First I LOVE the twist. The explanation for why the protagonist of the otomoe game could do all the things she does in the game and beyond as well as why, it's a really great idea. Unfortunately I already knew it going in as I first read about this series in wikipedia when looking up a different series and read that part when skimming things. On one hand it's the whole idea I started to read this, on the other it sucked reading 2 or so books where I realised this was supposed to be a slow reveal for the reader and instead I was spoiled :/
I think this series suffers most from being what appears to be a beginner's execution of what's a good idea for a story. Context: For the first 3 books this is mostly an up-lift novel for her duchy, book 4 is more concerned with wider events.
The series gets better as time goes on, possibly due to the author getting more experience.
There are small contradictions/inconsistencies that occur fairly regularly, like a character being surprised from information that they were explicitly told a few chapters ago. This is likely a an artifact from it's days as a web serial in which the author would publish new chapters on a deadline without the time to reread past chapters and so not realise that she's repeating conversations. However as I read the light novel version, this should've been easily picked up by an editor, yet it was not.
That's not the only issue. The story begins with her immediately recruiting her beautiful and extremely talented childhood friends, gifting her from the get-go with a large powerbase that feels shoe-horned/undeserved at this point of the story (like the first 50 pages). It's explained that this villainous character is actually an incredibly nice and noble person that only was a villain because her fiance was being stolen, which is a fair enough reaction, don't get me wrong, but it seems unlikely the events of the otome game would've played out as they did if that were the case. But I guess I am willing to kinda let that slide as "she's only like that when it comes to her first/childhood love".
Another thing is that some of the reforms come too easily. By this I mean both in the amount of detail with which she understands the subject, as she was not an economist but rather an office worker in her previous life, and in how little resistance some of these measures face. I say some because some of them are actually treated well and portrayed realistically.
There are scenes devoted to characters reaffirming their loyalty or people praising her work, which is fine in moderation, but I think the novel would benefit from these occurring a little less frequently.
There are frequent time-skips, as this is initially mainly an up-lift series so we skip ahead as projects take months to take off. Fair enough.
The main character, Iris, takes on too much work on her own, as well. Initially this makes sense as she only has a couple of others she can delegate to and she's the one with all the reformation ideas and understanding, but after a few years she's still asking for reports on absolutely every project that's going on and every development when she really should be delegating some of the minor things more than she is. Her overwork is occasionally addressed but not nearly enough.
There are other things, too, that don't make a lot of sense for the sake of conflict, like I just finished book 4 of the English Light Novel and when she learns of a
threat by an enemy nation to cripple the nation, she talks to people of her own faction but doesn't give any warning to the political faction opposing her, who could've possibly done more to mitigate things. And no reason is given
. Furthermore the lack of the use of assassins in this story by the protagonist's side just doesn't make sense considering what's at stake, here.
Also she's not once thought about her reincarnation in detail What made her reincarnate into this world? Why was this world in Earth as an otome game? Are there any others like her in history? The closet she's come so far is thinking to herself in book 4 about how scared she gets that it's all a dream and so avoids thinking about it. (edit: which is fair, but I'd still like it addressed more)
The romance itself was obvious but after the first book or so the romance scenes are actually very well written, I liked them.
edit: After re-reading my review I'm tempted to rate this higher. It's clear that there are good ideas and some of them are well executed, and the romance really is very well done in books 2-4. But the amateur level of the writing really does bring it down, along with the things mentioned earlier, so I can't. The good news is book 4's writing is definitely better than book 1's so perhaps by book 8 this is a non-issue.
edit: after randomly re-reading the last couple of chapters of book 4, I feel the need to move my rating up. Simply because book 4 IS really quite good. And the romance scenes areREALLY good. You can really relate to our main character and genuinely believe the connection and emotions she feels. If I were reviewing just book 4 I'd give it a 7 or 8...perhaps 7.5 [original rating 5.5]
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