Cross-Dressing Villainess Cecilia Sylvie, Vol. 1

This was a delight to read. It's not like this book is the most well-written book ever, nor is it deep with a complex story or something like that. But it's so much fun. Cecilia Sylvie is a villainess from an otome game who's destined to die in every single route, so she decides to avoid that fate by... cross-dressing. That says a lot about what kind of protagonists we have here. She's not exactly the brightest, but she tends to tackle her issues in the wildest way possible.

The concept of the otome game reminds me of Angelique, with two girls competing to be the Holy Maiden by earning approval from the knights. Our protagonist is a fan of the game, so when it got turned into a movie, she went to watch it with her BL fangirl best friend. Except the movie theater then caught fire, so she died and became Cecilia in her next life. Her actions quickly changed a LOT of things since Cecilia is now nothing like the villainess she was supposed to be, but so is the game's original heroine, Lean. The story never tries to hide who Lean really is, but it's still fun to watch the entire thing unravel.

For starters, Lean and one of the knights are now into BL. Extremely so. Cecilia, in her disguise as Cecil, is their favorite subject to write about, so the whole Holy Maiden selection goes out the window since Lean is so busy pairing Cecil with the knights instead. The fact that Oscar, the crown prince and Cecilia's fiancé, seems to be developing a crush on Cecil is really not helping either. It's like if you're playing Angelique, but Angelique is busy shipping genderbent Rosalia with all the knights and we all end up in BL land LOL.

That being said, the book does what needs to be done when it reaches the climax. It has a good balance of comedy and mystery, with nicely written action scenes as well. It's a different take on the villainess genre, and I enjoyed it a lot.