A review by lkmreads
Budding Love by Adara O’Hare

3.0

I was a bit skeptical at first, and a bit uneasy with the end, but overall it was an enjoyable story.

Spoiler

While I generally speaking liked the entirety of the tale, particularly when Sakura turned out to be able to change into humanoid form, the whole deal with Aethos and his lies was a bit bothersome - bothersome not because it was a bad plot point, I kind of enjoyed the 'betrayal' and wish it would really have been fleshed out more how lonely he felt so we could sympathize a bit more with him - but because not much was resolved between him and Kazu by the end, despite his implication on the final words spoken in the story, and despite Sakura claiming to want them both.

It's definitely a HFN ending, and I would have liked to get a HEA.