Review: My Underachieving Seatmate Doesn’t Need Any Comforting

Overview

Warnings

The backstory deals with trauma and PTSD.

Review

Strengths

• Cute friendships & funny interactions.
• An angsty but cathartic emotional resolution as the climax of the story.

Flaws

At first glance, this seems like a fluffy modern romance with humorous misunderstandings about the main character's background - Everyone thinks he's a poor, malnourished child from a bad background while he's actually a doted-on, rich young heir. And a lot of the book does deliver on the really cute friendships and funny interactions between the students.

But from the very start, the book started foreshadowing the much deeper emotional traumas that the two main characters had suffered through, and man, when it finally came time for the big revelation of the main character's backstory, I was *not* prepared for how hard it hit emotionally. It was intense and cathartic and awful. Thankfully, the book returns to its fluffy roots and gives the characters and readers the chance to heal for a happy ending.

As long as you are ready for a pretty dark backstory for the main characters, this is a pretty great and well-rounded romance. There's humor, fluff, great supporting characters, and a pretty nuanced portrayal of familial relationships.