- #1
To a very small degree, I can relate to the MC as a middle child who felt that it was unfair my mother treated my younger brother better even though I behaved better and didn't cause trouble. Looking back at it now, I did actually do mean things to him in retaliation, but only to the extent of ignoring him or constantly trying to get him in trouble by reporting to my mother if he did anything remotely bad even though it did not warrant any punishment. And it really was not met with punishment, which fueled my emotions even more. I was a kid who couldn't think properly and drowned in my own self pity. Back then I even had thoughts of leaving home because it felt like no one cared about me, this 10 year old kid who matured too quickly by spending too much time on the internet. Objectively speaking I grew up more fortunate than most people, and at some point in my life I did acknowledge that which is why I stopped acting the way I used to. It was an abrupt change and my brother still didn't like me at first, but I never fought back and eventually we are back to good terms again. Really what happened is just that we both grew up and stopped being childish. However, something I've never done is apologize to him. Maybe it's my pride or that I'm stubborn but I just don't apologize so easily. I didn't do it because one, I don't think what I did was that big of a deal, and two, because the pain I felt was real to me at the time. At the end of the day we're in good enough terms to joke and mess around with each other now and we never had to talk or reconcile, it just happened naturally. Which is why I always find it hard to relate or understand when fictional characters are so quick to apologize. To me, if it wasn't anything big then there's no need to apologize. If it was something too big then you don't deserve to apologize. There is only that small window in the middle where I find it appropriate to tell someone you're sorry, which is why I find some scenes in this novel hard to buy.
[collapse]My rant and thoughts about the novel, with heavy spoilers:SpoilerDespite having never fought a real fight or have an enemy in my life before, I'm quite the spiteful person who'd rather burn the room to take both of us down than to forgive someone who'd wronged me. Now of course that's purely just how I feel and completely hypothetical, like I said I've never had an enemy in my entire life. However stories like this novel serves as an avenue for me to explore these emotions and for that sake alone I'd say the novel is worth a read. Going back to what I said though, I'm too spiteful to let any good endings or redemption happen for the MC's family apart from maybe the father. I almost actually dropped the novel from the past few chapters because it was looking like the second brother was getting redeemed. If I was the MC during the entire time her brother forced her to talk to him in the middle of town, I would've just straight up tell him he's only doing what he's doing in order to replace the eldest brother as heir. The novel then tries to frame it as if the reason why he's trying to become the heir is because he wants to make up for what he did to the MC, which to me is just completely bullshit. I cannot see anything he does as genuine because someone as smart as him would've already done something to help the OG MC if he genuinely cared for her. Instead he only starts "caring for her" when rumors got more supportive of the MC and the eldest son's position as heir was being questioned. It would be ironic to say this after all that novel said about people being obstinate and stubborn about their prejudice and not accepting the truth if it was handed to them. But literally the only reason why I'm even saying this is because this guy doesn't act like someone who genuinely feels guilty. He constantly meets with the MC despite the MC literally feeling traumatized when she sees him. I just cannot see this guy as a good person. The MC is a poor girl too heavily traumatized. Despite how hurt she is, at the back of her mind she still hopes that her family learns to love her back despite everything, even though she's no longer capable of receiving that love anyway. The notion that the second brother is taking advantage of it, even if like maybe 20% of him does actually feel bad, does ruin the experience quite a bit. Of course maybe I'm just reading too deep into it, but I don't know if it's better that the second brother is secretly just straight up ruthless, or that the author genuinely wants to redeem this character.
[collapse]All in all, looking forward to the rest of the novel. I hope that it maintains its identity of a story of someone who's given up and just want to be left alone. Genuinely I hope it doesn't fall into the pitfall of many revenge stories where it redeems characters and force a happy ending.
