By Wataru Watari and Ponkan 8. Released in Japan as “Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabukome wa Machigatte Iru” by Gagaga Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jennifer Ward. Let’s start with the ending, because we know how these books all go. Things look like they may finally resolve happily, and then you plummet to your death. It is a frequent fact that behind an “icy” romantic lead in a high school light novel is an even worse mother, and that proves to be the case here. We’d known before that Yukino’s mother was the sort to make her daughter feel terrible about everything, and seeing Yukino try to face her down and fail so miserably is painful to read. Then of course we have Haruno, who...

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