Apparently, there are three stories in this one short collection, and I only remember one, so that doesn’t bode well. The biggest struggle for me was the style. I’m not the biggest fan of the super stretched out/tall bodies and super angular faces. I think it just makes them all look creepy.
The story itself was actually very cute (or least the one I remember) Takemura is a shy loner who had a bad bullying experience in high school, so he keeps to himself, but his coworker Natsui is outgoing and has tried to engage him before. They meet one evening in the grocery store and Takemura finds out Natsui has a kid and can’t get out of a dinner invite.
Before you know it, they’re all hanging out all the time. There’s even an awkward moment where Takemura has to go pick up the kid (cannot remember their names) and it goes well even though Takemura is SOO nervous. In the end the kid is the one that’s like hey you need to move in here, we’re always happier when you’re here. I’m 99% sure the book was sex free and that anything that did or didn’t happen was 100% off page and it was kind of refreshing knowing how edgy manga/yaoi/BL can get.
Recommendation: It’s a cute read. I’m a little concerned I have ZERO recollection of the other stories, but the entire book was pretty short, so they must’ve been even shorter. Illustration style wasn’t my jam, but I could see where others like it as there are quite a few in this style.
Of the three books in Annabeth Albert’s Safe Harbor trilogy, this one was by far my favorite. I won’t say it’s unfortunate that you need to read the other two to get to this one, because they’re still well written books, but you do have to read the two of them to truly appreciate this book due to the underlying murder mystery that ties them together.
If there is a theme to Albert’s Safe Harbor series it is a little bit too much. Don’t get me wrong, they are not bad books, each one just has one or two too many elements for me. They’re still very well written character driven stories, there’s just too much going on for my personal tastes.
This is probably the novel I should’ve picked up to end my dry streak. Annabeth Albert has almost always given me a great read with wonderful character driven plotlines. Even on the few occasions that I wasn’t enamored, I was still impressed with the characters (especially the minor) and the humor. This book was no different.
When the publicist reached out to me about this one, I wasn’t sure I had the capacity, but it was five months before it was published so I figured I’d make time!*