Mimi's manga / #BL(768)

I felt like I had to reorganize my thoughts on this story. This was a less-than-average read for me sometimes. I really like the almost family-like dynamic between Maggie, Al, Ned, and Mary, they had this vibe of “we’ve been friends since first grade, we grew up together” and I loved that. I loved that Maggie knew about Ned’s feelings for Al and was here for them, I loved that they all were here for Maggie towards the end of the book. I loved the tension the book had at times! There are a lot of things about the stories and the characters and the backstory that interest me so much. But there was also something... something that held this back for me. I thought the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star bit was sweet in the context of what it was for until the author wanted me to take this song seriously and then it just felt corny. Even though I grew to enjoy their friendship, starting with Al flirting with both Maggie and Ned felt weird to me. It's just this "siblings who flirt with the same person and that person flirts with them both" is not my cup of coffee, to be honest. Chapter four felt kind of confusing to me the way it jumped around in the timeline. I just find it funny that some of the small things got to me enough because of how mundane and still this story was. There was this gloomy and heavy atmosphere that was almost perfect. I love the hurt. The comfort is cute. But some of the comedy made me roll my eyes and I will never get over how they tried to make Twinkle Twinkle Little Star important.