Aibi has Bouquet Syndrome, a disease that causes her body to sprout flowers and while it doesn't hurt and is not contagious it will kill her. One evening a Death God appears in her window and informs her that her time has finally come, she only has seven more days to live. To the surprise and dismay of the Death God, Aibi actually thanks him for informing her, and she even smiles at him. Perplexed by her response the Death God continues to visit her and on the day she is supposed to die he does something inexplicable even to himself, he saves her from Death vowing to protect her from everything and everyone even Death.
This was a completely random pick, B&N was closing so I just grabbed the first title that looked interesting to me. I am not even the tiniest bit disappointed in this story.
I went into this with zero expectations I didn't even read the blurb at the back of the book so that may be part of the reason I enjoyed it so much but, let's be honest it's pretty much my go-to read, which is why I love it even more because I was very surprised by the direction the story went in. I assumed that this would be one of those stories where the girl is somehow roped into marrying Death but it's actually the exact opposite. Aibi latches on to Shii-Kun (Death) seeing him as the only person who cares for her. I can't blame her for that either. Even without her terminal illness her family life is pretty awful her mother treats her as simply an object to impress her father with and when that doesn't work she takes it out on Aibi. Aibi is essentially alone in the world and desperate for any affection so she buries her resentment and anger under this "good girl" persona she's created in hopes of getting the love she should be freely offered from her parents. Shii-Kun is most definitely a kindred spirit, he has no memories of his life before he became a Death God so it's almost like he does not even realize he'd been missing love until he met Aibi.
This disease Aibi suffers from is super interesting as well. It's alluded to several times throughout that Bouquet Syndrome might actually be a curse. As the story progresses this becomes more and more likely especially after we are introduced to Himeno. If we combine the things he says with the new flower growth after a certain incident between Aibi and some classmates I feel like Bouquet Syndrome if not a curse is definitely more curse-like than an illness. That being said it's only Vol. 1 so I'll say I'm 75% certain it's a curse or something sort of psychological manifestation.
Finally, if we weren't already in 5-star area the memory Shii-Kun regains at the end of the volume would have done it. If this is actually going in the direction this volume ends on this is going to become a new must-read series for me!
Comments
Post a Comment