- #1
Ok so I wasn't gonna review this but I got so incredibly infuriated that I just had to vent somewhere.This book is really a mixed bag, sometimes what you get is absolutely amazing and other times it's borderline tr*sh. I haven't actually finished reading all of the arcs, currently I've gone through 7 of the 8 (ish) arcs. Personally I really enjoyed the 1st and 3rd while I'm generally apathetic towards the 2nd, 4th and 5th. The 6th and 7th though made me cry out of how absolutely infuriating they were.Before I talk about that though let me talk about the characters. Honestly the characters are fine, the MC is kind of bland if not emotionally stunted. It's explained in the plot that he grew up this way and that he's always been emotionless but even after he does fall for the ML he still has absolutely no empathy at all. The ML falls into the category of cliche cold, possessive, a**hole, tops that most fall into. I'd be fine with this if the plot made something interesting out of it but no... he was just bland and forgettable. He does actually have some cute moments with the MC and I would be lying if I said they didn't have some chemistry. Most of the side characters are just ok, they feel like video game npc's.One more aspect that really stood out was the authors blatant sexism. It's like this novel was written by an incel. I'm someone who tends to think the "women being villains in BL is bad" take is super cheesy but this is the first time I've seen genuine full on sexism. There's a difference between just having a female villain and having a whole ass arc dedicated to why it's physically impossible for woman to be good at video games. The author constantly throws out remarks about how superficial, airheaded, and weak all women are. It's not even offensive it's just weird.What really made me mad though was the 6th and 7th arc. This novel follows a bunch of people that want to get revenge and a guy doing it for them. Sometimes the revenge really is earned, Spoiler
such as in the video game arc where a girl outed the original host and drove him to su*cide because he had killed her video game character. Or when a guy r*ped, ab*sed, dug out the original hosts eyes, and then left him to die.
[collapse]but other times it's really not. Some of the worst punishments are given to the least deserving people. The arc most guilty of this is the apocalypse arc. Even though the original host and the person he wants revenge on literally want the same thing and neither of them do anything the other doesn't, the "villain" gets one of the worst punishments in the whole series.Spoilerwhile the girl who literally doxed and pushed someone to su*cide only gets broken up with and gets to live a mediocre life. The 16 year old who was just insecure about whether or not his family loved him got disowned and thrown in the literal apocalypse so he had to suffer alone for the rest of his life unable to kill himself.
[collapse]The worst part is that the novel acts as if your supposed to agree that this child got exactly what was coming to him and that the original host was a pure angle that truly never did anything wrong.