Review #1:
so….. I started reading this early fall 2022. It was beautiful but horrendously sad. Then I got very near the end but could bring myself to finish the last batch of chapters. That’s how sad and empty it was making me feel…. Im not in a good enough place to finish this right now, so I’m going to save writing a real review for this until I read it through a second time, so that I can do it justice.
Review #2:
It is 2024 now and I have finally returned to this story. I started reading BL’s almost four years ago now and I can say this is one of the best I have ever read. It was so very good and it will probaly always hold a special place in my heart. Up until now, there is only one BL I have ever read that made me think "man... I need to own a phsycial copy of this story". And that BL was Love or Hate. This here is the second one. Just like Love or Hate, this story was so incredibly moving and powerful that I could barely contain myself and my emotions while reading it.
This story was sad-- and I mean VERY sad. Excrutiatingly sad. But in the most beautiful and classiest of ways!!! I cried almost every single chapter, and got a story with 65 chapters, that's wild! The author knew how to write some really devasting words and the artist knew how to draw some devasting facial expressions to match them. Killer combo which did indeed, kill me. Mulitple times. And yet here I stand, reserected anew by the power of this author's profound artistry.
Honestly, this story was so good that I barely have anything that comes to mind for me to say in this review. It was sad, it tugged at my heart and ripped it to shreds some times. The MC, Yoon, is one of my favorite MC's ever, and def one of the most insightful ones I have ever read about. Being privy to his thoughts and emotions for the duration of this small slice of his life had brought me great joy, and seein his growth during it has brought me even greater joy.
While the entire story was near-perfection, here is a list of just a few things I want to shout out as having been espeically well depicted:
⁃ Yoon's autistic coding
⁃ Youngwoo's anxious attahcment style
⁃ Kwonju's face every single time his eyes were in pain yet his mouth was still smiling
⁃ Taejoo's very poignant apology to Yoon when they finally broke up
So yeah, that's it. This story was damn near perfect. The only thing I could point out as a flaw (if I had to point one out) would be that there was a pretty big (BIG!) gap between the level of talent in the words and the art. Don't get me wrong, like I said earlier in the story, the artist was good at depicting facial expressions. Exceptionaly good. But sooo many other things about the art style were just.... lacking. Most notably? The way they struggled to draw women (all the women kind of just looked like men with long hair).
Okay, done with this review. I loved this story. This is now basically my second time reading it, and I can say with full confidence that I will read it again. I anticiapte reading it at least 3 more times in this life actually, lol. It gets a 9.77
P.S.: this story has a 9.4 on here. It is criminally underrated
Ways of Parting