- #1
originally written 4/4/22, updated June 3 2023.I'm embarrassingly obsessed with this. The author and FL approach the situation plot first, romance second (which is honestly the right way to do it). FL comes from a background in which she's crazily familiar with survival skills—if you can get over that hurdle, it's super fun. She's practical, realistic, and quick to think under pressure. Although she isn't completely unaffected by the handsome men she encounters, she's mostly focused on surviving on the hellish island.The MLs are surprisingly fun! Unlike most reverse harem sort of situations, you can at least see why and how their feelings would change from disgust (FL's original body was a standard obsessive villainess) to curiosity, then from curiosity to respect, and finally from respect to admiration. They're not super dumb either: if FL's advice seems useful, they follow it. They've also noticed her behavior has drastically changed after arriving to the island, but her actions eventually prove her sincerity enough for them to trust her and delay their suspicions til later.To be honest, I've never wanted a smut scene for a "reincarnated into what was originally an R18 world" more. The characters have a lot of unresolved tension going on, but they're too focused on survival. I'm also surprisingly interested in a poly ending. FL and the two main MLs on the cover are a fun dynamic.The plot itself is fun. There is a locked box mystery kind of going on, and the setting is so unique that you really can't find anything similar to this story on NU. Creative monsters galore, paired with different ways of vanquished them. Status quos are changing often. It's just really great.Translation quality is stellar, too! Fast updates. Just...a real treat.---------edit, a year later: The mysteries of the island finally started to unravel when we hit triple digits. Without going into spoilers, there's enough drama and plot for me to still be invested in the story, but I do think that the characterization of the MLs has started to drag by sheer virtue of the story focusing on the FL a lot. She gets her own solo adventures not once, not twice, but at least three or four times—this is super rare for such romance novels. It's actually very refreshing to have a female lead whose life doesn't completely intersect with her love interest at every turn.Unfortunately, the guys have not been granted the same sort of attention (being reduced to saps desperate to keep FL safe) ; this drags the novel down from a solid 5 stars to 4.5. I'm still overall okay with it. In a way, it's almost refreshing since female characters are usually left waiting in the wings for most novels. And—it's a low bar, I know—both MLs are still reasonable green flags.The supporting cast serve their purposes well enough, though I can't really recall any standout story moments for them. OG FL (Yuanna) is portrayed with a level of nuance I'm pleasantly surprised by, if only because any attractive girl who isn't the FL is usually villainized lest the reader feel their self inserting be threatened. Overall, a definite read you should at least try if you enjoy female-led stories. It's not like anything else on the site.