Enjoying the main characters but also I’m a Marie x Susie fan now :3 ( )

We're into the thick of the romance now with some outside forces conspiring against our Hanako and Alice, but they are mostly the victims of their own fretting over the secrets they are keeping from each other, including their growing feelings. So much fretting! It's all overwrought and very pedestrian.

There's a six-page intermission story with a couple of side characters that is far more romantic than all the wallowing happening in the main story.

I would stop reading this series now, but I've just discovered that the next volume is the conclusion and my library has it, so I'm going to see how it ends. And hope there is a sequel to the intermission story. ( )