The Color of Love

This is a really, really nice collection of BL stories. I'm not always a fan of the 5-stories-in-one thing because you have to learn new sets of characters so quick that often look the same and there is so little room to establish them, but this book was different. Ueda is particularly adept with the sub-stories, even though they were short I felt they all delivered, and the characters were compelling and developed to the point that I wish there was a volume 2. The main story was great, but my favorite two were Direction of a Smile (Sako pulled on my heartstrings!) and Mix(particularly strong story elements here). An Afterword at the end hinted that Ueda is a bit shy in drawing sex scenes or having characters talk about sexual things, which would explain why most of the intimate moments focus on the emotions of the characters and their faces rather than their bodies - this made those panels particularly intimate and I think it's easy to feel a strong connection (no pun intended) to the characters' feelings. This was also heightened by her art style, which uses a very thin, delicate line weight throughout. I also liked that the semes/ukes came across as equal partners in the their relationships and did not seem stereotypical. Overall a really strong collection that I will definitely be reading again. Really glad I picked this one up at Bookoff!