carnage's reviews
85 reviews

The Otome Heroine's Fight for Survival: Volume 3 by Harunohi Biyori

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Not as good as the prior volume, while still being action-focused a lot of the action scenes are relegated to fights against monsters, where the series excels at Alia's interactions with humans. However, the

fight against Graves and Nero

was incredibly well-written and definitely competes with the prior volume's fight scenes. It's also very fun to see the reputation Alia has garnered as "Lady Cinders" now as well as old and returning characters meeting her again and reacting to her growth. As such, regardless of the weaker first half, my rating of it wavers between 3 and 3.5, which is what I gave to volume 2. And once again as with prior volumes, the book still suffers from long-winded and confusing expositions, especially in regards to the royal family.

The Otome Heroine's Fight for Survival: Volume 2 by Harunohi Biyori

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Still suffers from monotonous and overly long expositions and info dumps of characters and the world that get confusing, but the action is turned to 11 in this volume and it feels much more digestible overall.

The Otome Heroine's Fight for Survival: Volume 1 by Harunohi Biyori

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This was difficult to get through, the book assails you with a number of info dumps about the world and systems at the beginning, and this, together with a lot of ramble about survival that went on for far too long, made it slow to a crawl until the protagonist starts interacting with others.

Throughout the book, frequent long-winded expositions are prevalent and while they were initially bearable when they were about the world after the rough start, they go on to do the same with character introductions, extending to describing a character's family tree and history with a number of princes and princesses and this got confusing very quickly. I didn't understand a lot of it myself, and found myself lost at times not comprehending certain passages of the book.

However, the main character is extremely fun, and their interactions with others as well as the fight scenes (except the last one, which was a bit hard to follow for me) are a highlight of the book. The desperate situations she's in, and how she's not afraid to kill, are all incredibly tense and a joy to read.

As such, the book has really high highs, but also really low lows. To describe it best, I'd say the story is enjoyable but not the prose. I don't see myself rereading this ever due to the info dumps, and had to personally force myself through the book at times. If you can put up with all that, this is definitely worth a read for the protagonist and fights alone.

Too Many Losing Heroines! (Light Novel) Vol. 2 by Takibi Amamori

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