I got through 6 chapters and I’m calling it quits on this. It’s just… so boring.
It’s taken this long to even introduce them to the beginning of the initiating event – the new immersion system mentioned in the blurb – and I’d estimate this is around 25-30% of the book. And it’s not like this beginning exposition was important or helped to build the characters and world-building or infodumping, it was mostly filler and should have been edited down quite a lot.
The writing is also super basic with too much detail about the wrong things. As in, written like this: He felt thirsty so he grabbed a cup out of the cupboard and filled it with water. He took a long drink before setting the cup on the counter. No longer thirsty, he now decided he needed to use the bathroom. He made his way to the bathroom. After doing his business, he decided to brush his teeth and shower. All of his basic needs taken care of, he realized he was hungry so went to the kitchen to see what his live-in maid/nurse/housekeeper/chef/masseuse was preparing.
But it’s EVERY LINE. The WHOLE time.
The female characters are very one-dimensional and interchangeable. They all act like a stereotype, giggling schoolgirls. They all giggle, smile, and blush and that’s the extent of their personality. When two women talk to each other, it’s always about “girl stuff” (verbatim what the story says) or about the male characters. They all act the same age even though I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to be.
The main male character, Alex, is supposed to be someone we feel for because he has a neurodegenerative disease, but he’s also spoiled rich as sin and clearly has everything handed to him on a silver platter, including zero real struggle with his disease, so I feel nothing for this dude.
I skimmed some other reviews to see if this gets any better and it seems like it doesn’t. Despite “starting over” as part of the immersion pods, they’re not really starting over because they keep all of their gear, a fancy new guildhall, established reputations, and a bunch of other stuff handed to them. They’re also not in a new game – it’s the same game, but they’re playing with an extra privileged super special system that allows them benefits others don’t have, so it doesn’t sound like fair gameplay at all.
I’m really not feeling this.
Audiobook performance: This was mostly okay. I got really over the narrator including the “he said” and “she said”, especially since there’s more male characters than female characters but a female narrator. So you’d end up with the male voice actor saying the line and then the female narrator needlessly adding “he said” afterwards. It ruined the flow of conversation. Not that there was much to ruin because there was no saving this writing anyway but it certainly didn’t help.