*Special thanks to the publisher VIZ Media and NetGallery for an advance copy of this book for review purposes.

I'm so glad the bio manga, one of my favourite genres, is becoming more common nowadays! Many others I've seen have compared this manga to "My Lesbian Experience with Romance" and they're not wrong! However this one is definitely more humour based and I don't think I've laughed this hard audibly reading a book since before pandemic times. Mieri has incredible self-deprecating humour, both with her jokes and illustrative portrayal of herself. However she never does it in a malicious way - portraying how well we all really do tend to like ourselves but know we're just goblins cosplaying as functioning adults.

This is a book I can see people all people relating too. And full of awesome advice and red flags for those starting on their relationship journey. Mierie has opened up a very intimate part of her life and put herself out there - I've already seen people in some reviews saying she overreacted to being dumped by her first girlfriend. Yes her relationship that took her *years* to recover from only lasted a month, but mental health just BE like that. It's a jerk. Something like a whirlwind romance (that crashed and burned in just a few weeks) can set off the first in a domino downward spirial of depression. She not only was dealing with being dumped, but being poor, in college, thrust into adulthood, then the Japanese work force, and then a physical health crash.

I love this for the same reason I loved "Lara Dead keeps Breaking up with Me". Because we honestly need these books about breakups -not daytime soap opera breakups- but ones about real(istic) relationships. Without media literacy on topics like this, we don't get to learn what healthy recovery from toxic or unhealthy relationships looks like.

Lastly, I can't forget the art. Fun, loose, silly and just dang beautiful to look at. This is one of my top books of 2023.

The Girl That Can't Get a Girlfriend is an autobiographical manga that tells Mieri Hiranishi's failed love story. It follows her college years, covering her relationships and struggles with relationships. It is a funny and heartwrenching LGBTQIA+ story that will have you wanting Mieri to have better luck and make stronger decisions later.

It is a great story for those entering the dating scene and those who struggle with self-confidence and dating. It has lots of positive messages learned the hard way, so readers will find a lot to take from it. Readers who have been in the dating game will likely recognize a lot of their own missteps too. A charming and heartstring tugging read for sure.

This was a fun, comedic take on a queer bio. I found it relatable and enjoyable the whole way through. Sadly, I just was hoping for a little more substance for it. It's still a lovely volume. I would definitely recommend reading it.

I reviewed this title for Booklist. Please see Booklist for the complete review and full feedback regarding this title.

If you're a fan of manga storytelling as a therapeutic device, emotional maturity as a marker of personal growth, or of people being able to laugh at their own expense, this is for you. If you think people should go to therapy instead of making art out of their life experiences, you should skip this and maybe work on your empathy. That said, while I don't have a lot in common with the author at this point in my life, I found The Girl That Can't Get a Girlfriend to be an entertaining and endearing book. I wish the author the best and hopefully they can figure out how to have a relationship while living their best life. (I received a free ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.)

This was a fun manga. I wouldn't say it was necessarily my favorite but this is also my first memoir read in manga format so maybe that is why I didn't connect with it as much as I wanted to. I will say overall this was fun and the art was really good. The book had a good message overall and I would definitely recommend it.

I thought that this was very entertaining. I know the author is talking about getting a girlfriend and then taking a long time to get over her but the way that she talked about everything was so candid and funny. I really enjoyed reading this.

This was a funny, touching, and relatable manga memoir about the happiness and heartbreak that comes with your first love and finding yourself. I enjoyed reading how Mieri grew as a person, and knowing this is autobiographical I'm so glad she was able to learn how to love herself and that her mental health is improving.

The artwork was sometimes jarring, but that was the point, to show how Mieri viewed herself in comparison to all the beautiful women around her.

Thanks NetGalley and Viz Media for this digital arc! I hope Mieri is able to make many more manga in the future, I'll definitely be reading them!

The Girl that Can't Get a Girlfriend charts Mieri Hiranishi's challenges trying to navigate romance and dating as a lesbian in the US and Japan. It's illustrated in a light style, where Hiranishi draws herself as a broad caricature, against the backdrop of beautiful shojo-manga-esque potential partners, highlighting her own self-image issues in a way that's highly relatable.

In some ways I feel it's a bit unfair to The Girl That Can't Get a Girlfriend, that it will probably be heavily compared to Nagata Kabi's more emotionally raw work that follows the same trajectory, (My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, My Solo Exchange Diary, My Wandering Warrior Existence) but it's lighter tone and more conventional manga visuals and humor are likely to appeal to a broader audience.

Enjoyable, fairly light, but dealing with depression and anxiety related to romance and dating in an approachable way.

The Girl That Can't Get a Girlfriend is an autobiographical manga about author, Mieri Hiranishi's experiences dating. It follows her from her realizing her sexuality to pining after crushes to finally landing a girlfriend and dealing with the tribulations of heartbreak when that relationship doesn't work. It calls to mind Kabi Nagata's work in how much Hiranishi's mental health and struggles with self-esteem play into her romantic difficulties. I really enjoyed this and hope to see more of her work published in the future.

More like "The Girl With Untreated Clinical Depression."

It was well-written, and the art was great. I enjoyed the manga style and the story flow. As for the story itself, though, there just wasn't much to it. And I hate to bash the content because it's a legit life experience. But homegirl needed some serious help. She dated someone for one month, and it took four YEARS to get over it?! I feel sad for her not getting proper mental health help.

Author Mieri Hiranishi shares the ups and downs of finding love as a member of the queer community.
The content of this book is relatable. As a member of the queer community as well, I can relate and sympathize with a lot of the struggles Mieri finds herself in. It was rather validating to know that I am not the only person who has struggled this way.
However, I will not be adding this book to the middle school library. While the content is relatable, the book starts with Mieri in college. This is too far out of my kid's range. While the content might be interesting to them, it would be hard to relate to some of the events in college.

(( I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review ))

“The Girl That Can’t Get a Girlfriend” is an autobiographical manga by Mieri Hiranishi. It relates the humorous and sometimes sad experiences of Mieri as a young queer woman dealing with her first crush and first relationship. If you enjoy reading realistic and entertaining queer fiction you should give this short manga a read.

I enjoyed Mieri’s art style, especially her funny character drawings and use of paneling in her storytelling. The decision to portray herself as cartoonish and her love interests as idealized was interesting, and seems to reflect her own sense of self compared to the girls she falls for. Though you will feel a little heartache reading, the manga does end on a hopeful note as Mieri learns to love herself better! I appreciated the author's honesty and the opportunity to read her personal story. I hope she will follow her passion and create more manga stories in future for us to read!

The illustrations are cute and the story is hilarious. Mieri's experiences are relatable and entertaining. It was really interesting reading about her exploration of her identity and her romantic adventures. As a queer woman, I wish that I had read this growing up because it would have made me feel less alone. I highly recommend this book!

I really adored this. While this manga is autobiographical, the author is very funny and the subject matter is relatable, not just to the queer community, but to everyone. That said, the author (and subject and narrator) discusses her experience with a common issue in queer dating pools, and my heart hurt for not just the author but also for struggling friends, and even for myself. The mangaka managed to walk a very heartfelt balance between humor and heartbreak, joy and even despair. She touches on self esteem and insecurities both about herself and her perceptions of the world around her, as well as queer topics like the struggle for butch women who love other butch women to find not just each other but also representation at large, and how that contributed to her insecurities. The illustrations were fun and outrageous, and depicted the mangaka's emotional states evocatively. This was a joy to read, but also sad. I loved every minute.

I love the influx of LGBTQ memoirs from Japanese authors! This one was the perfect blend of comedy and seriousness and I appreciated how she didn't hold back on her negative feelings, even when she knew they were dramatic. Her art style is also wonderful! It's a great mix of beautiful shojo and funny visuals that helped bring out her personality!

This was delightful and heartfelt and had a lovely sense of self-awareness as Mieri looked back at her former self while still keeping the feelings she felt in the moment pertinent and undiluted.

Manga Memoir? Say no more.

This was a super cute and honest memoir about Mieri's dating life, specifically one major relationship that had a long impact on her. I loved seeing the story told as manga because that's not something I see very often. Mieri did a great job portraying her emotions, but also keeping the story lighthearted. It was super relatable and I loved going on her journey to explore what she experienced. I think so many of us have experienced a similar heartbreak, so I appreciate how open Mieri was with discussing how it impacted her mental health and how she was finally open to move past the experience to do more!
The artwork was super cute and I love that she made every other character this super glam manga beauty, but she was a more cartoonish version of herself. I think that really helped to tell the story and help the reader see how Mieri saw herself.

Miigweetch NetGalley and VIZ Media LLC for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

This is an autobiographical manga about Mieri, a young nerdy otaku who falls in love with Ash. They date for a month and then break up, which takes Mieri almost four years to heal from. As this is an autobiographical story I feel a little odd critiquing someone’s life, however, from a narrative standpoint… it did not make sense to me that it took so many years to recover from a one-month long relationship. That was … not relatable to me, and for that reason I had a difficult time connecting with the book. I kept muttering to myself, “just get over it” and “she’s just not that into you.”

As someone with admittedly more dating experience than the protagonist, I saw the breakup for what it was and was not under any impression that she and Ash would get back together, although I can ABSOLUTELY understand why Mieri thought that; Ash won no favor from me for that particular action. Especially since I think that Ash knew how naive Mieri was, it was cruel to “give her hope” like that.

The art is lovely to look at and I think the artist does a good job of illustrating her poor self-image; the main character is DERPY to the max. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy romance, stories about the romantically challenged, and anyone who feels a little bit awkward trying to score a date. Quick, light read, but not one I especially enjoyed simply because I found the main character unrelatable - nothing personal!

This was... hmm, an interesting read. Particularly, I found it interesting the way that the artist depicted herself in a complete lack of detail when compared to every other character, to express her own dislike of herself.

The only thing that didn't quite make sense was why she didn't slightly change that appearance towards the end when that's narratively the time she develops better self esteem.

I understand this is an autobiographical story, but I found it difficult to suspend disbelief when she said she took four years to get over someone she dated for a month.

I'm not sure that I loved this story, but I do think it was well illustrated even if the pacing of the story meant that it ended abruptly. I feel as though the author's note would have been better served as an epilogue, especially given that the entire of this graphic novel is basically written in the same tone as the author's note at the end was.