Roisin

This was a lovely book. I expected slightly more, though maybe I shouldn't have, because the book was not quite as dense as the books it was marketed to be like. Both Pride and Prejudice and Howl's Moving Castle are more elaborate in plot, character, vocabulary, and events! But I'm not here just to praise the books I love.

Though Half A Soul is not as elaborate or compelling as those, the book does something that I haven't seen any other Regency era romance do; which is to go beyond the balls and the season and the dances, and focus on the working class. That was such a fresh take that I enjoyed this book all the more for it. There could have been more... shenanigans, though! I would have believed the romance and the affections more if we saw more interactions but this is a fairly short novel so it isn't that surprising.

Overall, I feel like lately novels have been getting so much more spare in substance. This isn't the first novel from 2020s I'm reading that feels vaguely devoid of build up. I'm beginning to think this is the publisher's fault. I guess everyone just wants a tiktok summary these days, rather than a wordy book.

So while Heated Rivalry had less of a consistent plot and was mostly made up of snapshots of the protagonists' meetings through the years and really only got into having a proper plot in the last 30/40% of the book, The Long Game is much more plot-driven with the characters each having clear growth arcs and struggles and side characters who are fleshed out. This was less about the sex (though there was plenty of steamy scenes in it) than the previous book, what with Shane and Ilya already being in a loving and stable relationship. So for someone like me who isn't necessarily a fan of excessive spice and prefers a more cohesive plot-driven story, this should have been the obvious favorite and I will admit, it was better written than the previous book...but I think I actually prefer Heated Rivalry? There is an anxiety in the narrative of this book that made me not so eager to read this. So to compare the two, I finished Heated Rivalry in 24 hours but had to take long break while reading The Long game and so it took me much longer to finish the book. There is something about the unconventional story of rivals falling for each other and doing everything secretly that made Heated Rivalry so compelling. So even though I wasn't crazy about the format, I liked that book better.

The Long Game still felt like a reward, a consolation prize to see Ilya and Shane be loved and happy and finally end up where they belong and that was so cozy and sweet and by the end of the book I was giddy with happiness. I think it's worth a read. For Hollanov's sake, if nothing else!

I can't review Hunger Games books. I can only sob and gesture vaguely around me.

If you want to know what it's like, read it, like you should.

Horrifying. Absolute all-fire despair.

Well, what to say? She did it again. This was a masterclass in unreliable narrator and it's haunting how disturbing this set up is. I don't even know what to say. It was obviously perfect. I only have emotional reactions and no ability to analyse anything right now.

This was a good read but I can't say I was wowed by it. The set up is interesting and I had heard such wonderful reviews of this that I had to check it out. The prologue I think was the most intriguing part of the book and the reason why I decided to read it. It would go on to take almost the entirety of the book before I received the due pay off of that beginning and that pay off was still  the best part of this book for me. 
I had a few issues with this book. The main one was the world building to me was very thin and not entirely well-developed. I think a lot was left vague or brushed aside too easily and quickly. I would have loved better a build and developed world in this book. It felt like the world of the story ended at the edges of what was immediately necessary to develop the narrative that the main characters were walking through. Everything was too easily explained. And I think this bothered me more because the story is a glorified road trip through the entirety of this land so I expected a more fleshed out universe. This also connects to my second issue which has to do with distance in the book. It seems every location is only a day's journey or so away and it made no sense for this world to be so small or so accessible. It felt like this world was squeezed to be smaller just so we could arrive to the next most important plot location faster. I did not love that. 
Also the world “ignoble” was used way to often.
The other issue I had with this book was how predictable some elements were and no, I don't mean “Oh, this was built into the fabric of this book so I saw it coming”. Actually the book wasn't that predictable and while some elements were woven into its fabric and the reveal was expected to some logical degree, those still carried the element of surprise and landed well. My issue was that there was a fallacy in the logic of the quest in this story that I saw the moment the matter came into play at the beginning and the characters were just too naively unaware of when they should have at least questioned it a little bit. Especially considering how the whole plot is about questioning authority and unchecked power. (sorry I'm being vague to avoid spoilers! Here is the spoiler version: That boy king was shifty as F from the very beginning! What do you mean none of you idiots questioned WHY he has to have control of all the bloody magical objects?! If they suck so bad why not destroy them after you find them?! Why hoard them? It was so obvious that he was going to go evil by the end and the whole book I was side eyeing his boney ass and I was right! And I'm mad that I was right because how dare these character be so stupid?! They were dealing with that Abbess this whole time and they still didn't see the giant power hungry plot hole in the quest?! These characters should have seen this and they didn't because the plot needed them oblivious and I hated that.
Some other issues I had with the plot got resolved by the end so I won't hold that against the book. 
The romance was okay. In fact, it had such perfect elements in it that it should have been a swoon worthy ideal but it still fell a bit flat for me. Granted, the romance is not remotely the focus in this story and by the end I was rooting for the lovers, but I am not obsessed with them. I just think it was a cute little subplot in the background. 
My favorite character is the Batlike Gargoyle. I adore him. I could read a 5 book saga just focused on him going about having his adorable little adventures. He was a delight. This book gets a whole star just for him. I loved him. He was the main reason why I kept reading. And his story made me cry, by the end. More of him, please!
So overall, I liked this book but it wasn't a great masterpiece. It was an enjoyable read. I might pick up the sequel. 
P.S.: By the way...Not a romantasy!

This is really weird. I don't know how to answer any questions about this book because there was no plot and there was barely any characterization...it's just smut!
Also that cover is terrible. 
 So this wasn't a great book but it was an easy read; I finished it in one day. This is barely a novel. There is barely a plot. Over 60% of this book is just jumping from one sex scene to another, so it's more like a collection of steamy moments than a proper novel. And it gets a bit repetitive and one-note though the level of anxiety ebbs and flows for the main characters. The characterization is basic, and so are the events. I was a bit disappointed. I have read Hockey AU fanfictions that had a more engaging plot actively involving Hockey the game, than this book did. Here, the sport is a very vague backdrop. We hear the most basic information about the games: that these are sports games that involve winning and losing, there's a puck, and it's played on ice! Oh and teams can win the Stanley Cup, and for a hot minute, I thought they were talking about those hideous water cups that were trending for a hot minute...it's not that one. I feel like the lack of Hockey makes this a slightly boring book. At least when it comes to sports fiction. It doesn't fare much better as a romance novel, though.
It's entertaining enough that you can get through it but it only gives the barest of the good, fleshy romance content about three-quarters into the book. And I just think we could use a lot more yearning and a Lot more plot, here. The side characters are also non-existent, basically. Well, they are there but they have the vaguest sense of presence. More NPC than side characters. They're just there so the characters can interact with a few more people and not just each other.
I hope the show adds some more interesting background plots and fleshes out the side characters.
I'm very neutral about this book. It wasn't a masterpiece or a very touching read, but it was okay enough that you can finish reading it. Audiobook helped. 

This was the exact kind of soothing read I needed after quite a few tumultuous reads. This was soft and melancholic and so introspective. It felt both like a warm hug and a lonely walk in a hidden rural path on a chilly dawn. A story about enjoying the journey instead of rushing to the destination, companionable silences, self-discovery, and letting oneself change. This story treats its characters and readers with delicacy. There are no loud noises or sudden movements, as if afraid to spook the reader. I loved the characterizations. It made me remember why I loved Harry, the character.
This was a healing read, and I really needed this right now.

11/10 Stars. 
This book blindsided me. I haven't yet sat with my thoughts on this long enough to express coherent opinions, actually. So this is a word-vomit type of review. I just had to write this down now before I lost my grip on my feelings. 
This book blindsided me! I knew where it came from. I read the synopsis for the original text and didn't like it; not interested. But then I read Alchemised's synopsis on Goodreads, and I was positively curious about the world that is described. So I decided that I will give the published work a chance, instead. I wasn't actually planning to read this just yet. I had just started Practical Magic and I was really enjoying that, but then...I don't know. Curiosity got to me, and I said to myself, “I will just...check out the first pages. See if I can see the influences in the text.” 
And...before I knew it, I was sucked in. Sure, I think the first 25 chapters don't really do the heavy work of making you invested in all the characters and story, but it does make you interested in Helena and whatever the hell happened to her. I could detect the influence in those early chapters and I was almost cocky in how I saw myself predicting the plot and seeing where it was headed. 
But then...the book fcking blindsided me! I thought I knew what I was getting myself into, but no...I didn't really. 
This was such a beautifully grotesque story. It's very well-written, in that it aims for a form of obsessive investment in the reader that books these days don't really do. This is something you frequently see/saw in Fanfiction but traditionally published works don't work this hard to keep you invested for the next chapter (I think for obvious reasons but in case you missed it: It's because you have already bought the entire book. They don't have to pitch themselves to you again and again. They only need to do that once at end if there is a sequel. Not with Fanfic. With fanfic, the author tries to make sure you are still interested to come back for the next chapter, every chapter. So, the stakes are much higher, the cliffhangers are brutal, and the characterization and plots are borderline addictive.) Alchemised tries to gut you with each paragraph. It twists the knife in your wounds and drags you around the bloody floor (Sorry...this book was very bloody and goreish. The images have lingered). It takes you in its clutches, makes you watch the atrocities of war with a VIP lounge front-row seat, and it makes you question everything you have: your morals, your judgment, and your capacity for empathy and violence. It's a brutal, raw look at what war does to people and what it expect from those it eats away at.
And as the story progresses, the writing improves and the shadows of the original work are lifted until these characters and their story manage to stand on their own two legs. No trace of the original there anymore. I could not tell who was who and what could be what. It completely develops into its own new thing, and what a thing of beauty it is. Beauty but in a very...ugly way? This book doesn't glorify war. It doesn't romanticise heroism. It cuts it open and shows you the festering rot within. It was so GOOD! So nuanced. 
I know people fixate on the romance. There is a reason for that. Because when everything you have is burned to ashes and you have nothing and no one to hold on to, an impossible romance is such a heartbreaking symbol of hope for an impossible future; one that is simple enough that it can hold love in it. A future worth fighting for. A stake beyond survival. So I get why people fixate on that; it's beautiful and tragic and breaks your heart at a higher velocity than if this were clinical and written with no emotional stakes. But the book is so much more than just a doomed love story. This is a fantasy story about what war does to people, and there is romance in it, as well. Because...I don't know, love makes war that much worse.
My favorite bit is that nothing about this story is easy. Not love, not morals, not victory and loss, nothing. No one makes easy choices. There are no easy answers. You are suffocating on the complexity and ambiguity of the situation, and that's perfect! 
I love that we have this book. This is what we deserve. Not cookie-cutter stories that string a bunch of tropes together and add a veneer of appropriate social behavior on top of it like a bow-wrapped gift, and act like they did something revolutionary because they gave in to the rules of passivity that our world demands from everything and everyone so we can all be advertisement-friendly. This book grabs you by your balls, whether you have them or not, and makes you see the difficult parts that no one likes to look at. We need stories like this. I needed this. I felt more alive reading this than I had in ages. It had been so long since a book clawed at my heart and mind like this. I absolutely loved it. I am so grateful it was published. It would have been a crime to let it be confined by the world of another person's story. Especially when this world is so much more interesting! 
Did I mention the world-building was amazing? Because it is. I was confused at first, but as we got more and more and MORE (lol) exposition and explanations as the story develops and I really warmed up to the magic system. This world has a complex system of religion and folklore. There is complicated politics, racism, and misogyny that are rooted in in-world dynamics and beliefs. It's just very elaborate. Yes, there are info-dumps, but I keep thinking if those were to slowly unfurl, not only would we have been so confused for much longer, but also the book would probably have to be 2ooo pages long. So sometimes you get info dumps. 
Also, apparently, this is written in passive language. I...had no issue. It's a bit claustrophobic but that's the point. I enjoyed the writing style. 
What else to word-vomit about...
I loved the world, I loved the plot, I loved the ambiguity and nuance and moral grayness, I loved the romance, I loved the characters...Most of all, I loved how harsh and unforgiving the book was when it came to the matter of war. It was just so raw.
So do I recommend the book? No. No, you don't deserve nice things (or the emotional trauma! lol) You are not going to handle this, and you're gonna just piss me off with your moral coding and purity culture outcries(maybe, I don't know), so don't read it. Also, don't read it if you are not interested/ready to be traumatised. There is body horror...so much body horror...SO MUCH!!!!!! There is loss of body autonomy, sexual assault, torture, murder, gore, decomposing bodies, and so much more...there is a list of triggers, so take care and check those and imagine every warning is for the extreme and avoid this if it's not for you...because sometimes, some books are NOT FOR YOU. And that's okay! We don't all need to like the same stuff. I actually like hurting myself by reading books that make me want to vomit out my heart. I spent days sobbing over this, I'm not normal! Don't be like me! 
I loved it. If you are like me and actually enjoy reading upsetting fiction that will traumatise you for life, go ahead! This is worth the trauma, I say. If you don't like that type of stuff, just avoid it. Take care of yourself, instead. 
ALSO in regards to “romaticiation of rape”:  No...no, it doesn't. OMG! The rape scene is extremely traumatising to read about. Both characters are disturbed. It's about eugenics. It's intrusive, and it's a double rape. It's horrifying. There was nothing romantic about it. If someone found THAT scene romantic...I'm sorry, they're the problem. There wasn't even any descriptions. It was just about the emotional terror and the aftermath trauma. No gratuitous descriptions, no romantic atmosphere. Just horrific criminal injustice done to the characters. Like, know the difference between “depiction of a situation” and “romaticisation” of it.
Anyway, I am so glad I read this. This book will stay with me for a long, long, long time. 
And I'm realizing, this is the kind of work I like. The kind that rips your heart out and ruins you. I know it's not literary fiction or highbrow, and maybe I'm supposed to like that stuff because I'm a literature person now, but I would be lying to myself. I like this type of story, where the story seeps into your bones and stays with you like a parasite. The kind where dramatic stuff happens and you care about the plot and events, the romance, and the characters. I guess I'm not sophisticated enough for intellectual literary fiction. I guess I'm basic. Whatever. I like my fiction messy. 

Why did I read this?! How did I read this?!
This was...utterly bad! And yet, I read all one thousand pages of nonsense, so who's the real clown here?!
Let me get this straight (pun NOT intended), this book is weird. As in, I am half-convinced that a cat in heat wrote this! I'm not even gonna touch on the problematic aspects. Even at its most nonproblematic, this book lacks a basic understanding of how humans function, both socially and anatomically. Seriously! I had so many moments when I would pause reading and just stare into the middle distance, as if waiting for someone to materialise out of thin air and confirm my confusion at the ludicrousness of what I had just read! A character jumps out of the fourth floor and lands on his feet?! The snakes open doors?! The sex barely makes sense, like these guys should be in a hospital, I am worried for their physical well-being. It's just so weird.
I don't recommend this book to anyone, honestly. Only read it if you have a morbid curiosity to see why everyone says this is bad.
I will admit, it had its moments. But for the most part, this felt like a book written about gay men for the straight male gaze! I think it just feeds into a very testosterone-filled idea of physical over emotional relationship. And...okay I can't say that because there are emotions and the characters think a lot about how much they love each other but they rarely if ever say it out loud. And that seems like such an annoyingly guy thing to me. Why would a woman write men like this?! We can't even trust a woman to write a proper man, anymore?! There was hardly any emotions there. The sex is weird and wild in a very unrealistic way, the men are all so macho and unwilling to show proper emotions...it's like who was supposed to enjoy this?! There's very little emotional communication in the book and that is the most frustrating edging it puts the reader through. Because the main couple actually work so well together but they hardly ever talk to each other like mature people and that's so frustrating. So whenever they express the bare minimum of emotions or show any softness towards each other, I was eating it up like a starving man. Those moments are rare, however, and you really have to work through the rest of this book to get to them. For the most part, the sex scenes, which I believe are supposed to be the main attraction point of this book, are bland or mechanical. They get wild, but without a proper emotional anchor, they don't mean much. This gets better slightly as the book progresses. Some of the scenes work, but there's also such an uncalled-for violence in many of these scenes that they end up ruining the mood, anyway.
I would say this: the inherent illogicality of this book aside, the scheming is actually top-notch! These are 100% diabolical people who properly screw people over with 3D chess mindgames and gambles, and it kind of makes sense in that odd way that things make sense in nonsensical situations...you know?!
So this was not good. Not really. But it had its moments. Don't read it. Just watch the show instead...and know that every illogical thing from the show is directly the book's fault!

Why did I read this?! How did I read this?!
This was...utterly bad! And yet, I read all one thousand pages of nonsense, so who's the real clown here?!
Let me get this straight (pun NOT intended), this book is weird. As in, I am half-convinced that a cat in heat wrote this! I'm not even gonna touch on the problematic aspects. Even at its most nonproblematic, this book lacks a basic understanding of how humans function, both socially and anatomically. Seriously! I had so many moments when I would pause reading and just stare into the middle distance, as if waiting for someone to materialise out of thin air and confirm my confusion at the ludicrousness of what I had just read! A character jumps out of the fourth floor and lands on his feet?! The snakes open doors?! The sex barely makes sense, like these guys should be in a hospital, I am worried for their physical well-being. It's just so weird. 
I don't recommend this book to anyone, honestly. Only read it if you have a morbid curiosity to see why everyone says this is bad. 
I will admit, it had its moments. But for the most part, this felt like a book written about gay men for the straight male gaze! I think it just feeds into a very testosterone-filled idea of physical over emotional relationship. And...okay I can't say that because there are emotions and the characters think a lot about how much they love each other but they rarely if ever say it out loud. And that seems like such an annoyingly guy thing to me. Why would a woman write men like this?! We can't even trust a woman to write a proper man, anymore?! There was hardly any emotions there. The sex is weird and wild in a very unrealistic way, the men are all so macho and unwilling to show proper emotions...it's like who was supposed to enjoy this?! There's very little emotional communication in the book and that is the most frustrating edging it puts the reader through. Because the main couple actually work so well together but they hardly ever talk to each other like mature people and that's so frustrating. So whenever they express the bare minimum of emotions or show any softness towards each other, I was eating it up like a starving man. Those moments are rare, however, and you really have to work through the rest of this book to get to them. For the most part, the sex scenes, which I believe are supposed to be the main attraction point of this book, are bland or mechanical. They get wild, but without a proper emotional anchor, they don't mean much. This gets better slightly as the book progresses. Some of the scenes work, but there's also such an uncalled-for violence in many of these scenes that they end up ruining the mood, anyway. 
I would say this: the inherent illogicality of this book aside, the scheming is actually top-notch! These are 100% diabolical people who properly screw people over with 3D chess mindgames and gambles, and it kind of makes sense in that odd way that things make sense in nonsensical situations...you know?!
So this was not good. Not really. But it had its moments. Don't read it. Just watch the show instead...and know that every illogical thing from the show is directly the book's fault!

So...this felt like a cop-out. I wanted to wait until the end to give this series 5 stars but the ending fizzled out with a hiss rather than a shout. First of, this volume has barely seven chapters of the actual plot and the rest are extra stories which are NOT a part of the novel and not mandatory to read and frankly, I had no interest in reading them. I tried and read a lot of it but to be honest, I simply could not care less about these plots. They're like state-sanctioned fanfiction, they make no sense to me and add nothing to the main plot and feel a bit like pandering. I eventually gave up but the thing is, it feels weird to say I finished a book when there are still chapters in it that I haven't read, even though it's not even related to the actual book! So I'm just mighty irritated by that.
In addition, the seven chapters lacked any interesting or significant plot. Instead, they were just a wrap up with a...rather lazy solution, in my opinion. It colored by entire perspective of the book which in hindsight feels a bit repetitive and dispassionate. When you read the author's personal notes, it's revealed that she hastily wote this book due to her contract and deadline but struggled to connect with the protagonists and it just doesn't seem like she enjoyed writing this novel as much as her first one. In retrospect, the book has a very limited universe and interactions and the leads really talk about the same issue over and over again, adding to misunderstanding by virtue of suffering in silence and then everything gets resolved too quickly and neatly by the end...I didn't love that. I still enjoyed the book. It was still an addictive read and the characters are lovable and the plot has a lot of positive aspects, but it wasn't my favorite in comparison.

So, overall this is a 4. And I will repeat here: making this novel seven volumes feels like cheating, the book could have easily ended with 6 volumes.

I'm not even gonna beat around the bush here. This is my favorite part of the entire Husky and his white cat shizun novel. The underworld arc, the iconic three thousand and seven hundred steps, the wontons, the title shift...everything down to the Orpheus-esque plot are all so perfect! I love this arc. I'm gonna give it the 5 stars that I feel it deserves.

I decided to read this series again instead of reading brand-new fiction. I don't know, just because. It's really interesting to read this again, knowing everything I know and then trying to reconstruct my mindset based on what the narrative has actually told us at this point in the work and it's like a whole new experience of the book! The translation is good though some minor changes threw me off.

We are finally here! Ready for the last volume and this last leg of the story was so touching and gut-wrenching. I know the final volume is super short so this feels like the final moment of glory where the pain and plot reach their peak. I loved the characters in this one. I loved the retribution and I cried a lot for the innocent characters who just honestly don't deserve all this trauma! Can't wait to finally finish this novel. It was such an engaging read.

We are slowly approaching the end and finally, things are coming to light, true character motivations are revealed, and we are getting some closure for certain story beats. Moreover, the romance is finally at peak star-crossed-lovers level and it's just deliciously painful and amazing to read.

It took a while for me to get through this but this is actually perfect because I'll be done with the released volumes just in time for the last volume to be released!

I can see why most don't enjoy this book. I'm not an expert but after reading a few Korean novels, I'm slightly more familiar with the dry tone of their novels. So I was not taken aback but this book was still a shock, especially since I read this after watching the emotionally tempestuous TV adaptation.

Unsurprisingly, this novel has a very clinical and report-like tone. It feels more like a newspaper article than a novel. There's no plot here. Instead, the chapters are more like daily or by-weekly work reports that the narrator shares with us. And the enthusiasm with which she shares these facts is similar to that of a bored and disillusioned office worker. There's no romance here. There's barely any human connection but despite the lack of it in the main character's life, she is hung up on human connection. The book dissects human relationships through these mundane interactions but hardly reaches conclusive answers, instead leaving the reader with more confused questions to digest in your own time.

I think the most interesting thing about this book is not in what it says but what it doesn't say in between the lines. Our narrator may not be unreliable, but she's evasive.

I would also categorise this as Korean feminist literature as the book directly addresses multiple dilemmas of social identity women might go through in modern South Korea, as well as, explicitly displaying some of the hardships they go through. The ending in particular is chilling and left an entirely different impression on me than the rest of the book combined.

Overall, I would not say this book is particularly enjoyable but I think it's still worth reading as it brings up some very interesting points through a bizarre, slightly dystopian, but ultimately darkly plausible narrative.

The good die young and the annoying go on forever.
I love the premise of this story and once you get to the end, it all makes sense and it's perfect but the thing is the journey there is exhausting, repetitive, irritating, and not engaging enough!
It took me forever to finish this monster of a book because I simply despised one of the main characters and because of that, every action the character made led to more irritating plot points that then further annoyed me, leading me to not want to keep reading.
It's just not enough to write a book that starts great, goes on for a long and exhaustive while and then ends great.
But the concept is so poignant, and it tries really hard to show rather than explain the concept of choice versus destiny that I still think this book is worth reading.

Immediately following the events of the first volume, the story only becomes more intense, the stakes go higher, and the political entanglements become more complicated as the story progresses. The romance becomes steamier and as the characters develop feelings and alliances, what they stand to lose becomes more precious; making the games they play more dangerous.

I absolutely love this story. It's full of names, alliances, factions, and cliques and you have to constantly stay vigilant to not lose the plot thread. The translation is very fluid. I can't wait for the next volume.

That's probably the only issue. This story is so complicated. It doesn't bear to take months-long breaks between volumes. It's really best to read it all at once.

Heavy on political intrigue, government management, and power struggles, The Ballad of Sword and Wine has a dense, logic-driven plot with a massive cast of characters. At the very top stands the Machiavelian protagonist, Shen Lanzhou, and his nemesis the subtle strategist, Xiao Ce'an. Part-time enemies, part-time flirting partners, these two are just so entertaining no matter which limb of their plot dynamic they are stretching. While I think their romance is fun, it's not the central plot. For the most part, this is a very complicated story about running a country. And very little of this “running the country” has to do with the emperor. Instead, we see those around him as they struggle to gain power, not lose power, avoid power, or just plain survive while everyone else is tearing out each other's throats to get that power! It's complex and dense in content and I really enjoyed it. It's slightly hard to get into, as the first 5-ich chapters are vague and you are thrown in the middle of the situation (to the point that I wondered if I was reading the wrong volume, for a moment when I first started it.) but things settle into controlled chaos soon after and then the verbal battle of the main characters and the mental battles of the political factions sweep you off your feet!

Highly recommend.

I love a book that becomes better and better the more you read. This volume is hands down my favorite so far. We finally really get to know the real Gu Mang and he is the most awesome character. Meatbun has written him so vividly that he feels like a real person, his characterstics are so defined and well-developed. He is just an absolute joy to read about. 
In addition, new plot twists are revealed, shocking and devastating alike. We are at a point where every character is suspicious. Secret motivations and underhanded deals are slowly coming to light and that leads to dramatic emotional reactions. 
I was deeply moved by the events of this book as it reminded me of a real-life injustice I witnessed and that made it even more heartbreaking. 
The biggest issue I have with this volume is the massive cliffhanger it ends on and the fact that I have to wait months to read the rest! What injustice!!!!!! 

Oh this book just gets better and better and this volume was just the best thing so far! I'm actually too happy to be coherent. I can really only review this once I finish the whole thing so all I have to say is, I loved it!

Massive improvement from the first volume. It really feels like the plot has finally kicked off and the emotional beats hit one after another like waves in the ocean.
We finally get a much-needed development with Gu Mang's condition. Mo Xi and Gu Mang interact more and the side characters are further developed. I personally love how Gu Mnag's changes are subtle but steady and when you compare the him from the beginning of the volume with the him of the end of the volume, it's astounding what a few mere chapters could achieve.
There are still some big plot twists missing from the big picture but that's expected from Meatbun who probably will have twists and turns to throw at us until the very last page!
However, by now, the book has reached the point where it's absolutely impossible to put it down and I just want to devour every chapter faster, in anticipation of more mysteries coming to light and development in the plot.
I've already started volume 3 and it's only getting better and better.

I don't think it's really fair to review this, since it's a partial story and ends right in the middle of a scene; it's not even a conclusion to a small section but really, the middle of the story. So I'm only thinking about this in the most generalized terms.
It's a good start and ended up captivating me more than everything else I've tried to read lately but I still feel like there's a lot in the narrative that has yet to be shown and this felt more like an introduction to our main characters more than anything else.
The flashback scenes that introduce us to the real Gu Mang of the past must be my favorites in the book. They just have such vivid imagery that I felt an ache for this character who is essentially a total stranger and an enigma.
So overall, this volume brings intrigue and interest but on its own, there's not much plot-development that I can talk about yet. Certain themes are presented but we're far from hearing the entire thesis statement of the book so I'm going to wait and see how the rest of this goes.

The book concisely records BTS's first ten years, with fascinating personal reflections by the members on their growth. We get their recounting of their music-making process and whirlwind experience of skyrocketing to global superstardom. There are also the writer's notes on the music industry both Korean and Global which can be interesting for any new fans or person interested.
I enjoyed reading about their perspectives and getting slightly deeper into the process of the group's work and philosophy. It's special when you hear the direct voice of a person, though a lot of what was said has also come up elsewhere, just not in such a cohesive record.
The book doesn't touch on personal matters, gossip, or anything scandalous or salacious (probably because they didn't have time for any of that but I digress)which prevents the book from being a low-brow vulgar read scavenged for viral gossip headlines. Instead, it's a purely focused and professional, rather serious record of the group's ethos as global artists. At times, it's as simple as capturing the awe of seven ordinary men who just liked music but ended up creating a massive musical movement worldwide. There are also plenty of sugary notes for the beloved ARMY as BTS gush over their loyal fanbase and confess the mutual devotion between the two. 
I think this can be a helpful guide for anyone who wants to learn about BTS's official history in chronological order. The book doesn't go into the complex details of the process of making each song or album, which makes this book a very easy-to-understand material for casual readers; no musical knowledge necessary. But as someone drenched in their history and personally familiar with the intimate and candid way they communicate with their fanbase, the book didn't offer extra and totally unknown information to me. It just added clearer context and extended details to what I knew.
I really enjoyed reading this, nonetheless. It brings up such interesting points, like what could you want when your reality far surpasses your wildest ambitions and dreams? And how will you go on if you still have to go on and there's much at stake as so many people just hang on for your next move? It's an unimaginable pressure for an ordinary person like me and it was so fascinating to read how these peers of mine dealt with it. 

This was a wonderful retelling of the Pygmalion story. It sort of reminded me of the Yellow Wallpaper. It is not subtle in its feminist allegory and I think it was done very well. It inspires such anger in you. The writing is beautiful too.
Short and simple, to the point.