxic relationship and personality issues all throughout. Ohh, I was actually so into this. Something that sets this story apart from the majority of BL I read is that not only is the MC a bottom who holds more socio-economic and political power than the top love interest, but he’s also so completely and wholly a bad guy!!!! Like, I really am struggling to think of where else I’ve ever read that dynamic. I loved it. Jaehan was such a horrible person but he was CRAZY endearing so I couldn’t not root for him if I tried. He would keep doing bad things and I’d be like “
This Wasn't The H Life I Imagined After Reincarnation!
This has an 8.7 rating on mangago. Really low right? I never actually touch anything this low for actually reading purposes. I only ever look at anything this low for to use excerpts from it as fap material. And YET every blue moon I approach a story with a low ass rating for this purpose and end up consuming the entire story instead! Yes, that is what occurred with this story. I cannot lie, I quite liked it. It has one major flaw though, the last chapter says “end” but…… the story isn’t over. The story isn’t even halfway done. These four chapters are literally one third of what the full story would be. But the author doesn’t seem to have wanted to continue working on this? Or maybe the “endless” meant the end of volume 1 and there will be more common out? But this story first came out in 2020 and it is now… the end of 2023…and there are only four chapters of it…. I’m not feeling very hopeful about the possibility for this story being continued and that makes me so so so so so so sickeningly sad God I hate reading stories I am invested in withe no ending. And I mean I TRULY was invested!!! and for the story to stop right where thing had gotten super good and I was thinking to myself about how I couldn’t wait to see the rest???? It’s a sick sad world we live in bro
Cold-Blooded Beast
I honestly feel blessed to have been able to read this story. Blessed. This was so beautiful. So fun. So great. So hot and steamy. So many twists and turns. Lovely little characters. So many sad moments and happy moments and complex emotions. Such a huge air of maturity surrounding every aspect of the story. It was incredible. The plot was… wild, lol. I can truly say I’ve never read anything like this. Like genuinely unpredictable as fuck. At no real point in time did I know what the next course of action would be for these characters. If you told me on the earlier chapters that we would end up here where we are at the end? I would’ve barely believed it. Chae-ul is one of my all time fav BL MC’s. He was such a lovely little dumpling of a middle aged man. He is such a darling dear with an extremely pleasant demeanor. And yet, he’s also such a freaky guy! Lol. I loved that for him much. And unlike ho wither stories would’ve handled it, it wasn’t like he stopped being lovely when he became freaky and vice versa. You know? It wasn’t like flipping a switch to two separate sides of his personality. He would simultaneously be equal parts lovely sweetheart and mischievous freak-a-leek! I love love love that for him so much. It made him so unique to me, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it in an MC. Chae-heon was such an intensely sexy and respectful lover. He was sexy. He was respectful. He was sexily respectful. He was respectfully sexy. Lol. But for real though, his every single breath was a sexy one. His every single thought concerning Chae-ul was a respectful one. With this much sexy and this much respect, what more could one ask for in a man? Not to mention his two dicks, iridescent snake scales under his skin, billions of dollars saved up in the bank, openness with his affection + emotions, and wonderful resting deadpan facial expression? Girl hell yeah. My goodness, I cannot remember the last time I saw a fictional couple as mature as this one where both parties treated each as tenderly and with as much respect as these two did one another. Their communication skills were phenomenal to the point of seeming other-worldly. I just- everything about the way they interacted made it abundantly clear that they truly CHERISHED one another. Crazy good chemistry between these two men. Talk about a damn otp. The sex scenes were good good good and I will surely be returning to this story many a time to revisit them lol. Like true “woman of culture” quality going on here. Top tier premium shit. It feels like nothing I say in this review can do this work justice tbh, so I’m going to just go ahead and wrap it up now. Let’s see quickly what else might I have missed? Okay mart was great, side characters were great, story structure & writing were great, humor was nice and fitting. I loved this so very much. It was so impressive. I’m giving it a 9.7. P.S.: the title is really you look back on it when you’ve finished reading the story. Like it obviously fits because of the subject matter, but also it’s so funnily unfitting of the wholesome ass vibes.
The Beast That Yearns To Be Tamed