Welcome to Monstrous Miss Sophie’s Enchanted Salon of Healing - LN 2 [end]

Welcome to Monstrous Miss Sophie’s Enchanted Salon of Healing Volume 2 by Sachi Konzome, Illustration by Harenochihareta. Translated by Dawson Chen. Published by Cross Infinite World.

I finished this book two days ago, but I needed some time to gather my thoughts on this one. 

This is the second (and last) book of the series, and while there are some patients that come by here and there, the majority of the focus is on Sophie and Kurt's relationship. 

Kurt is sent on a mission to help subdue a dragon, and it's a life-threatening one. He leaves Sophie with the other half of his dog-tag, and promises to come back alive. This forces Sophie to come to terms with her true feelings, and promise to be truthful about them when the time is right.

Everything up to this point in the book was as heartwarming as you would expect. Sophie tries to heal other people, and the book spends some time showing that just because Sophie is able to heal people's "skin-deep" problems, they still need to work on bettering their own lives. 

It's at this point that there were a few twists in this book that I have complicated feelings on. It's hard to talk about without spoilers. 

We find out that Sophie's affliction is not caused by some auto-immune condition or any physical abnormality, so much as a messed up mana flow. There is an old apothecary/doctor who is pretty much the only one in the world who is able to see and fix such issues, and luckily he's visiting the town! All of Sophie's patients and acquaintances band together to find him so that he can heal Sophie. Once Sophie's mana flow is fixed, she heals her own skin with her magic abilities. So far, so good. A little cheesy, but an enjoyable plot twist.

This is not the part that bothers me. Later on, we find out through "hints" that Sophie's mother is the crown princess of a neighboring country who had to go into hiding due to a revolution. Once Sophie is healed, she doesn't just feel "normal" again. Her lineage has elevated her looks from "Monster" to "Helen of Troy" levels of beauty. Luckily, Kurt loves her anyways, and has always found her beautiful.

It's very fairy-tale like, and it's kind of a slap in the face when the series has been quite adamant about showing people with non-traditional features finding happiness in the end. The rest of the book is about other people finding out how beautiful Sophie is, and their reactions of being jealous of Kurt. Sophie gets her happy ending with Kurt, but Kurt never has to spend time supporting Sophie in the public sphere. We never see him stick up for her publically, because he doesn't have to.

There's also the implication that Raymond the Chef was the Olzon family's back up plan as a possible support system/love interest for Sophie. This is after they already scarred her for life with their meddling with Sophie's doctor in the beginning. What irks me about this is that as a reader, I felt that Raymond had burgeoning feelings for Sophie that would have bloomed if given time, even despite her never being "fixed". Sophie even has the beginnings of a crush there, so I feel like there could have been a natural development there, even without Kurt in the picture. Was there a need to show Sophie as some once-in-a-lifetime bombshell? Couldn't she just have been a sweet girl who finally finds the health and courage to step out into the open world, and finds people who love her for who she is? Not to say that isn't what the story represents, but I think Raymond represents these ideals better than Kurt in some aspects.

The story has a happy ending, but there's all these little hints that sort of distort the sweetness of the ending. I do find the exploration of Kurt as a neuro-divergent character to be quite interesting, but it feels odd that Kurt's mannerisms change completely once they both become a couple. 

Is that just how people are when they're in love? I'm not sure. I really wanted to love this story, and I definitely did enjoy it, but I have some mixed feelings about some of the plot points. It was enjoyable nonetheless, and it's not too long either. I would still recommend this series.