ARC Review: Shortcake Cake, Vol. 4 by Suu Morishita

Shortcake Cake, Vol. 4 by Suu Morishita
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Ten moves out of her parents’ home in the mountains to live in a boardinghouse, she finds herself becoming fast friends with her male roommates. But can love and romance be far behind?

Riku’s kiss sends Ten into a panic. While she tries to understand why he kissed her, Riku is surprised by his own actions. Meanwhile, Chiaki’s feelings for Ten grow.

The love triangle intensifies in this volume, as Ten starts to feel things for Riku, and Chiaki finally realizes that he likes her too. The characters have definitely been growing on me, and I was honestly gushing over how many tropes I am ticking off the imaginary bingo card I have. Chiaki, conflicted, decides he is going to tell Riku (but not Ten WTF so much angst) about his feelings towards Ten. So the boys are currently rivals in love, though only Riku considers it rivalry (stop being mean to Chiaki!), while Chiaki is being more mature and earnest about it. Meanwhile, Ten thinks Chiaki has a girl he likes but doesn’t know it is her, so when she takes advice from him, she realizes her own feelings for Riku. And all this is happening during the summer break, which means plenty of opportunities for them to hang out, but also be away from each other, and all the awkwardness in between. The trio is seriously cute together, with Riku’s and Chiaki’s friendship and the latter’s friendship with Ten being the highlights to Riku’s jealousy as a counterpoint. However it all ends, I am excited to see what happens next.

Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review from Viz Media LLC, via Edelweiss.

Previous volumes in Shortcake Cake series