- #1
Oh dear, where do I start with this one? This novel, personally is one of the rare few books that has managed to mend my absolutely horrible first impression and continued to grow on me by dodging some of the pitfalls that would've made me hate it with every fiber of my being.Spoiler
(The MC ending up with a sort of reverse harem, for example. Due to the extremely delicate state of mind of the MC at the beginning of the novel, she abhors human beings and while it does soften over the course of 9 odd volumes, it still doesn't mean that she is in any shape to understand the romantic interest directed towards her.)
[collapse]My initial thoughts about the novel mostly stem from how every character introduced in the novel got off on the wrong foot. (Well, everyone save for the MC and Nero. The initial impressions of Lana, Casey and Glenn Dudley who were introduced later in the novel were also decent.) Their attitudes towards the MC made them seem like irritating, irredeemable scumbags that would've been best as canon fodder. But the author had a lot more in store than those initial impressions would've suggested.Now, if you're like me and were simply looking for a novel with a female MC in a sort of badass fantasy story, you'd be disappointed. Combat scenes are very few in this and mostly end pretty quickly. Needles to say this added to my dissatisfaction towards how things were being taken, I would've at least liked some semblance of monster hunting and the like.But, despite everything that I've said so far, I couldn't stop reading. Because the core philosophy of the novel was getting clearer as the chapters progressed. And this is where I tip my hat to the author, they've broached the subject of physical and mental ab*se immaculately. As opposed to other tragedy based fantasy novels that break the MC's heart "irreparably" and then drag and drop the poor sods into a melting pot of harem targets, the approach here is realistic. The MC's and the supporting charcters' trauma unravel themselves in all their hideous majesty to the reader in the form of flashbacks during key events. But these charcter-defining traumas don't necessarily heal after being displayed to the reader. For instance, a side charcter who worked hard to be acknowledged by their mother had finally seen some light at the end of the tunnel. Likewise, the MC, who hated social interactions took baby steps to walk out of her shell. The damages from the traumas and the way they shaped the cast may be very much permanent; but these cast of charcters struggling to take that first baby step to face their fears is beautiful.There were moments where I felt that the writing was bad and the author wanted to simply prolong the story somehow, but I'm willing to look past that and recommend it to anyone who's thinking of picking it up.