- #1
After venting to a friend about how it was becoming more and more difficult to find good novels to read they challenged me to read something in a genre I would usually never even consider. Under normal circumstances at least 3 out of the 5 listed genres would probably exclude this one from even being considered. BUT, thinking that the challenge was actually a good idea I dove into the sea of genres I usually am biased against and after a lot of..... unimpressive attempts, I finally landed on this one.Just a warning, someone who likes these genres might totally disagree with me. They might think that I have no idea what makes a good yuri novel, or slice of life, or smut light novel, and they would be right, I dont and to be completely honest, I dont care. All I know is that I actually really enjoyed this.-I think the premis of the story is actually pretty good. Buying someone for 100 days is certainly not normal but in the context of this story I could see it happening. I know people that do similar things for a living and I know that at least one of them has admitted to falling inlove with a client before.-The characters are seemingly pretty typical. While I'm not super familiar with slice of life or school life novels I have been around long enough to at least be familiar with the typical character tropes and these characters seem to follow that pattern more or less. However, in the case of slice of life and school life novels, I think that is actually a good thing. To be honest most people, most places, are mostly the same. Sure they will have a character trait here or there that sets them apart, but in general the differences are basically negligable from a story telling prospective. In my oppinion, a good slice of life novel should reflect that. At the same time, the characters do show growth and development throughout while maintaining a core personality that makes them both fun and understandable.-Again, not really familiar with the genre, but the "smut" scenes seemed pretty tame. To be fair, they are fairly graphic (in my eyes, again, not really familiar) but they aren't over the top. Which is something I consider a huge plus. I've seen some reviews mark this as a bad thing, and honestly, if thats your thing then I guess I can totally understand you dissapointment. But, in my eyes, they kind of match the context of the story. Any more intense and I think they would have overshadowed the story, which seems to be the main focus of the novel for the author. - I've seen a few reviews say the romance is unrealistic and forced which I disagree with. Maybe I'm just old but, I've personally seen relationships much stranger than this before, many, many times. I know a couple that went on one date and then got engaged on the second date, they have been maried for 7 years. I know an artist couples that only sees eachother once a month and have been going on for nearly 20 years. I know people who started dating as a dare and ended up geting married. I know people who considered themselves striaght and a chance encounter opened their eyes to being gay or lesbian. Romance isn't something that makes sense and normal for one person is almost alien for the next. Maybe the romance in this story doesn't fit your taste, but I feel like romance in general is suppose to be unrealistic.I totally acknowledge that some people will read this and absolutly hate it. But I realy really do think it's worth a shot. I wouldn't say it change my perspective of any of these genres, but in the end, I'm actually really glad I read this, In my opinion that says a lot about the author and I can't wait to read more from them.
