Narration of Love at 17 2
Posted: May 3, 2009 Filed under: Narration of Love at 17 1 Comment »Wow, this series is… very introspective. A lot of time is spent with Seyoung contemplating her feelings and her position in life both in her head and with Hyunjung, the class monitor who seems like a really nice friend. She’s great at lending an ear and offering a lot of strangely grown-up advice.
Seyoung’s problems are largely the same as they were last time… she still likes Hyunwoo, but Hyunwoo likes Hyemi, and she likes him back. Of course, that means Seyoung still can’t stand Hyemi, which bothers her since it’s simply jealousy that keeps the two apart, and Hyemi is actually quite friendly towards her. She also finds herself unable to stop acting out against Hyunwoo and everything having to do with him, and she hates herself a little for that, too.
Although Hyunwoo is what she’s most often thinking about, this volume spends most of its time developing the friendship between Seyoung and Hyunjung, and pushing Seyoung and Yunho just a little closer together. The subtleties in the relationships here are wonderful. The way Seyoung agonizes over every conversational nuance, seeing the unspoken reactions from each of the characters as the three of them go out on what are more or less “group dates”… it’s just a lovely story.
About the only thing I can fault the series for is the fact that the pace is a bit slow. But that’s only to be expected when Seyoung spends so much time analyzing all her personal relationships and reevaluating them after every event.
It’s just… really fascinating to see everything developing in Seyoung’s life. There is no right and wrong for her as far as friends and relationships go, so to see her work out the gray areas, and seeing how the decisions of other people affect her and how she interacts with other people is pretty satisfying. The series does an excellent job of showing things an honest-to-God normal teenage girl would worry about. I love it.
[...] Manga) Melinda Beasi on vol. 1 of Jack Frost (there it is, plain as daylight) Connie on vols. 2 and 3 of Narration of Love at 17 (Slightly Biased Manga) Melinda Beasi on vols. 1 and 2 of Off*Beat [...]