Alright, quick rundown of some of the stuff I read this past week or two:

Recommendations:

• A Busybody Girl, Falling in Love - A strong recommendation on this one. Really short chapters means that it is quick to get caught up as well. Basic premise is that a girl the likes to play matchmaker ends up with a crush herself. Super wholesome and fun.
• Unwinding with the Aloof Girl at the Standing Bar - This is kind of like Drinking at the Bar with You (instead of smoking behind the supermarket). Very chill with adults that act like adults, but just enough blushes to activate that romcom neuron in just the right way. I enjoyed this a lot.
• Want to Sell Me Your Body? - a quick yuri series at just 6 chapters. It isn’t anything special, but what made me enjoy it is the whiplash of the story. It swings from pretty dark to very wholesome a lot and keeps you on your toes.

Anti-Recommendations:

• Strongest Curse Clan Reincarnation - This is a series for which I have read the full, completed WN years ago. The manga apparently got axed at some point and kind of hastily rushed an ending at a certain point. I enjoyed the WN a lot, but the manga was pretty generic sadly.

TBD Recommendations

• My Son’s Ex-Girlfriend Became My Subordinate - Only 3 chapters in so far, so pretty early yet to determine how this HR violation is going to turn out. I am not sure if this is just going to be trash, or something more interesting. There are elements there that can make for some good, spicy drama…so I am hopeful for this one.
• [NSFW] 1800 Days Living Together by a Too Busy Man and a Lonely Girl - I am not sure yet if this is going to turn into Usagi Drop the TV show, Usagi Drop the manga, or Domestic Girlfriend levels of debauched drama. Basic premise is that a teenage girl shows up at this salaryman’s house after an old classmate of his abandoned her daughter with a note saying that this guy would take care of her. He ends up taking care of her despite working an ungodly amount of hours and practically abandoning her himself. Sprinkle in a workplace affair he is involved in after hours and the ingredients are there for a huge mess.

Ummm…

• [NSFW] A Boy Who Was Just a Friend for Ten Years Confessed Love to Me - I am not all the way caught up on this series, but it is absolutely unhinged. The basic premise is that childhood friends start dating for real, and then everything about their relationship advances quickly as basically everybody around them saw this coming for years and treat them as a married couple. The unhinged part comes as they open up more and more with each other - likes, dislikes, living together, struggling to deal with the horny, etc. It has been a lot of fun, but you can’t take anything in this series seriously. Don’t go into it expecting anything except for goofs and gaffes. I leave you with an out of context panel:

I was on a trip last week which meant a perfect occasion to catch up on my library again. I checked out a few titles but while most of them started good to great, some turned towards rather generic (or just not fun for me) direction pretty quickly - with the latter titles I dropped them faster than I could think to note them down for this post so I’ll stick to a few series I stayed with for longer. Most of it is manhwa, as is the tradition recently - it just reads well, what can I say?

• Code Name: Tarantula
  Ex North Korean agent quit her job and built herself a normal life in the south. One day her husband (police detective) stumbles upon illegal dealings within his department and gets murdered for it. Wife goes on a revenge spree.
  It’s a pretty entertaining action romp, with political conspiracy, nicely illustrated action and a pretty brutal plot. Stays in a decent middle point between realistic and “anime action” which keeps things from going full-on stupid. I like it so far.
• The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn’t a Guy at All
  Previous chapter dropped quite a bomb, didn’t it? While I don’t necessarily hate it I can’t help to feel it might end up being a twist for the sake of it without touching upon the core issue of the current arc (lack of communication and everything that sprung around it). Yesterday’s chapter does seem to suggest this might not be the case but I’ll wait and see on that for now. 'm curious if this is a start of the mending process or it’ll be a an attempt at a quick and easy fix to all of the issues plaguing this part of the story.
• I’d Rather be the King
  Woman gets dragged into a game world where helping her love interest get the throne ends with her execution, she decides to take an alternative route and outsmart him instead. Cool art style (except for the doll like features of the main cast) but the story feels like it’s rushing the progress a bit too much - every objective (at least early on) has to be completed within 24 hours, with no space to breathe between them.
  I’m still early on so things might improve in the future. I really REALLY hope they do.
• Into the Light, Once Again
  Princess Alisa is framed for trying to poison her adopted sister and is sentenced to execution by her own family. She reincarnates in the same world but in a different family where she vows to take revenge.
  It’s a mostly “feel good” story about MC learning to trust and love again. Also magical powers. Nice art, solid read from start to finish and a satisfying (if a little abrupt) ending.
• Lady Solea Just Wants to Go Home
  MC wins the lottery and gets yoinked to a different world before she can even receive her reward. She really wants that money.
  What starts as an unhinged comedy about MC trying to find a way back to her own world, ends up touching upon more serious topics like abuse, stress and uncertainty of pretending to be someone else or finding your place in a found (as in, non biological) family. A pretty fun read so far, even if some parts feel a bit rushed. Still ongoing so I’m waiting to see how things end.
• Unexciting Date
  Things start to become more and more exciting with each chapter, it’s great. I love these two dorks despite how plain and, well, unexciting they are.

I could probably squeeze a few more titles but I feel like this is a big enough text wall as is. Not like I have a ton of interesting things to write about everything I read anyway. Man, trips are nice (for catching up with your backlog).