I used to find that Esperanto looked weird and unnatural, but like any language that one is not often exposed to, it will look weird and unnatural to the person. But now when i open my Esperanto bible and start reading, it looks completely natural and logical. The only way that Esperanto could look more "natural" to more people is if it was closer to a carbon copy of other languages, which in my opinion would sacrifices many of the aspects that make Esperanto so great as a communication tool. As one is exposed to Esperanto, it will being to look less and less awkward to them.

As for Novial, i find it interesting, but it seems to make a language unnecessarily complicated.

In my opinion the use of suffix '-um' is a bit strange.