- #1
So to begin one of the minor things that just felt yucky to read.
- The author has multiple parts where they reference autism like its this horrible disease that needs to be pitied and cured. While this might be a cultural difference it at least shows to me the author has very little understanding about autism itself and it overall just feels very insensitive and poorly done. (And it doesn't even add anything to the story, I'm not even sure why they added it. The sole thing making the character autistic did was have the female lead write a comic about autism that was very misinformed, and changed nothing plot wise so overall I think it just hurt the novel)
Now, with that out of way the rest of the things that are more minor but still rub me the wrong way are a part of the following rant so without a further a due
How the male lead treats the female lead
To begin with the romance between the male lead and female lead is toxic to say the bare minimum. The male lead literally forces her against her will to go with him when they first meet and it just goes downhill from there. There is just a ton of very toxic and disturbing behavior that shows the male lead doesn't even treat her like a person, and he forces his will on her in a way that just makes him incredibly unlikeable. I think the author was going for a domineering CEO type, but the way this one is done just makes it feel horrible to read. The female lead is literally terrified of him for quite a while and only stops being fearful of him after a plot caused to target him had her nearly die to a fire and he randomly appeared to save her. (I'm not even going to get into some of the massive plot holes in this series, like why or how he was here for this scene to save her)
Anyway, my overall point is just that the way he treats her makes him incredibly unlikeable. I ignored it for the beginning since the author sprinkled in some things hinting that the ML has problems and the FL helps, but while that might become relevant later it still doesn't change that for over 50% of the book the male lead is someone that I have negative feelings for and I actively wish that the female lead doesn't get with him.
This pretty much ruins the romance aspect of the novel for me, its not a relationship where I will feel happy if they get together because f*ck the male lead, he really does not deserve to be near the female lead.
Faceslapping gone wrong
So now we get to the part of the novel that made me drop it. The story does your typical build-up of things that really make you want to watch the mother get faceslapped, and it succeeded with this part. I thought I was fully ready to enjoy the payoff but instead it leaves me pitying the character I'm suppose to hate, while turning the dislike I had for the male lead into despising him.
*The following is for people who are reading this review but not yet to this point, so they have context. If you have read then you should skip:
The mother is built up to be hated by having her abandon the female lead as a child after resenting her due to her illness. The mother wanted to be rich and so she took everything of value and left her sick daughter and the managed to marry a successful guy named Ji something and managed to have a child, half-brother, with him. Later when she found her daughter is still alive and is interacting with her new son she tries to force her to leave by a mixture of threats, trying to force her out of a project, and thats pretty much it.
So, this stuff does make her unlikable, I'm not disagreeing with that, but with how the author went about it I instead pity her when its suppose to be a satisfying payoff for her actions.
The mother calls female lead (and half-brother goes along) to her house in order to essentially threaten her into not being near Half-brother out of fear that her hidden kid will be revealed to her new husband (This is important) and the male lead who had people following the female lead (without her explicit consent) was informed of her getting in the car and asked her where she was going, to which female lead replied with "made to honor my mother"
Now, while the mother is obviously a sh*t person all she has actually done is threaten the female lead with blocking her from the entertainment industry if she doesn't distance herself from half-brother. Yeah, a bad thing but this is very very important to remember. This is how far she has gone.
The male leads response to this is to respond back saying that he will make the mother have to honor him and comes to "pick her up". (As an extra note, earlier the female lead told him that she would deal with her problems herself, so he is already overstepping in this regard and showing that he doesn't respect her at all)
It starts up like you would expect for a normal thing, where both the Husband and Mother are forced to wonder why this big shot is coming to their house.
When male lead arrives he then tells the couple that they are going to rip out every flower in their garden, and then threatens them at gunpoint to force them to do this. After the finish they are then informed that they need to plant weeds across the whole garden and when the Mother says she cant a bullet is fired near her. With every time they stop the Husbands company takes a hit in its price.
The issue is just the proportions are way too off. While I did hate the Mother character, having her be forced at gunpoint to do hard labor feels way too extreme. Its not satisfying to read, and it instead turns a hated character into someone to be pitied. But, at least with her you can give the excuse of she was indirectly trying to cause her daughter to die so she deserved this.
The person I feel is most unfortunate (originally) is the Husband. So from his perspective he married a girl who he knocked up (never explains how, but there is a line about how he can't have more children) and while the novel did say that he is a bad father who spends all of his time at work rather than caring for his son, thats all we have of him so far.
Then he randomly is forced by a powerful person to pull flowers out of his garden at gunpoint while having all of his hard work be drained anytime he stops.
This guy literally does NOT know that his wife has a hidden sick daughter who was abandoned, has very little to do with the female lead (Gave the ok after his wife lied to him about Female leads relationship with Half-Brother) and then is forced into this situation. While it is somewhat implied that he wouldn't be welcoming of female lead that is beyond the point for this.
Then after the forced labor without even knowing whats going on his big project is then destroyed because the female lead doesn't look happy after the male leads actions. Now, this pity I have for him is then reduced afterward when he commits domestic violence and beats his wife, but my point still stands.
Theres even more to this, like the half-brother in this situation, but its really hard to articulate how bad this feels to read. Its very difficult for me to actually write in words how this novel feels to read, because before this scene and ignoring the relationship between male and female lead the story was good for the most part which only makes this such more of an aggregating thing. Its different from a bad novel where the author doesn't know how to write, its a bad novel because I start to get invested and then it becomes a huge letdown. The build-up of emotion for the climax is ruined because it doesn't feel satisfying to read about the Mother, it feels disturbing. I can't have any anticipation for the romance because I actively hope it fails, the male lead is so toxic and horrible that I don't want him to succeed.
tl;dr: Male lead is horrible to the point where it ruins everything in the novel.
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