A review by howlinglibraries
Beauty and the Feast, Vol. 1 by Satomi U

3.5

 This is kind of a tough one to rate. I went into this story knowing nothing about the series other than the fact that it had a cute cover and was a slice-of-life manga, which is my favorite type of manga. I enjoyed it quite a bit and originally was going to rate it 4 stars, but I kept wondering if there was going to be a romance between the two main characters later on, because I got that feeling a bit. I kept hoping that wasn't going to be the case, given that she's 28 and he's a high school freshman (not sure what that translates to exactly in Japan, but here in the US that's 14-15 years old). As a 31-year-old woman, the idea of dating a high schooler literally makes me queasy! 😅

But when I finished the manga and came on to Goodreads to mark it as 'read', I saw that it's marketed as a rom-com series, and then I looked at the covers for some of the later books in the series, and... yeah, idk. It was cute but I'm not sure if I'll continue the series or not. I don't mind age gaps when both parties are adults, even if one of them is young (like 18-20), but a high school freshman is a totally different ballgame! (heh see what I did there) So I think I might just let this one stand on its own and pretend they're always going to be just friends or a cute big-sister-little-brother dynamic. 😌 Let me enjoy my delulu okay?!