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starryocean · 2 years ago

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finished reading So I’m a Spider/Kumo desu ga volume 15.

I know i’ve skipped a lot of volumes, and that i promised to get to them eventually...but I’ve kind of realized that that’s not gonna happen. at least not anytime soon. So I’m going to go ahead and talk about volume 15 since it’s the most recent one I’ve read, and when volume 16 comes out hopefully I’ll post my thoughts then too.

So, highlights: attempting to explain everything to everyone. Shun going through the Taboo menu, finally letting us know what it looks like and how it feels to have unlocked it. We did get an early glimpse of it in the anime, but even so it’s nice to finally have it actually appear on-screen in the text itself. I also liked that Natsume lived and was repentant about everything he did while still being himself, although I feel like it would have been more powerful if the LN kept the “Dreaming Boy” interlude from the WN, even if it doesn’t end with his death this time. The downtime in general for everyone to learn, process, and discuss everything was very nice. If it was all action again after just having had that big battle with Potimas, then I probably would have gotten frustrated with the narrative.

The bit where Sofia went and both managed to ruin the rest of the explanations and yet do them in a better way than White in some aspects was very funny, truth be told. As well as the fact that Sofia accidentally set people up for hope of returning only to let them down hard--all of that was very true to her character, as well as the fact that she did seem to express some guilt at having done so. I liked her self-awareness with regards to having been able to escape the thread at any point but not doing so because it would only get her into more trouble. That actually shows a bit of growth on her part, as well as the fact that she even tried to help White explain anyway. She’s getting a little less impulsive, a little more willing to help, but is still suffering from her egotism, Envy skill, and general lack of care about other people besides the ones she’s managed to get close to.

I also liked Phelmina’s characterization during the moments she shows up. Yuri still being creepy and super devoted even after not being brainwashed is good too. The scene where she casually self-harms is properly disturbing, although I’m not too sure on how it was handled. It definitely gives a lot more insight into her character and how she might have ended up as she did in this world--her having been suicidally depressed while living in Japan, then suddenly being thrust into a new world, and then being raised by a tightly-controlled church in service of a God who’s voice you can actually hear...that would have been something I could see someone clinging so strongly onto in the absence of anything else that could help. Especially given the fact that therapy isn’t often used in Japan, and the only equivalent in the kind of “time period” the setting is supposed to be in is the church.

I’m also really, really happy that Shun reacted like a normal fucking human being when Sue drugged him and attempted to rape him. I swear that shouldn’t be such a low par to pass, but somehow it is and I’m glad kumo desu passed it. Shun being rightfully disturbed, unsure what to do, and also attempting to set hard boundaries with Sue and annoyed that she still took advantage of his kindness in trying to comfort her is the kind of reaction I would have expected out of anyone in that situation. Honestly I wish he did get angry and yell at her, especially considering what a hard breach of boundaries and trust that was, but it is true to his characterization that he’d just want to restrain her from doing anything else and settle things more calmly. His attempts to make Sue not as attached over the years and him being rather upset and second-guessing everything he did in light of that incident was pretty realistic too.

The only annoying bit about that whole thing was how it was played for laughs in the way Katia, Yuri, and Fei intervened and stopped it, but the fact that it played Shun being rather disturbed and upset about things straight helped. I guess maybe Okina Baba played it for laughs initially was to kind of lessen the impact of how fucking creepy and honestly horrifying that was that Sue went so far. Because there’s always been a sense of lightheartedness to Kumo desu even when horrible things are happening on-screen, I could see Okina Baba wanting to not go super hard like that while still making sure to treat it as a serious thing later. Not sure if I like it still, but it makes sense based on the general tone of the series.

(the details Tsukasa Kiryu did of Shun’s face while drugged, despite being contrasted with the “silly” panel below, also help create that impression in my mind. The way Kiryu did Shun’s expression definitely isn’t “funny,” and is actually quite creepy to look at. If he’d drawn it as one of those faces with spirals for eyes and an open mouth with a dip like it’s drooling, I’d be way angrier about the “playing for laughs” thing.)

The “World Quest” being done in stages is also cool, too. It’s kind of funny that D set it up to essentially be decided by popular vote, but the image the wording creates of people getting down on their knees and praying desperately for the salvation they want to happen is also very powerful. The fact that Dustin is well-versed in the skills needed to win an “election” like this, including dirty things like manipulating votes, is also a good use of his character and backstory. He’s already proven himself to be willing to use underhanded tactics to get what he wants done--it makes sense that he’d do the same thing with trying to get the outcome he desires.

The fact that Ariel also didn’t even bother trying to convince anyone to join her side and instead basically declared “I’m going to do what it takes no matter what, you can try and stop me if you want, but it won’t change anything because I would never have expected anything different from you people. Because you’re all guilty of having done the same thing before and that’s why we’re even in this fucking mess, so if you try and stop me it’ll just confirm everything I’ve already known to be true for so long” is also really powerful. She hasn’t had any expectations for humanity (of this world at least) to do or choose better for thousands of years. She’s been trying to fix things for thousands of years. Of course she’s not going to bother making a plea for support--humanity may as well be dead to her already.

All she cares about is saving the last of her family, whether Sariel wants it or not. She’s thrown away hundreds if not thousands of lives in pursuit of this goal already. She doesn’t have time to care about anything or anyone else, beyond her goals and the people she’s already gotten to help her. She’s on borrowed time and won’t live past a year. She’s out of fucks to give. So she’s going to do whatever it takes no matter what cuz fuck everyone else. Come at her if you want--you’ll just die for nothing, because Ariel already knows she’s going to win. She’s not accepting any other outcome.

Like damn. That moment hit me.

I honestly can’t think of anything else to say--I don’t really have any complaints? Shun stubbornly insisting on his idealism, while annoying, is still in character, and probably exacerbated by Taboo. Anything else I can think of that might ave irked me I’ve already discussed. I feel like it was a solid volume in general tbh. The only way I can think of the ending being disappointing like everyone on the kumo subreddit says it is, is if White and Ariel lose and lose badly despite everything they’ve worked so hard towards. Like I know there’s not going to be a good ending either way, but I’d rather it take the form of White and Ariel winning and the devastation of so many people dying being even worse than they’d already expected and having to live with the consequences in an uncertain future, than having thrown away all of the progress, all of the hard work, and basically everything to series was building up towards and dumping it straight into the garbage as part of the ending.

Especially given that I’ve heard the author said the WN was supposed to be the Bad Ending specifically, given that everyone is so much more horrible in the WN and things went so differently that the only way it could end is in tears, specifically because everyone is awful forever. Or something. I don’t really know because I don’t read the WN anymore because I refuse to suffer through turb0′s godawful translations just to get to the part where things are actually possible to comprehend. like. if the LN is already so much better and easier to read, why the hell would I make myself suffer through machine translation of the exact same story but with everyone having worse personalities and an even worse ending?

so yeah. the only thing I can think of that would make the ending actually bad at this point is like I said above--if the author threw away everything they were building towards and set it on fire instead of trying to get a satisfying conclusion. Okina Baba has proven to be a better author than that, and nothing that happened that was horrible ended up being for shock value so far, instead having an actual point, so I don’t see him doing that.

So that’s my thoughts on volume 15. again, no spoilers in comments or reblogs. I want to see the ending for myself and if anyone tells me how it goes before I get to read it, I’m going to be quite angry. This includes the WN, too.

Otherwise, feel free to tell me your own thoughts on this one.

#phoenix says boring stuff #kumo desu ga #kumo desu ga nani ka #so im a spider #so im a spider so what #reading tag

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starryocean · 1 year ago

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realized there's still books i havent got to talking about yet that ive finished forever ago. whoops. here they are now.

1 - Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

as I expected, it was incredibly edgy. I kept thinking of Jorg as some 13-year-old dA boy's first ever fantasy OC. And he talked as if he felt the same way, too--really believing that he was the coolest shit ever, can do whatever he wants, fuck his dad and fuck the kingdom. nothing personnel, kid.

To Mark's credit, Jorg is also literally 14. I think. 14-15. Either way he's a teenager and has trauma and very much acts like it. I think that's a pretty important thing to state with regards to Jorg's narration. However, it also makes some things he pulled off in his backstory statistically impossible for a...I think 10? 11? year old to do. But there's also some weird magic shit going on, and the weird magic shit is explicitly confirmed to have played a role in at least one of those statistically impossible incidents, so I guess I can believe that maybe there was meddling there as well. idk.

Anyway. Let's talk about what I liked.

The "twist" with regards to the background of the setting as a whole was fairly interesting and properly foreshadowed from the start--even the map was pointing to it. However, it was also the only thing that really kept me reading. I did not like Jorg, even if I thought his narration was hilariously edgy, but somehow I did end up rooting for him to win the last battle at least a little? So I guess some of the reviews didn't lie to me in that that would happen.

So that's another thing I liked. Mark Lawrence is a competent storyteller if he was able to get me invested enough in Jorg--even with Jorg being unlikable as he is--to root for him at all at the very end. Let me be clear that I can't see him ever being truly a "hero" by any definition of the word. But he grew on me. That's the important thing. He grew on me, and it's honestly a sign of good writing that he was able to grow on me at all.

Thirdly: I think it's very, VERY funny that the only reason everyone didn't die half-way through the book is because one guy spoke up about not using every bomb available in order to destroy this one place. This guy saved the fucking world from being annihilated by nukes (yet again, cuz oops spoilers that's the twist it's set in post-nuclear apocalypse Europe) and then nobody even knows it but Jorg and his little group of bandit shitheads. And it's all because he didn't think it was necessary to go all out for one stupid fortress and told Jorg he had to tone it down a bit.

Comedy gold.

Now, what I didn't like:

Jorg. I've already mentioned he's a shithead. Massively so. Literally the book starts with him slaughtering a whole village for no reason, among other things. Literally the only reason I could find myself rooting for him is because the other guys were worse. So since I've already talked a lot about how much I don't like Jorg, I'm moving on.

The treatment of women is also very annoying. it's not as bad as having literally every female character get raped, but the only one who's given any development is the step-daughter of the king (jorg's dad) from his marriage to another woman after the first queen got murdered horribly. The only other woman of note I can think of is the dead queen and a sex worker that is treated like an idiot the whole time she's on screen. She and Jorg end up having sex anyway. It's gross.

Also. Racism. The only Black character is never given a real name and is consistently referred to by his race alone. He dies part way through the book (although he's still relevant a good while after) and is never given a proper name. And of course he was a slave and bandit and he's notable because apparently there aren't many other Black people in post-apoc Europe that aren't slaves??? Utterly bizarre. Do you have any idea how many Muslims live in France, as an example? Especially Black Muslims? Are you seriously telling me there wouldn't be ANY descendants of those people living as commoners in post-apoc Europe, even if not in what was once France specifically? Like, let's be generous and pretend that there aren't any Black nobility either because people are just THAT racist after the end of the world. Are you seriously saying there'd still be little to no free Black people around, at all? Are you stupid?

The fucking Asian character is treated better than this, and he's also a fucking slave whose been forced to be the wise old elder trying to teach Jorg about stuff and "put him on the right path" or w/e bs. But he at least has a name.

So overall I did not like this one, tbh. Even if there were a few things I did like a lot, there wasn't enough to keep me going other than the interesting setting twist and wanting to see how it ended. 3edgy5me, or whatever the meme was back in the late 2000s-early 2010s.

Would not rec.

2 - The Cat Who Saved Books by Sousuke Natsukawa

I liked this one a lot. 200+ pages, very short, but lots of warm feel-good with fantasy aspects to it as well. The different "worlds" where books were being treated badly were very interesting, and the different ways they were being treated badly was some good commentary on how people consume media. There were a lot of Western literary references which I didn't expect, but also since this was a translation and the author is Japanese I can see way, as part of the atmosphere of the book and playing into the protag's tastes and circumstances.

I was really interested in trying to learn what that last story the protag needed to confront was, because I wasn't sure who she was meant to represent, but it was probably more obvious in the original text and just couldn't be carried over to English well. I did like the whole "friends from past adventures coming to help the protag in his time of need" even if its a cliche, and there was just a lot of coziness to this one that I needed at the time I read it.

Loved this book. Would recommend.

3 - All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O'Donoghue

I admit, I picked this one up because it was from a publisher/imprint I'd never seen in store before and wanted to know what kind of stuff they published. The pretty art was also a selling point, as the setting in contemporary Ireand with Tarot stuff going on.

I wasn't sure if I'd like the protag at first, but I really did. Even with the rift between her and her childhood friend at the beginning and how it happened, I could really see why she did what she did, because I know that sort of thought process she had as she got older and wanted to "fit in" in her upper-class school. The fact she also ended up having to confront her privilege with how her family has far more means than most people was also a good part of her arc. I was also quite happy that she and her friend didn't make up right away at the end once the friend was saved, and that it was clear there was a long way to go between them.

The lore with the weird creepy card that started this whole mess was interesting, too. The fact that the spell the protag did was actually mutual on both her and her friend's part was an interesting touch I didn't expect--but it also makes sense? Especially with the foreshadowing that came after the incident with her having been seen willingly going with that manifestation of said card. The backstory about that other girl who stumbled upon that power but died without any help, and the fact that the nun(?) lady had all those news clippings in her car in the first place...those were good. The latter was touching, too, especially given the whole conflict against the religious cult.

Speaking of. Said religious cult. When the blurb says that this book touches on queer revolution, it's not joking around--this book goes fucking hard on the harm of anti-queer politics and what that religious cult is doing. The fact that the cult leader has magic also makes it even worse, considering he's manipulating people both with mundane tactics and literal fucking magic.

So uh. I wasn't in a great place to be reading that sort of thing when I got this, and with current politics I don't think I'll be able to read the next book any time soon either. But I did like this one a lot. Bonus points for the nonbinary character being amab, because--while I'm sure there's stuff out there--there's such a prevailing attitude of nonbinary being "femme lite" that it's so hard for me to find actual amab nonbinary rep. It's such a breath of fresh air. Like it shouldn't even be a thing that matters but...god, I need more amab nonbinary characters. Please.

Anyway. Great book. Goes hard. Would love to read the next one when I'm in a better headspace for it. Would recommend if you're in a good headspace for it.

4 - Never Coming Home by Kate Williams

It's And Then There Were None but if Fyre Festival. I was sold as soon as I read the blurb. I fucking love that idea and the And Then There Were None kind of mystery is like catnip to me. I loved that book when I first read it and I've been really into Agatha Christie-style mysteries in general. The recent Death on the Nile movie was loads of fun. I need to read more of her books and this helped scratch that murder-mystery itch I've been getting more into lately.

It's also good that the one actual big influencer was sus on everything from the start, precisely because most of these people were nobodies even in their own niche, by varying degrees from their helpfully-listed follower count in the beginning. Frankie Rus(s)h (the actual big influencer) only knows like, one person from an event they were both at and is very protective of her. Even so, she's still quite clearly flawed, and even a little selfish, and I like that.

The POVs all vary from chapter to chapter, as fitting the story its paying homage to. The way everyone's being taunted while they're trapped there at the same time they're getting picked off one-by-one is also nice psychological horror for those characters. Especially with the fact that the account for the event is updating with pictures of people that couldn't have been taken by any of them with riddle-like messages about who'll die next and how.

I also like that there was a character who was upfront about the thing they're guilty of right away. He knew he was the reason it happened, he did his time over it iirc, he made peace with his guilt and is fine with letting people know if it'll help figure out this mess. That's really good emotional maturity even if not everyone was as honest about their crimes as he was. Good stuff.

Now. Some problems.

That same character I don't feel was handled as great as he could've been. His whole thing is that he's a DJ, or at least was trying to make it as one, but ended up as more or less a drug dealer instead. I feel this would be fine if he were like, any other race but latino. Just...the drug dealer stereotype is too prevalent, especially with current politics, but I do applaud that the author tried to handle it as maturely as possible and made him far more nuanced than just a "druggie." He also didn't die first, and in fact lasted for a good while.

The alternating POVs between him and one other person right before his death was also good. Unreliable narrator clearly on display, with both of them being sure the other is the culprit in all of this. Tragic as all hell and really helps with the gut punch. Especially with how that other person died right after.

The only thing I was super confused about was the "explanation" part of the ending. It was framed as people theorizing online about it all (on reddit actually, I think) but I still didn't feel quite clear about the culprit's motivation for all of it. I might have to reread later to see if I can understand it better, but I do also know that scene was of the culprit literally trolling in order to try and dissuade people from thinking it was them.

Because they're still a public presence at the end and their family has been monetizing the shit out of the tragedy.

Yeah. Oof.

Still. Very good book. Loved it and it did the concept and homage justice. Would rec.

5 - The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

Very interesting mystery, tbh. Contemporary/historical, with some people apparently having very YMMV feeling on how it was done. Personally I liked it a lot, the style and narration felt fitting. I really liked the emotional arcs of the characters, as well as the whole concept of an old herbalist going against her teachings in order to provide poison to women so that they can kill their husbands in an era where women didn't really have the ability to either divorce or else stop such people at all.

The relationship between the herbalist and the young girl was fun, and I really liked how the lady the girl was working for loved her like family. Enough to kill her husband so that he couldn't hurt the girl at all. The story with the modern-day historian was...less interesting tbh, mostly because for much of it I was worried it'd be more focused on the relationship drama with her cheating husband and their collapsing marriage more than it actually was. I wasn't super into the pregnancy scare plot either. But I did end up liking her side of the story more as the novel got further in.

It wasn't a super long novel either. Also in the 200+ page range. But the mystery/historical aspect was good, the modern characters not being able to get a full, conclusive idea of what happened in the past was good, and it was really fun watching the modern day historian do some breaking and entering in her search. fuck yeah, lady. trespass on private property to cope! fuck the police! lmao

Would recommend.

6 - So I'm a Spider, So What? #16 by Okina Baba

I liked most of it, up until the very end. The end ended up retroactively souring the rest of the book for me, if not the whole series. It was too abrupt, and the "epilogue" of 1-2 sentence paragraphs describing what happened to every character only made it worse. Especially given the fact that Sue is implied to be the one who "won" with Shun in the end, even though both volumes 15 and 16 make it explicitly clear she's not supposed to be seen in a good light with regards to her actions--starting from her rape attempt against Shun to how she selfishly inserts herself into the party of people meeting with the Demon Lord, and how that could very well have ended the world right then and there.

Like, Sue is not meant to be seen in anywhere near a positive light in volumes 15 and 16. She even keeps taking advantage of Shun's kindness even though he very firmly set boundaries with her, which is also presented as something negative, and yet she...somehow wins? Like, yeah, sure I am biased towards Katia. But Katia has also been pretty explicitly built-up as the "main" romantic interest for Shun since volume 1. Given the way Sue is treated/presented in the last few volumes, how she's been barely relevant for a majority of the series since volume 5, and with Katia being the obvious choice? It feels like a deliberate "fuck you." And it hurts. And it's honestly made me not want to go back and reread any of the series anymore for the parts I at least liked.

I've been wanting to write out a snippet/one-shot that sums up my feeling as to what should have been done with Sue since I had a chance to sit and process volume 16, but I can't even get myself to do that because of how sour it feels to even think about the ending. Even though I feel like it'd be cathartic to write such a fic. But I can't fucking get myself to do it. I knew people were saying the ending was bad, but I was really hoping it was people complaining for similar reasons as to why people didn't like vol 11-12 (aka, their reasoning was stupid).

But...no. They were right. The ending sucked. And I don't even know how to feel about the stupid series anymore. I don't even know if I want to have anything to do with it anymore.

And it hurts.

That's all I can say about this one.

7 - Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak

Loved this one. The way it was written, most people being genuinely nice and good, the possessed/haunted kid not being demonized? It was so good. It was something I needed when I picked it up. It took me a while to actually finish it, but the ending made me so happy I did. This book is horror, I should also mention, and the drawings periodically inserted into the story was a great touch.

As a side note: I was thinking to myself a few days ago how most of my experience with horror media has been indie games,* how a majority modern video games have an inherently visual element to them, and how House of Leaves--the only adult horror novel I'd read before picking up Hidden Pictures--also had a kind of visual element to it that most books lack. Obviously, most novels make up for the lack of visuals by invoking images in your head as you read the prose, such that you can still "see" things happening. House of Leaves, however, ends up taking it a step further by making the text itself a visual component, not just leaving it as "text" and relying on the reader's imagination.

I think, considering my tastes in horror media, it's not a surprise that the two adult horror books I've picked up--and loved--have had a visual component to them. I mean, the narratives themselves are compelling, don't get me wrong. The prose and story of both are phenomenal. I loved reading them as much as I enjoyed the "visual" aspects. But I noted that it was an interesting trend, considering.

But anyway. Loved Hidden Pictures. 100% would rec--especially to those who want something accessible to try and get into the horror genre with.

(*I also read a lot of horror manga/webtoons, but the sentence was long enough so I elected to include that down here. Either way, my point still stands re:my tastes in horror having a bent towards including some sort of visual aspect to the storytelling)

8 - My Next Life as a Villainess #6 by Satoru Yamaguchi

I tried getting back into Bakarina as a way of helping me out of a reading slump, wanting to read something easier to help ease me into reading in general (which worked, and was what helped me finish Hidden Pictures). I also bought another LN that I'll go on about down below to help with this. I liked...some of this one. But I was also feeling kind of sour by the end of it due to the way a certain character was handled.

To put it simply: there's a side character who is described in a way that more or less makes them a trans caricature. Super muscular, wears pretty dresses/frilly clothes, wants to be called by a feminine name, acts super feminine despite being repeatedly referred to as looking hypermasculine, etc. To top it off, her coworker insists in referring to her by her deadname. Everyone else treats her as a woman (including Katarina's narration), but this one guy doesn't. Consistently. To top it off, everyone's kind of creeped out and wary around this transwoman character, at least at first.

I will say, at the very least, in comparison to that male coworker who deadnames her the trans character is at least portrayed as competent at her job. She takes things seriously and is good at what she does. She also doesn't act creepy to the other characters, it's the other characters being creeped out by default and eventually warming up (which, isn't much better, but the bar is so low that it's still a step up). She's also very caring towards the other characters and wants to keep everyone safe. At the end, a different viewpoint character who the transwoman is giving a report to also takes her seriously and treats her as a woman, trusting her and knowing she's one of the better people in their organization (iirc. It's been a while since I've read all of these).

But none of this fully washed away the bitter taste I got from the way this character's appearance is so obviously meant as a joke/caricature. Especially in a time where I was already feeling down, and combined with how Kumoko's ending went it sucks even worse. Bakarina was/is another series I really enjoy--I've been keeping up with the fan translations of the manga releases and it's been nice to read something so comfy and light when I see there's been a new update. But now that I've read this volume, and now that the fan translation is getting into the content of this volume, it's been made sour for me too.

The plot was okay, I guess. I wasn't super fond of how mean one of the characters was to Katarina, although I understand why given his backstory. I liked Pochi getting a power-up and the others freaking out about it. But I felt thoroughly "meh" on basically everything and was disappointed with the stuff regarding that transwoman character.

I don't have anything super nice to say about this one, sorry. Moving on.

9 - I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire #1 by Yomu Mishima

Opposite to Bakarina, this one started out in a way that had me REALLY not want to read it, expecting the worst, and then turned my opinion around to a complete 180 as it went on.

I want to let you know, I've rarely ever had that happen to me. So I want to stress that this was actually good and funny, despite starting off on such an awful note. Like, I cannot understate how catastrophically the novel started out with regards to my expectations. I spotted a trope I don't like right away in the Table of Contents as one of the chapter titles, the full-color pages at the start being super super fanservicey, and the first chapter going into detail about how the reincarnated protagonist commissioned a big-tittied robot that had sexual capabilities programmed when he was a small child. And from there proceeding to grope said robot when she arrived, while still a small child.

And yet, it managed to redeem itself so well that I now consider it a favorite. I'm probably not going to buy any other volumes in the series, but I was actually laughing at some of the jokes at points. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a isekai manga that's actually funny? This LN started off so badly, but it managed to make me laugh. THIS KIND OF 108 NEVER. HAPPENS.

If you're wondering how it did that, then let me explain: first, it acknowledged several tropes common in isekai works (i.e., slave harems) as being a bad thing that will get people hating you and wanting you dead. The bar is so low but with the amount of works that don't manage to cross it, this was notable and improved my opinion just on its own. Then, the whole thing with the protag learning how to fight from a fraud because his brain is on anime and how what the guy was teaching him shouldn't actually be possible was incredibly funny. Failing upwards, and all that.

Then, this one older character being portrayed as incredibly pathetic and embarrassing for trying to do the honeypot thing. Too often, male teenage protags end up leaning into the gross pervert trope and let themselves go along with creepy fanservice no matter who it comes from. But this lady trying to seduce someone younger than her is shown as being embarrassing on her part, even humiliating that someone would even go that far. Again, this shouldn't be notable, but the fact that this LN was able to make such a point helped improve my opinion, because there's so many novels out there that can't even say that.

Then, when rescuing a bunch of people who've been held prisoner and traumatized (with heavy sexual connotations, even though nothing on-screen or outright is shown), the protag instead chooses to help them recover and even help them find places/jobs/etc. in his society instead of "mercy killing" them (which is something that happens far too often to victims of rape (or in this case, implied rape) in webnovels and such).

The fact that the bar is soooo fucking low but this novel manages to get all these things right? While managing to be actually funny at points alongside that? I genuinely can't believe the story pulled it off. It's insane.

Of course, the LN is not without its problems--there's still the way it started out, for instance. And there's other moments of unnecessary fanservice that doesn't happen to make a point like how that one scene with the honeypot does about it being dumb/pathetic/creepy/etc. There's also a bonus chapter in the back I felt was iffy, among other things.

But the fact it managed to turn my opinion around by this much? I think that counts for something. This one very much depends on whether or not you'll see the story the way I do by the end of it, so I can't give it a blanket rec, but if you're interested in trying it out? I'd say go for it. Just be aware that there's still stuff that's very much not great. I don't think people who aren't used to Weeb Ass Shit appearing in their anime/manga will like this one at all. So YMMV.

10 & 11 - Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree & Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

Putting these two together because it's been long enough I only have a few thoughts for each.

Legends and Lattes was nice and cozy. The stakes where actually higher than I expected re: the mafia thing or whatever, but that did get resolved without too much struggle, so that was nice. People being nice to each other and working together to make coffee and pastries. It's something I needed, and I'm glad I read it. Would rec.

Elantris was very obviously a debut novel. It didn't read as well as Mistborn did, the plot moved way too slowly for my tastes, and it hit kind of hard in places that I didn't want to be hit hard in. I get that it was setting up a sequel hook at the end, but for a standalone there were too many questions left unsolved. I get why, but even so, I wasn't super fond of this one. I remember wanting to see the noble ladies actually get to use the sword skills they were being taught but I feel like I remember that not happening. Would have to reread to double check.

I did at least like the political maneuvering, and I liked that the prince was able to reunite with his wife. I liked the organizing and faction conflict within the walled-off Elantris, too. But everything else was kind of...aggressively meh. I will say it treated its characters of color better than Prince of Thorns, though. They at least all get names and are treated as equals.

I think that's all the reviews. This took forever to sit down and write up but I got it done at least?

Currently reading Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri, am planning to read The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie after. Beyond that? We'll see.

#phoenix says boring stuff #reading tag #long post #kumo desu ga nani ka #kumo desu ga #so im a spider #so im a spider so what

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