I received this book from Netgalley/the publisher in exchange of an honest review.

The trigger warnings are in the book I will list them here as well: Kidnapping, graphic violence, physical/sexual abuse, rape, torture. I mean, I had expected several of these, but not all, so I thought I would share it for those that want to know them beforehand.

In this book we meet a girl named Nezumi. She is a girl who murders people. She has to. She has no choice in the matter. It is murder or be murdered. From a young age she has been murdering. Before that though… well, let’s say she and other girls were sexually abused/raped by a guy (the boss probably) of the organisation. Yup. She had a shit life so far. But again, she has no choice. She cannot escape. My heart broke for her. She hasn’t known anything else in her life except pain and misery. While I didn’t see any romance between her and Ao, I was happy for the normalcy that he brought her. For the moments of peace that he gave her. For the happiness and love he gave her. She deserves that.

But remember this isn’t a cutesy romance manga, this is dark and gritty, and thus things get very horrible quite soon. My heart broke not just for Ao but also for Nezumi. She thought she had a good thing going on in the darkness only for this to happen. I was proud of both Nezumi and Ao on how they handled things despite the situation. A lot of people would just fall in despair but they kept strong. I was delighted they were given a chance and I am definitely rooting for them both to make this happen. It is not the best future, but it is a future.

The art? Very cutesy and adorable and I love the design of Nezumi. It does provide a bit of light in the darkness that this manga presents.

The only thing I hated was the instalove. I mean, Nezumi murders a guy, encounters a boy her age who is at the crane games, they meet again (kinda creepy given he doesn’t know her), confess, and then 6 months later and they are living together. It was just too fast, and throughout the book for most I just didn’t see the attraction between the two of them. Eventually I could see more of it, but still it just never was much. And given the ending… I am wondering even more about this romance.

All in all, a very dark and gritty manga and I definitely wonder how it will continue. I do need to be in the right headspace for it though, for this first volume I was, but let’s see how I feel when the next volume releases. And otherwise I will just put it on-hold until I do have the right headspace. I need to know if Nezumi gets her happy ending. I would recommend this one, but remember it is dark. Check those trigger warnings.