Discussion Thoughts on novels I recently picked up...

My reading list is empty. No, it would be better to say I am too disorganized to keep a reading list, but had I the sudden urge to keep one, it would likely still have remained empty, for with the amount of novels I am reading now, it wouldn't have been a necessity; such is my state. Anyway, back to the topic:

My thoughts on the following novels are highly subjective, penned down as they were on a whim. May contain minor spoilers.

Picked and dropped:
I Become a Rogue Lord in a World Where Only I Level Up:

Spoiler

Now, I'm not really into kingdom building, but this one seemed interesting. But when things started getting too convenient for the protag, I was forced to drop it. I'm no strategist or even particularly intelligent, but even I can tell when the MC isn't really one either. Not the battle of wits I was expecting: honestly, the author should just name the MC's sword and his system the true MCs and call it a day; they seem to be doing most of the work, anyway.

Ryuu Kusari no Ori -Kokoro no Uchi no “Kokoro”-:

Spoiler

Another one with promise that failed to deliver. The MC is some emo kid, underestimated, misunderstood, betrayed, makes up for his lack of talent with hard work, but has vast reserves of hidden potential- you must have come across it many times, you get the drift. Events are random, the plot is confused, the writing lackluster. Always on the verge of something about to happen, but feels like nothing ever does.

Still reading, but maybe not for long:
Villager A Wants to Save the Villainess no Matter What!:

Spoiler

Has been reviled as a rip off of Otome Mob, but since I haven't read that (and prolly never will, considering the harem), I'm not gonna criticize it for the same. A male MC reincarnating into an otome game is an interesting concept, if not exactly unique. The MC seems a bit OP, but hey, he at least worked on becoming strong for years instead of spamming some cheat or blessing. Not a fan of going all out for a fav game character who you've never even met, but since it's the premise, it can't be helped. The problem is the "recreating modern inventions through magic" stuff. The hand glider part felt like an asspull even if the author (conveniently, if ya ask me) had him be a professional in a related field in his previous life. The gun was overdoing it. But my biggest complaint is the cheap humour in that old wizard-loli arc; honestly it felt incongruent with the mood of the story and almost made me consider dropping it. But now that he's finally met the villainess, I'm hoping for the best; the anticipation is prolly the only reason I'm still sticking to the story.

A Good Read:
Getting Outsmarted by the CEO:

Spoiler

A game of deceptions, pretensions, misunderstandings, embarrassing nicknames and hidden identities - how far would one go for love? Who is tricking whom? Luckily, it only focuses on the hilarious, positively fluffy aspects of the above. The FMC and her friends are a riot, the ML a wily fox (tho, the FMC would argue that "perky butt" suits him better). The FMC and ML being equal in abilities, wealth and social standing is a definite perk. Looking forward to more!

Promising:
Office Worker Who Hears Memories:

Spoiler

Only a prologue and a chapter in, yet feels like the novel I was always looking to read. Reminds me of Poten- another favorite. Modern day business management with a hint of supernatural to help the MC along the way seems a winning formula. Hope there is a bit of romance (no harem, tho) in the future.

New Employee Kim Chul-soo:

Spoiler

A perennial favorite, but never well done- the do-over novel with the MC climbing up the corporate or professional ladder. This one seems promising, tho. Looking forward to how the MC makes use of his future knowledge and skills acquired from a past life to build a prosperous and bright future for himself this time around. Hope the drama isn't too too excruciating or the romance too cursory. Exciting premise, but too few chapters to judge.

Honestly, Qidian has lots of these second chance novels where the MC goes from rags to riches, but the MC getting drunk on power and unable to keep his appendage in his pants as almost always happens in those novels (believe me, I have MTLed much) never sat well with me. Add to that the persecution of Chinese billionaires IRL and... KRNs seem to do better in this regard, but then they tend to focus more on MMORPGs or the entertainment industry than the business world, and there's also the general paucity of such KR novels around...

I'm almost about to give up on JPNs; their writing style, dialogue delivery or even the characters just don't click with me. Funnily enough, I find their short stories and oneshots excellent, but any tale of appreciable length from their pens I am likely to find wanting.


I stopped reading cultivation novels sometime ago; I didn't enjoy the current crop of xuanhuan and MTLing is not something I wish to go into again. I still have a couple of CN romances in the backburner, on hold, but it's still not much. I want to read more male protagonist based novels without harem. Since sometime, I have been finding it a nigh impossible task to find novels that suit my tastes here; maybe reading fatigue is a reason, and it's true I've always been very nitpicky and quick to judge... but the fact that my tastes have hardly changed from the beginning indicate that perhaps NU no longer has novels that cater to me. Now all I see on the NU main page is novels I have hardly any desire to check out.

I wish I had spent the time I used up writing this long post on reading Asian novels as I would have once done, but it is no longer meant to be...

Thanks for reading.

 

I have question for that dragon chain shit that you dropped how many chapters did you read

 

I'm not that desperate.

Ch. 2 part7 or 8, I think.

 

Same here, all I see is:

• The trash that receive a cheat and instantly blind the world
• The guy with trash skills whose skills are in fact overpowered
• The transmigrator who instantly become an abnormal genius due to overpowered cheat

Truthfully, contrarily to before, I only continue to read novels because:

• With the corona, I try to reduce going outside to the max
• There's still a few stories that I follow ( half of whom I don't really like but I continue to read because I have nothing else to do at home)
• My country's internet is so expensive that practically everything else is over budget

 

Thanks for review. Definitely gonna read it.

 

For a good change of pace, you can always draw on historical novels. Even the relatively weak ones will still have a lot of interesting things to say, and they just have so much potential for world building and for the kinds of stories that can be told. Hell, even fake historical novels can be pretty good. You're not going to read this kind of book if you're interested in superpowers, but if you're interested in cool stories they can be hard to beat. The only real drawback is that these books don't get translated.

If you have any interest in good Japanese novels I suggest staying away from webnovels. The problem is that these authors have no real writing skills and have no interest in acquiring them so they tend to lack in everything other than ideas. Instead, you should read real writers so it's better to look at light novels before the web novel craze started up. Some of these are quite good. Alternatively you can look at Japanese adult fiction - some of these writers are among the best in the world.

 

this cat not pick any new thing for hmm months perhaps? most just reread stuff or pick some on hold~ sometimes just too lazy to update reading list despite pass NU latest chap so sometimes wonder do this cat have read this chap or not....
kinda wanna read strategist versus strategist theme but either lukewarm stuff, not the main focus of story or pure junk~ that type of story is rare on translation after all~
those princess wei yang type also borish after couple if time~

back to licking stupid couple mofu mofu time


raising child seem ok
slice of life....
sigh maybe this cat just back to read JP romance tragedy LN...

 

JP LN is fine, the WN is the problem.
Recent JP LN that I picked and follow:
The King of Dead at the Palace of Darkness.
Reign of Seven Spellblades (The Prologue and early part of the First Chapter is quite bad, but it gets better and better from then)

 

I have read the WN version of this one and must admit that it is superior to almost all JPWNs out there. Feels like it has been written by a seasoned writer; the characteristic childishness of Syosetu authors seems to be all but absent in this one, and for once, the narrative style feels appropriate to the ambience of the setting. But the pace of progress is excruciatingly slow and so I regretfully had to drop it (for now).

Spoiler: Why I dropped it; climax of first arc:

I liked how the MC was thwarted; it would make sense that the necromancer would not be a fool... yet, at the same time, to let all that build up go to waste made me feel extremely disappointed... the conclusion of that arc gave me very contradictory feelings.

 

butt sex is gross. you're gross.