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(4.10/5)Almost the entire story takes place in Hokkaido, and It ends very satisfyingly on many fronts. There's some things I have complicated feelings about - particularly the household Sayu returns to - but putting that aside, I overall really liked this. I would love to see a follow up series (not the side stories) to see where things go after the events of the novel, but I'm fine with it having been left open ended too.
If you're curious/concerned about the ending: it turns out one of them did have romantic feelings, but despite a confession, nothing illegal happens.
Detailed spoiler: Sayu returns home, accompanied by her brother and Yoshida. The day after things are hashed out with the mother, Sayu confesses to Yoshida at the airport, before he leaves. He tells her yet again that he's not interested in a ガキ, and she asks if she'd have a chance as an adult, and asks him to wait. While he admits that it's a possibility, he also says he won't wait. She tells him that she'll come find him, despite that. Fast forward two years, we get a glimpse of Yoshida's life - basically stuff is good at the company, and Yoshida & Gotou have gotten closer, but never developed a romantic relationship. After turning down an invite for dinner from Gotou, we later see Yoshida and Sayu reunited. Sayu asks to stay over, Yoshida says yes, and her final line is ただいま、吉田さん. The rest is left to the reader's imagination.
I have complicated feelings about the wrapup to the story. I feel like I spent the whole series very adamantly not shipping Sayu and Yoshida. But the last few chapters of this book imply very heavily that although the feelings of guardianship that Yoshida felt were really all along romantic feelings for Sayu that can now come to fruition that she is of age. It recontextualizes a lot of their previous interactions in a way that give me the ick. I think from an age difference perspective I'm fine with their relationship, but from from what they were to each other, I'm not fully on board.
I also didn't love the way that the book threw Sayu back into her tumultuous home life with her mom saying simply that she'd take up her duty as Sayu's only parent as an optimistic end point for that part of the story, but I imagine that I have a very strong cultural bias there.
All that said, I am glad I read the book series and still enjoyed the broad strokes of the story. It's definitely a good read if you find yourself in need of a LN series at this level. Especially if you plan to listen to the audiobooks, which are very well done.