Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai

This book reminded me a lot about the rom-com genre as a whole. It can be just so infuriating at times but it still somehow manages to spin grip me and get me invested in the world. The funny thing is… even though rom-coms are generally supposed to be a new world with new characters, somehow every single rom-com feels the same at the start. The pacing, the plot point, the jokes, the tension, the problems, the solutions, and even the ending. It is very rare that you see a rom-com doing something new, without failing. This novel did just that. At first, you will feelthat everything is the same, the same old cliché protagonist who has no interesting qualities, and his harem. At times, this novel felt like that but I bet you, it’s not. It is something that you probably have read or seen before but with a new perspective with realistic features. The MC doesn’t feel like a jackass nor does he feel like an overly powerful person who knows everything but tries to hide it. Nope. None of that shit. Our MC has some good points and some bad points which he tries to fix to get some friends. The novel covers his journey to get friends with other people who are there alongside him, people who also want friends. Every single character who is in the ‘main squad’ is really deeply explored but not over-explored. It doesn’t feel that you don’t know anything about the characters but it doesn’t feel boring to see the characters again. Everything isn’t spoon-fed to the reader and some things are just hinted at. It doesn’t feel that a character is being very hugely emphasized. One character gets highlighted in a volume and then in the later volumes, characters are developed together. It’s really beautiful the way the author chose the routes that the story progresses throughout all the volumes. The way the characters are developed, the choices that are taken by them, the things they do, their goal, every single thing was really well thought of and I loved this beautiful lore of students struggling to get some friends and live a ‘normal’ student life. Talking about the main thing- romance, well yea… it was at best, good. Every girl was given their time to shine, and every girl despite having some-or-the-other flaws, really made you forget about them for some time… This is the first novel where I am satisfied with the ending despite the MC not ending up with the ‘best girl’ for me. All of this doesn’t mean that it’s perfect. The novel had some seriously major flaws in it. Sometimes what the MC or the other characters did were seriously either very badly explained, or just straight-up rubbish i.e., way out of their personality. This was particularly visible in the last few volumes where characters were developing faster than the speed of light. It felt refreshing but felt a little too abrupt for my liking. I have mixed feelings on this topic. This novel would be a 9/10 if not for the weird last volume. The rushing in the last volume could be felt deep into my core while I was reading through it. I felt as if some things could be explored a little more but I understood that there was just not enough time to do so. I felt seriously weird about it. A few characters felt a little hypocritic at what they preached compared to their actions but well that is normal if the characters are tried to be kept as humane as possible. The artwork in this novel is just… NOICE. I have no comments on the artwork because I feel that they couldn’t have been better. They fit the theme of the novel perfectly. Conclusion: Read it if you like slice-of-life and rom-com. Wouldn’t recommend it if you like something high-paced as this novel is one of the slower ones I have read until now.