Gantner, Amy Kim - Sorcerers and Secretaries, vol. 01 (orig. Eng.)

[oyceter]

Nicole is university student by day, receptionist at night, and writer whenever she can find the time. Her old neighbor Josh is working in a bookstore and getting lots of people's phone numbers, though he still wants hers, since she's the only person who's ignored him.

(For those interested, the art style is more indie comics than shoujo.)

This should be a sweet shoujo series on the power of the imagination, but it completely didn't work for me.

We get to see snippets of the story Nicole is writing, and sadly, I was very bored by it, which means I didn't emotionally buy the power the story had over her. I do grok the draw of writing and creating, but as a reader, it was like reading one of those things that tells you so-and-so is incredibly witty when all their dialogue is not.

I like that Josh is Korean American (I think?), but I hate the womanizing thing and how he stalkerishly pursues her. It was a little better after the reveal that they had actually spent some fun times together, but in the beginning, it seemed like he went out of his way to pursue her despite her consistent expressing of non-interest, and that was very off-putting.

Unfortunately, the rest of the romance is also boring. There are too many stupid misunderstandings, and Josh acts like he has zero comprehension of human behavior (who takes the advice "Go pick a fight with her; it'll make her like you better" seriously?). I also completely did not buy the final turn which leads Nicole to reject Josh -- it felt like it happened just because they needed to be kept apart for another volume, not for anything real.

Didn't work for me at all.