- #1
This is surprisingly good. Specifically, in a meta way. It's not very original, intricately plotted, emotionally resonate, or deeply characterized. But it is in dialogue with its genres and tropes in a really interesting way. It's rather well-written and well-translated. The literary irony is also pretty funny at times.Girl is a legit villainess in both lives imo. She feels sorry for herself when she's introduced and she has good reason to, but we can see that she wasn't entirely controlled or framed in the first timeline. She chose violence 😂 and doubled down when she got a second chance.It's rare among the many so-called villainesses who are almost-innocent victims. She's not trying to redeem herself, get revenge by living her best life, or "ethically" limit herself to only reflecting back the schemes of her enemies without taking initiative. Her revenge covers all the bases from physical to emotional to financial torment and she feels no shame or remorse about it.The parts that flub are unfortunately rather important parts. The big reveals, major moments for the overarching plot, and parts when the FL figures out "the secret truths." She does so too abruptly, seemingly without reason. It's reasonable that she guesses some things, she's written as smart and genre-savvy. But in contrast to the steady way she torments the people who hurt her, the revelations are always too sudden. So they feel (ironically) forced.Still, this doesn't ruin it—it just would have been better if there had more breadcrumbs and less dumping. That would have had me writing my in review, "this is freaking amazing, " instead of just saying it's surprisingly good.BTW, repeat after me. Having "a setting" is not the same as having "world-building." A setting is a basic, world-building is advanced. You probably mean "the setting" not "the world-building."