casandra29

Read a christmas story in June? Why not? Should be entertaining right? Well... in this case not so much. Why? Cause it's filled with super depressed people who want to think their lives are more unfortunate than anyone else in this world. It's not a good look for a harlequin love story in my opinion, but it is true that opinion's differ greatly from person to person. 

So as to the story. It had it's highlights. I especially enjoyed the part where the lead male took the lead female's book of "impossible dreams" which she used to wallow in her depression and made most of them come true. That part and the ending was pretty much the only redeeming parts to the story in my eyes. It was especially difficult for me to hear someone try to say he was the most unfortunate person alive (the male main). There are so many people in the world who have lost their family and some have gone through even worse things. I understand his depression but if he really thinks he's got it the worst out of anyone that's just silly. In reality though it's even worse when he is told that he could get out of his funk by finding someone worse off than him and helping them. So the female protagonist seems to be this person he thinks is worse off... what happened to her you may be wondering.... well... she was dumped in college. AND? That's it. Oh and she is sad that she cannot fulfill every christmas wish brought to her non profit such as bringing a brother back to life. So she keeps those requests in her desk to continually remind herself how horrible life is....ugh... does this sound romantic at all to you? Cause I'm at a loss. Still as I said before, it ends on a cute and positive note which I want to say makes it worth suffering through the rest of it, but unfortunately it's really not.

The art in this one is fairly good. I would rate it about average for Harlequin. There's nothing really noteworthy about it though.

The characters are one of the biggest flaws of this manga for the same reasons I stated above in the story. Massively depressed characters are fine in a darker manga. It's also fine if they don't wallow in self pity. However, I have a hard time liking a romance in which the characters are made to be this way. Still to be fair they do develop fairly well over time and when they both come out of their funk near to the end they are much easier to read about.

So Overall I'd say, it's up to you if you decide to give this story a shot. I think weather you like it or not would depend on your preferences and your personal mind state. If you like reading about massively depressed people falling in love with eachother then you could enjoy it a lot more than me. I probably won't be re-reading it though.