I found Life when saw a cap of it on Google images. It looked interesting, so I looked up what manga it was from and found out that it was called Life. I read reviews and decided to read it... and here I am, a few days later.

STORY: 10/10
Life's plotline is amazing. Seriously!! It's interesting, satisfying, intense, and really, it will teach you life lessons. (Well, it did to me.) It explains all the character's development, motivations, and everything without ever being vague or uninteresting. It is an amazing story of bullying, manipulation, and learning to be happy and strong no matter what. At it's core, I guess you could say it is the story of a person who gains the courage to triumph over all the hardships in her way. But it has so many more themes in it. It shows how people learn that being a good friend is to be honest and not let your friend hurt people. It shows the value of friendship and having a strong friend. It covers things like bullying (obviously), self harm, jealousy, manipulation, friendship, the power of money, peer pressure, and many many more.
Also, another thing: I think that the author is writing from their experiences here, which is a reason that Life is so realistic - things like this, though not always to this extent, are real issues in many people's lives.

ART: 10/10
The art was beautiful!!! At first I wasn't really sold on it but by the end I loved it. The EYES are always beautiful. The expressions of the characters really are amazing and always show how the characters feel. The body proportions are all accurate, the frames are set out well, the backgrounds are all drawn well, the story is easy to follow, the art is never confusing, and in every situation the art helps to emphasise the atmosphere.

CHARACTERS: 10/10
Wow, the characters. Well, I don't know what Life would be without its characters, so really they are why this manga is so great. Every character is dynamic, and none of the characters fall into tired tropes or stereotypes. They are all realistic and succeed at what they're supposed to make you feel; bad characters make you feel angry, the victimised characters you sympathise with, etc.. Ayumu is such a great character, and throughout the manga, we can watch her strong character development. Really, pretty much every character in this manga develops so hard, man.

ENJOYMENT: 10/10
One thing that seems to be a common theme amongst readers is how this manga hooks you in. I only started reading it a day or two ago, and through this time I couldn't stop reading it. Every chapter hooked me in. So it is definitely compelling.
When I read Life, one of its strongest points was its ability to make you feel how the characters felt. So when Ayumu, or anyone else, was in a stressful situation, I felt really stressed. Some moments when characters were in trouble were quite scary, also.
One of my favourite things about this manga, though, may just be how the characters change and grow and learn, and how we kind of learn at the same time, just by reading. There are so many important life lessons in here.

OVERALL: 10/10
I think it's obvious by now that I love this manga, haha. I may have a headache from reading it through the night, but it was worth it...!
I haven't read many mangas, but I know that this will be one of my favourites. The themes of this manga actually reminded me slightly of Evangelion, as they both tackled issues with depression etc..
LIFE was an emotional rollercoaster. It was sad, inspirational, rage-inducing, scary, satisfying, sweet, action-filled, and more.

I recommend this manga to anyone. Just be careful if you get depressed easily :)