I had a hard time rating this… In the end I went with "mixed feeling" while giving it a 4/10, because it does contain good ideas for such a sensitive topic, and at the same time makes some unforgivable mistakes from the get go. Depending in what you enjoy and what triggers you, you might have a very different feel of the overall story. Sure, this novel tries to take its topic seriously. The first volume in particular is full of inner monologues from the teacher protagonist, trying to build a believable explanation for her letting such a situation happen. And those keep reoccurring in thefollowing volumes.

Unfortunately, everything collapses, I think due to a single point of failure: the characters. None of them except the teacher are really fleshed out, and they just behave convenienty for the story to progress, like one-dimensional NPCs. The rickshaw girl is a functional character with no personality or agency. The mother is inconsistently written, almost schizophrenic in her about-faces (being a huge obstacle when it didn't matter, and completely hands-off when it should have mattered). The husband does absolutely nothing, neither in his actions nor in his emotions. The only reason this story ends well is because all those characters unexplicably give in (with a few scenes of dialog to give an illusion of resistance).

Even the high school lover isn't that well developed. Her motivations are paper-thin, her back story is sad, but barely more than a stereotype, and she rarely shows any doubt. In other words, she's just written as a doll for the teacher to play with, once the latter lets go of her inhibitions.

As for the teacher, the huge problem is that, despite what the story tells us, she's never shown to actually… love. In the first two volumes, it's all about lust and sex (a very problematic start in that sort of story…) After that, there's that recurring semi-joke about being the girl's "mama", and she does indeed behave a bit motherly. Overall, all that is shown about this teacher is that she's completely aromantic with men, and obsessed with intimacy with a young girl.

But when do those two talk, share moments, build a relationship with actual foundations? Never, at least not in those three volumes. We're just supposed to accept that they became this unshakable couple with just a few games of catching ball at lunch time and some making out in an empty classroom at school.

If this story was as realistic as it strived to be, that relationship should have been an explosive, fleeting and ultimately self-destructive mess, the sort where it all ends brutally and you get an epilogue where you see the protagonists picking up the pieces of their lives years later. There are things unsaid in the actual epilogue that you might interpret one way or the other, but nothing that makes the ending flow naturally from those premises.