- #1
3 stars & dropped at ch.210Overall, this novel was simply a big disappointment.In retrospect, the glorious title, the action-packed early chapters, the MC's nail-biting backstory & great personality... All those great elements lead to high expectations. Expectations on which the plotline didn't follow through with, for later on, obvious reasons.This isn't a revenge novel, this isn't an epic tale, or even the subversive & courageous adventure of a women hiding as a guy to pave her own way in a patriarchal society no, this, at its core, is simply an average but well-disguised romance novel (hence why I feel duped). It's only in the second half that I started realising it. This is actually a tale of the past and present interwining, to form a web of missed and fateful encounters between the MC & ML and everything else, more or less became the foil setting to their future love story. I get that it's a romance novel now, but still, I just couldn't help but feel that, regardless of genre, this was a crude and reductive cope out in view of all the potential this story could have yielded. You know what I would have loved reading about? The MC's origin story, the one before she died, the one that was alluded to and gave me shivers of anticipation just thinking of it.The one about her gruelling rise in rank among the military, the road towards forging long standing bond of brotherhood, the in-feuding, the geopoliticking, the corruption, the bravery, all those happening on the backdrop of blood curling battles to come... This, in my heart, was meant to be a personal tale of endurance, tale of adversity, a tale of the rise of a champion, a female one at that or you know... a tale where she was actually a general, the hero of her own story. A la Spartacus (vibe wise) or Mulan (but better). Not a girl sitting on her hands waiting for a guy *sigh*All in all, it's obvious that the utter lack of ambition here just left me all the more heartbroken. If you start with different expectations, a.k.a know it's mainly a romance novel, your reading experience might be different than mine.Also, I admit I'm clearly not the target audience here as I, more often that not, can't stand romance novels on their own. When I do, it's because I found something tangible to keep me interested till the end whether it's character growth, emotional depth, family drama, complex schemes, compelling secondary characters (none here, not even the 2nd ML), politics, military battles, cool adventures... And while the first third was entertaining & promising, the later half of the story was genuinely lacking in those aspects.And let's not even delve into the multiple times where the author just decided to have the MC re-learn complex martial skills literally overnight to wow the peanut gallery (cos' apparently muscle memory can travel across time, space & body too). I'll just point out that there's a slight difference between having an OP character and plain lazy writing. Even more so since it's not meant to be comedic... So kinda took the wind out of my sails as the romance is also a bit meh for me but still a decent novel. And a lot of people apparently liked it so if you're also in love with love, this might be right up your alley.Edit: tried to push through later on but realised there just wasn't anything in the novel I was looking forward to at this point.
