I kicked out a couple of light novels yesterday that I had sitting on my Kindle so this will review will actually be two books, they are both Isekai's, although they are vastly different from each other in terms of storyline and characters. On that note on to the reviews!
Aileen D'Autriche seems to have everything going for her, she's engaged to the Crown Prince, beautiful, and spoiled. Life is pretty good. Until Lilia, the Sacred Maiden ruins everything for her by stealing away her fiance and it seems possibly her life as Aileen has realized that she hasn't always been Aileen. Remembering her past life as a sickly Japanese girl who died far too young she realizes she's been reborn into one of her favorite Otome games as the villainess. With only three months to go before she dies at the hands of the Demon King Aileen sets out to change the game. Along the way she finds allies, love (of course), and that Lilia isn't the noble heroine she appears to be.
I love isekai so it wasn't too surprising that I enjoyed this, what I enjoyed the most has to be how actually evil the "heroine" really turns out to be. Plus, it makes you wonder did Aileen's actions cause the heroine to become evil or was always hiding her less than heroic personality behind a legend that assumes she's good because in the legend the Sacred Maiden is good.
I also enjoyed Aileen's character because of her take no shit attitude. It does seem to have developed because of her status as the youngest child and her father's overbearing personality but it made this much more enjoyable to read. She never takes anything lying down. And when dealing with the likes of her ex and Lilia that's an important personality trait to have.
The *only* issue I had with this was that sometimes it was difficult to follow who was saying what in the dialogue. I had to reread portions enough time that normally since such a small issue would garner this a 4.5 stars rounded to 5 but it happened so often that I'm giving it 4. The other thing is I really wished there was more about Claude (the Demon King) in this. I hope the next book will center a little bit more on Claude because he seems like he could be a really interesting and complex character given his backstory.
It's hard not to compare this to My Next Life as a Villainess and while I love that one I found this to be just a little bit more mature and just a tiny bit better than it, that being said if you liked My Next Life as a Villainess I can almost guarantee you'll enjoy this. I'd heard about the green light for an anime as well so after reading this I'm really looking forward to it!
And of course thanks to NetGalley and Yen Press!
Will wakes up in the body of an infant, he recalls a past life where not only do both of his parents die but he saw himself as a failure of a son due to his being a shut-in. What's worse is not only does he know that he himself has died, as well, but his new guardians are a mummy, a ghost, and a skeleton. Being an adult for all intents and purposes trapped in an infant's body is bad enough being unable to protect himself against the undead is even worse. Survival instincts quickly take over though and Will if not embracing his situation makes the best of it.
As he ages, he finds his new guardians to not only be wonderful caretakers but finds the family that he recalls rejecting in his previous life in them. He loves them and would do anything to protect them, even sacrifice himself.
So I watched the anime of this (or at least part of it) a bit ago, to be honest, I didn't really remember watching it until I started reading this and I was like, "Huh this is so familiar! Have I already read it?" What that says about the anime I won't say right now as it's been long enough since I watched it that a re-watch is in order. That being said, one thing I do remember though is that the anime is extremely in line with the book, which if you are an old school anime fan like myself, who got stuck watching pieced together and/or highly/censored anime in the 90's you know that no matter how long it's been since production companies here in the states embraced that fans want the original uncut versions of these shows it's still nice to see it happening.
What I don't recall though is this being a pretty mature isekai discussing Will's depression during his first life, causing him to be a shut-in (or a NEET) and how relatable much of what he says regarding this time is. Especially considering that most of us have been stuck in some sort of quarantine or another for the last couple of years. At one point Will says that he was "Alive but not living." and that statement really resonated with me.
Gus, Mary, and Blood are wonderful characters as well. I'm 100% sure Will having undead "parents" is what drew me to the anime in the first place, it's a very unique (not necessarily original but definitely unique) concept in terms of family groupings. But honestly, they are such great parents! They are loving and supportive in the best possible ways and as a parent definitely the type of parents that I strive to be.
All in all, this was a fantastic book and I'll be picking up the second one. This is a reprint of the original publication (2016) and I think this was perfect timing given the storyline. Will gives a voice to the kind of despair many of us have felt during the quarantine. Honestly, the only drawback I found was that because I had watched the anime I wasn't as compelled to read it as I think I would have been otherwise. Like I said the anime follows the book rather well so sometimes I'd feel like skipping over things that I remembered vividly from the anime. That is definitely no fault of the books though.
And I want to thank Edelweiss and J-Novel Club for allowing me to read this fantastic light novel!
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