- #1
I like this story, it's cute, and it's got an interesting direction. Some people have mentioned that there's political and world building that takes a heavy role, and they're not technically wrong, but all of that is done in a way that makes even the more serious issues a little too cutesy.
I have some complaints though, and while they're not serious, I think they detract from the overall story. The first is just what I mentioned above. While the world building is interesting, and the politics are engaging, they're all done from the perspectives of the younger characters (from about the age of 7 up to the age of 14 so far), and so the writer takes the time to give them an almost childish perspective. This would work, if these characters had thoughts that were closer to their actual ages (I understand that a lot of them are forced by circumstance to be more mature, but sometimes it's too much). An 11-13 year old shouldn't be capable, even with the best tutors, of being as intelligent and quick-witted as an expert politician, while at the same time expressing a naivety of someone closer to 7-9. The internal monologues don't match the decision making and circumstances that many of these kids are doing/going through. We do get the adults' perspectives from time to time, but those are rare occurences, and while they're an interesting take, they aren't always full of useful information, or they lead to my second "problem" with the story....The chapters are almost too short. It's fun to have little bite-sized chapters, especially when things are being fluffy, but when things get serious, there's just too little room to put in anything that can give the reader a better perspective of the situation. Then the relevant chapters of information and intrigue are broken apart by the fluffy chapters in what feels like an unnatural way. Sometimes the reader will get two to three small chapters of progress in the over-arching story with one to two chapters of fluff, and sometimes you'll get one chapter of progress, and six chapters of fluff. In my opinion (and I mean that literally, everyone has different standards for what they want in a story), I think the story would benefit from a more rigid chapter structure, maybe something like 4-5 chapters of fluff, and 2-3 chapters of progress. At least something predictable and stable to move things at a steady pace instead of an inconsistent approach. It is a web-novel however, so that comes with an amateur writer experiencing developing their story. And I'm honestly happy with how they're improving (at least I think they are, it could be the translator too as I'm not a fan of reading MTL, and I can't read Japanese fluently enough). It's why I rated this a 4 stars.As for my main criticism, and it feels like the later chapters are getting better at not doing this (from about chapter 200 on maybe?), it's that things are often repeated too much. We get dialogue between characters that outlines things well enough, but then we get the MC, Lerunda, repeating what was just said in her thoughts. I'm not talking about a good summary and her thoughts on it either, but her just wording it in a very slightly different way, sometimes even rambling about it. It ends up making some chapters be more than half, or even three quarters, longer than they should be. I think maybe it's done to show the immaturity of Lerunda's character, and how she struggles to understand the more mature concepts, but I think maybe there could be a better, less wasteful, way of showing that. To reiterate though, I feel like this problem is improving in later chapters, which makes me think of two possible reasons: 1. The writer is improving and getting better at understanding how to more clearly and concisely write a given part of the story. And/or 2. The writer is trying to show how the MC is maturing and understanding things around them in a better, and more mature, way.I recommend giving this a read. You might enjoy the world-building, you might enjoy the fluff. Personally, I enjoy both and I look forward to how the writer develops in the future.
