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I believe the full title should've been “How To Reject My Obessive Ex-Husband Until He Proves He's Changed"
Or honestly the original direct translation wasn't too bad-
Refusing Your Ex-Husband's Obession: A Guide
Because unlike what the title might lead you to believe, or judging from the cover, it is a story of second chances. If you're not into that, or if you're in need of something more than to just pass the time, this may not be for you.
I liked it for what it is, even though I did get tired halfway through and only came back after seeing that it was finally completed. But it's not perfect, and doesn't completely follow the original novel so it's not safe from my critisim haha. Ending spoilers "you haven't read / finished this yet!
P.S. Im not a novel reader, went looking for spoilers lol
It's not that I'm unsatisfied with the ending. but there's so many plot holes they didn’t address that I have questions about. For one thing, the fake saintess.
I've never seen a protagonist refuse the assignment they're given and there’s no immediate consequences, which I guess makes her a villianess for refusing. Or maybe she would've been the saintess if she was actually grateful about surviving and did the job that she was rescued for (without having a system that relied on her phone's dying battery and if returning to korea wasn't an option).
To play the devil's advocate, the villainess was originally a moder-day woman who is used to having freedom, so maybe having limitations as the saintess played a part in her turning out the way she did. MC had more freedom in comparison, and ML wanted to ensure she always had that freedom to choose. However, it could also just be her personality, and it was her choice to be selfish and gatekeep the saintess position even with the restrictions.
I don't know how to feel about the God/ess of this world setting. To give the benefit of the doubt, I think they mentioned there were multiple gods, so maybe there was an ill-intentioned god who saved the villainess and another god intervened to bring in MC.
It feels like this may be the case since her ranking was artificially raised and in actuality was no better than a B rank since she was never able to pair with any espers. Or my theory is that the system was bugged since it doesn't make any sense to raise the rank just by traveling between worlds. MC was fairly rewarded with having a higher rank by actually doing the saintess's purpose of finding and helping the awakening espers and guides, while the fake was lazy, only guided the prince and failed at guiding others.
However, when they were revealing this, it seemed to me that there was one God/ess who fucked up by choosing to save the villainess, who turned out to be a selfish bitch who has some responsibility of how MC & ML died in their first life. Luckily, they noticed MC was a pretty good person in her dying moments and decided to swap her soul to Irene's empty body to save the world instead.
It just really rubbed off the wrong way to me when the grand priest was given another prophecy that the second life was the last chance to save the world and they still needed to find the real saintess. Like, how was it their fault for taking the villainess as the saintess when she was just teleported into the temple as the original prophecy foretold her arrival? Were they supposed to test her morals or something?
Idk, it felt like God was unfairly blaming them of what happened in the first life when 1) how were they supposed to know she wasn't actually a good person/saintess and 2) the original Irene/MC wasn't even in the world when the villainess arrived. Like, God didn't put it nicely that the first one was fake or give a name to the one responsible for bringing her over in the first place.
Also, it might be just me, but I think it's weird that depending on how parents decided to name their children, they may be (un)luckily blessed with powers! Feels like a Pokemon Go naming hack - like, are these powers going to be hereditary or only for people named with religious connections?
Looking back at my past comment, I can't believe that there were readers who wanted to believe in the villainess's redemption. She was interesting for sure, but not redeemable in my eyes. Vindication!!!
Her original ending in the novel was pretty hardcore, where they cut off her arms using the portals and shove her back into Korea to be used as an esper resource and was experimented on for the rest of her life. In comparison, they were much kinder aka chickened out in the manhwa by allowing her to live as a puppet saintess and to guide CP.
(Karma in a way, where she goes from holding the leash to wearing it.)
According to MC, after attaining S-class, she was never able to bond with any S class esper anyways, making her worse than MC who was B class, which showed that her ranking was artifical and never changed from C class haha, so at least she's able to guide CP who can take it.
I'm not sure if it was done out of pity for him, or if they didn't want to draw chopping off the villinaness's arms, but in the novel he was originally going to be matched with a noble lady. I know that he was manipulated by the villianess and might've been annoying, but I guess they thought the ending would be better like this... haha cowards.
Also, because they chickened out of the original ending, we never get to see what happened to OG Irene and kinda assume that she's resting in peace. In the novel as l had mentioned earlier, she soul-swapped with MC and is living a good life, with the S-Rank esper that the villainess originally had a crush on. In a dream, the OG and MC were able to connect and the OG gave her trust and blessing that MC would take care of their family.
Maybe they wanted to end it perfectly at 100 chapters, but l still think it was a shame that they didn't follow the OG ending.
If you’re tired of toxic schoolboy bls, this is a great pick for a light hearted, not so serious read. If you’re looking for other reasons, check the other comments since I’m blabbing about plot spoilers.
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The description was a lot more interesting than the actual story. To be fair, it is a short story, but it felt like ML moved on pretty quickly from his love at first sight crush (who inspired him to study) to the nerd who is helping him study (who is the original crush in disguise). Classic glasses cliche, I wondered why he didn’t wear them to work, but maybe he looked like a student/easy target.
MC’s “shameful” backstory is a bit interesting. Instead of the standard orphaned hard-working top student, his parents are criminals who got caught so that’s why he has to earn his own tuition for school. There’s probably not much of a difference between dead parents and irresponsible parents who didn’t put money aside for their child in case a heist went wrong… but at least there’s no debt! He was a lonely since he was an only child, but I think it’s a good thing that he only has to take care of himself. And has privacy at home.
It didn’t really feel like MC struggled that much to keep his other identity a secret. Maybe if there were a couple more chapters showing close calls it’d be more accurate to the description, but it is what it is. Not to mention, are you telling me that he’s an otaku MC who isn’t familiar with a faster heartbeat, fails to recognize the signs and blames arrhythmia…? Bro, are you serious?
(╯°Д °)╯╧╧
Also, the cliche transition of the bullies to becoming MC’s friends. I forgot about the introduction chapter; it was hilarious to see that guy bullying him in the beginning (who was there when ML fell in love and recognized MC) to being the one to join him in winning the cosplay contest. And character development to save an otaku from being bullied.
It felt like author was setting him up to be the friendzoned second ML, but got bored so then he randomly went into the rough world of idol biz after reuniting with his “friend” (maybe cosplaying gave him a push in that direction). Author, please tell me you’re coming back with their development. I’ll take anything, even toxic yaoi (since they already have the backstory for it haha)
Last but not least, our top dog himbo ML! Honestly, he’s the star of the story, I adore him so much lol. Falling for someone at first sight, working hard to meet that person’s expectations only to fall in love with the person he’s spending time with (who is the original crush), going back to apologize for falling in love with someone else (same guy), confessing and finding out that he was in love with one person along. Also the way he threw a fit after getting rejected in a fancy setting LMAOOO
The ending was perfect honestly. I expected nothing less for ML to pull a stunt like this, but I still want continued side stories, especially for the side pair. Or at least I want to see MC’s parents’ reaction to him having a boyfriend haha