The Loneliest Ballad

novel completed

Thanks for the updates.

I just finished this novel and I am a bit mixed on this book. I will list my thoughts on it.  My biggest issue with this novel, which I am almost positive will be the biggest issue that causes people to drop this is the constant translation problems. The main one is constantly giving characters different pronouns almost every chapter. It’s confusing to keep up with if someone is a man or woman when they are first introduced or a minor character. Another one is they also tend to repeat a phrase/word in a sentence. An example for this is “He fought with the man, using his origin sword and origin sword together” Or “He is very handsome and handsome”. These problems really almost made me drop the novel and if this is a peeve for you then I don’t recommend you read this at all as it can be really frustrating. The story has a bit above average world building. It’s definitely better than most but doesn’t paint an amazing picture in my mind but overall isn’t an issue as it still gives the details and immersion needed to enjoy this.   As far as the MC goes, I really enjoyed his personality. He is a clever, funny, and thoughtful person and can be serious/unserious at the right moments with good timing. There were probably only 3ish moments he irked me but i’d say he is written pretty well.   The novel touches into romance for a bit which I personally enjoy to see as long as it isn’t a huge thing in the novel. But imo it is almost as if his  wife and son are completely forgotten for a while, he leaves them and the novel simply mentions him visiting friends and family extremely vaguely. She was supposed to give birth to their son in 10 years but then a whole 40-60 years go by and there is still no update, and you only find out at the end of the book that he is yet to be born, I honestly wasn’t sure if I skimmed a sentence that mentions the birth while reading . Then it’s suddenly full blast in the last 3 chapters with a very slightly acceptable ending to their story.     Regarding the ending, it was rather fast approached but still decently interesting to me. I wish it was more drawn out when it came to the final few enemy’s as it was hardly an arch. Especially when it came to the “final villain”.   Overall I would lightly recommend this novel if you can overlook the frequent translation errors and issues i listed above.   I ultimately give this book a rating of a solid 7/10, but if translations weren’t bad it would be an easy 8/10.