DNF Reviews: Koi Female Match in the End Times & The Sister-in-Law of the Seventies Came From Ancient Times

Title: Koi Female Match in the End Times
Author: 奥利奥冰冰
Chapters: 118 chapters
Publication: N/A
Summary from Wattpad:

Xia Yao has been spoiled since she was a child, and she has been very lucky, but she accidentally passed through a novel about the apocalyptic resignation of the family and became the former fiancee of the retired male protagonist! ?

The key here is the end of the world!

Food shortages, unpredictable people, and zombies are coming. She hasn't even awakened the ability yet? !

Haha...

but it's impossible to hold your thighs! It's impossible to hold the thigh in this life! Even if the fart is pissing off and is struggling to survive, she has to stand to die, never kneel to live!

Then, God opened his eyes and sent her a skeleton.

Deaf, dumb, and blind but can eat...

Damn! When Xia Yao saw it at first sight, she almost didn't pass.

The bone skeleton grabbed the corner of Xia Yao's clothes, her eyes were pitiful.

Xia Yao was trembling, thinking in her heart: The same people who have fallen from the end of the world, why do we know each other when we meet. Nothing, nothing more, just have a little son.

Later, the male protagonist didn't know what was going crazy, so he looked for Xia Yaoyao all over the world.

Someone saw Xia Yao sitting on the throne of the new base, and the handsome zombie king kneeled down and kissed her toes.

Don't, don't, don't! I haven't washed my feet yet!

[Reading Guide]

1. The petite and domineering little princess of tofu VS the ascetic zombie king with a simple and honest appearance but a very black belly.

2. The subsequent heroine will create her own base and create a brand new world.

3. The setting of this article is based on the author, and no rebuttal is allowed.

MY REVIEW: 

I was 3/5 through the book before I finally decided to quit reading it. I didn't mind that the female lead was a Mary Sue because I pretty much expected it once I found out that she transmigrated from the interstellar future and was known as a genius in her time. The fact that the body she transmigrated into was a beautiful cute girl who looked younger than her actual age made it even more obvious. It was pretty boring reading about everyone's reaction to how young, cute, and beautiful she looked after the third time though.

The multiple love interests fighting each other was also pretty boring. You can tell from the summary alone that the male lead is obsessed with her. The other guy seemed like he was acting like an older brother figure until he got too possessive and oblivious. I think his character would have been better off as another brother figure with a tsundere siscon personality than a love rival. At least he would have had a personality instead of just being another person to highlight how great the female lead was.

What I bothered me MOST was that a large chunk of the middle of the book turned into this horror/mystery theme, and it wasn't even that GOOD??? Maybe it would have been better if it was a real translation instead of machine translation, but there wasn't anything thrilling or exciting about the events that transpired. It just got long and boring as they reacted to the situation. 

So I quit reading it lol. I couldn't find it in myself to care about any of the characters, let alone the pitiful male lead that the author kept on hinting about his past. 

Title: The Sister-in-Law of the Seventies Came From Ancient Times
Author: 蓝天蓝蓝
Chapters: 201 chapters + 4 extras
Publication: 2019
Summary from Wattpad:

Ji Yingxia, who was the wife of the general in his previous life, traveled through the 1970s. As soon as she came, she was forced to marry the lame soldier for her cousin. This...how could it be, the auntie asked her to pay her back. She had no choice but to marry. She was married to a soldier in her previous life, and she is a soldier in this life. She is not afraid when she is familiar with it. At least in this life, although the person is flawed, but fortunately there is someone who will not make her widow again, but even if she is a lame, she is not afraid. She has a secret cheat sheet and will definitely live a good life.

MY REVIEW: 

I read around 35 chapters before quitting. The genre only mentioned rebirth and not slice of life family drama, so I wasn't prepared for how long and slow and boring for everything to be. 

The book became boring because the same issue would be rehashed every other chapter. Like, the female lead's cousin and aunt are both shrewd, selfish assholes. It's depicted almost every time they appear. And it's obvious that they're going to get their just desserts eventually; there's hints of a faceslap happening because of the usual female lead Mary Sue aura says so. However, instead of anything happening after multiple scenes of this, the chapters get dragged out with explanations of other characters' motivations and their opinions on the issue. 

It's so slow! I think this book had potential to be better if the author tightened up the pacing. Since it's over 200 chapters, I can't imagine just how much talking and explaining you would have to wade through just to get to any of the big plot points.

JAN: Mooching Off of Alec, Parents Visiting, Interviews, Dad's Surgery, Grandpa's Funeral, Family Reunion, Cousin Hangouts, Hiking

January was impactful. Last month was full of ups and downs.

I started off the year still mooching off of Alec at his house. We hungout all weekend lazing around and doing errands. Then, I worked remotely in his dining room while he alternated from working remotely and going back to the office. I guess recruiters were hiring in full force in the beginning of the year, because I had at least one interview almost every day that week.

Then, we drove back to my house Friday night, since my parents were coming up to visit on Saturday. They wanted to visit since they were also doing errands in Atlanta, so they bought dinner and we ended up watching Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Then, we had mom open her birthday present that I kept on hinting towards for the past month lol. 

I found out that my mom really enjoys the anticipation and surprise of receiving a present, because she would not stop laughing every time I told her that I wouldn't spoil the surprise whenever she asked. Either way, she loved the Chanel bag and wallet we got her. I just can't believe how poor I instantly became after paying Shelle my half of the present lol. All of my extra spending money was gone in a second. D: 

Lol but it's okay because it was really nice surprising my parents with designer stuff. I definitely felt like I was a qualified adult that my parents raised me to be since I made enough money to be able to buy them stuff like this. (Dad didn't know that we were planning on buying him a designer belt for his birthday in a few weeks either lol)

That Thursday, I drove down to help take care of my dad. He was scheduled to have knee surgery Friday morning, so I took the day off to take him to the hospital. The surgery went fine, but because the hospital was at tier 4 because of the high amounts of Covid patients, they told me that I wouldn't be able to see my dad after he was moved to his recover room, so I went home after giving them my phone number to call me once they moved him.

So a couple of hours later, I got a call from the hospital saying that he was moved into a room and that he was only allowed one visitor for the day, so my mom told me to go visit dad and give him his clothes and phone, since I had to take it back with me when he left for his surgery. Then, I got there and ran into a problem with the front desk who told me that he already had one visitor for the day, which was me earlier that morning. So I had to wait for a nurse to call back and confirm things and FINALLY got to see dad. 

There was just a lot of miscommunication and issues with the hospital. When I got there, it was already six, and the nurse who was giving dad some medicine said that they should be giving food to the patients at this time, so dad should have dinner soon. When I left his room around 6:45 (since visitor hours ended at 7:00), I saw that a nurse was pushing around the food cart not far from dad's room, so I assumed that he would get his dinner soon. But then, Shelle called us and said that she just called dad and heard that he didn't get his dinner yet, so she eventually called the hospital and told them the issue. Dad eventually got a cold sandwich for dinner around nine. Like wtf.

Then, the next day, I drove to the hospital to give dad some toiletries and found out that the entrance I went in yesterday was closed. This other lady who arrived at the same time as me and I walked around trying to figure out why both entrances nearby were closed and had to drive around the other side of the hospital to find a working entrance. That's when we found out that they shut down all visitors because the hospital was at tier 4 emergency. We could only visit them if they're being discharged, so I had to wait for dad to finish his physical therapy goals before they would discharge him.

Luckily, as I was driving back home, dad called me and said that he finished walking 300 ft without help, so he could be discharged in a couple of hours. I went home and waited for the hospital to call, and went back with Brian to help pickup dad. Unfortunately, his pain meds wore off around that time when we picked him up, so he was in a lot of pain the whole time getting in and out of the car. Luckily, his prescriptions were ready to be picked up in an hour, so he wasn't in pain for too long.

That following Monday was MLK, so I had the day off. I had a call with a hiring manager who rejected me because he offered to provide feedback on why I didn't get the role and interview feedback in general, which was really nice of him. I got a lot of tips and have been implementing it in my interviews since. But halfway through our call, my phone started blowing up. 

I saw afterwards that our grandpa died, and my cousins group chat exploded. Since this was my mom's dad, I immediately went to check on my mom who already found out about the news. She was surprisingly calm and was basically on the phone for the rest of the night because everyone kept on calling her. Our uncle was trying to see if it was possible to fly back to Vietnam in time for the funeral, but because of all of the mandatory quarantines, it wasn't possible. 

Everyone talked in the next couple of days and decided to hold a funeral at our uncle's house in Georgia starting that Friday afternoon. We weren't sure if our family should go or not since a lot of people were flying in for the funeral and because mom has a low immune system and dad just had knee surgery and couldn't handle sitting in a car for that long let alone walk well. In the end, we compromised and had Kyle and Shelle drive down to take care of dad since Shelle couldn't go anyway (she's pregnant, which is unlucky for the baby) while Brian, mom, and I would drive to our uncle's house on Friday morning and come back Saturday night.

We got there in the afternoon and saw half of the family. Everyone else arrived a couple of hours later. Almost all of the cousins were there, while most of the aunts and uncles came, so it was basically a family reunion. 

I got to see baby Margaux for the first time in two years! The last time we all saw her was right before the pandemic started during her 100th day anniversary. It's been so long! She so cute and smart! The only issue is that she gets FOMO and can't sleep when lots of people are over, so Carol has to take her out on a drive for her to take a nap lol. That's how a bunch of the cousins took three cars to go out and get ice cream from DQ at night after we started the funeral ceremony of wearing white headbands and praying and bowing in front of the alter. It also started snowing at night, so there was a lot going on lol.

We went out to the lake nearby the next day to let Margaux work off some excess energy. She got addicted to throwing stuff into the water thanks to Mei Mei lol. She's just so cute in her tiny puffy jacket and boots!

Even though we got together for grandpa's funeral, it was nice hanging out with everyone and catching up since it's been so long since we last saw each other. 

Brian drove us back home later that night, and we hungout with the whole family until the next afternoon. James and Mei Mei were flying back home on Tuesday and Wednesday, so they made plans to spend a few days with us at Kyle and Shelle's house, since they didn't want to spend their whole time at our uncle's house out in the boondocks. They originally were going to come over on Sunday but changed it to Monday night since our aunt was sad that they were leaving so soon lol. 

Since they weren't coming over immediately that Sunday and because I drove down separately in my own car, I decided to leave my parents' house early and go visit Alec since I hadn't seen him for a few weeks. I was originally gonna go home at night but since I already had my work laptop and everything with me, I just spent the night at his place and drove home after work the next day in time to get dinner with everyone. We took them to the Chinese hand-pulled noodles place close to home and ordered a feast! 

The next day, James left for his flight in the afternoon while Mei Mei borrowed my car and went out shopping and trying bubble tea places while the rest of us worked. After work, we went to Ponce City Market to meet up with our cousin An Binh and her boyfriend for dinner. Ponce has a large selection of restaurants and shops inside, which perfectly fits Mei Mei's foodie lifestyle. I think we bought food from four or five places and tried everything lol.

The next day, Shelle and I got off work early and drove Mei Mei to the airport. 

The day after that, I drove over to Alec's house to spend the weekend with him. We had already made plans to go hiking on Saturday at Arabia Mountain. You can read more about it here. 

I ended up staying until Monday night to spend more time with him since was he cooking delicious food Sunday night and I'm weak lol. 

But yeah, this month was super busy and intense. In between all of these events, I had multiple interviews and a project to work on. I don't really know how I survived this month thb. That's probably why it took me so long to write this post lol. But here we are, finally at the end! :)

Mini Reviews: Sugar Dog Life, Ookami-kun wa Kowakunai, This Reincarnated Cross-Dressing Princess Won't Be Looking for a Fiancé

Title: Sugar Dog Life
Author: Yoriko 
Chapters: 6 chapters 
Publication: 2019
Summary from Manga Updates:

Isumi Sakuraba, a university student with a short stature and baby-faced complex, is mistaken for a minor and is guided home by police officer Amasawa. Although he was a real student who showed his student ID, he later met Amasawa again at a convenience store where he worked part-time. Amasawa, who works at a police box nearby, became a regular customer and asked Isumi for a recommended dinner every time they met. Though Isumi felt awkward, he was worried about Amasawa’s eating habits, uttered, "Why don't I make food for you?"

3.5 STARS - I LIKED IT

MY REVIEW: 

This was so cute and wholesome! I love the height difference and how Isumi's tiny body can't contain all of his anger lol. He's such an easily embarrassed tsundere while Amasawa's so chill and honest. Their interactions were so cute together!

Title: Ookami-kun wa Kowakunai
Author: Rico Sakura
Chapters: 5 chapters + extras
Publication: 2018
Summary from Manga Updates:

“Do people fall in love with someone on their first heat...?”

The world is filled with animals that can evolve into beast men. There is a young and earnest wolf who was always mistaken for a showy person because of his flashy looks. The easily mistaken wolf has fallen for an attractive looking rabbit named Usami, whose skin is tanned. Even though Usami is very cautious of the carnivores, he would put his guard down only when he is with the easily mistaken wolf, who was a pervert that became a life saver for Usami. But what will happen to Usami on his first heat!?

Series Order:

1. Ookami-kun wa Kowakunai (wolf x bunny)

2. Thoroughbred wa Nabikanai (lion x horse)

3. Ookami-kun wa Hanasanai (wolf x bunny)

4. Thoroughbred wa Yuruganai (lion x horse)

5. Hyena-kun wa Mitomenai (hyena x guinea pig)

3 STARS - I LIKED IT

MY REVIEW: 

Pretty cute romance about overcoming discriminations between carnivores and herbivores. I really liked the cute animal forms and chibi versions of them. 

Title: This Reincarnated Cross-Dressing Princess Won't Be Looking for a Fiancé
Author: Akino Shiina, Saki Tsukigami, & Maki Hayashi
Chapters: 9 chapters 
Publication: 2019
Summary from Renta!:

Princess Alicia doesn't want to be married off in an arranged marriage, so she agrees to an impossible wager with her mother: Enter an all-boys school as a "boy" and find real love among a number of approved candidates. What she doesn't plan on is falling in love with handsome Lucius, a non-approved guy who figures out her secret! Oh, and she realizes she's a reincarnation of a romance-novel-loving girl who is living in one of her favorite stories! Find out what happens next in this comical love fantasy!

3 STARS - I LIKED IT ENOUGH

MY REVIEW: 

You need to suspend your disbelief right from the start, but nothing about this was logical to begin with lol. 

For one thing, Alicia found out that she transmigrated into a BL otome game that she played in her previous life, so she eventually gave up trying to find a fiancé at school because she expected to see happy fun times between the main male leads in the game. That was actually totally understandable though! I too would love to spend my school days as a bystander watching all of the clichés unfold around me lmao. 

But things turned out differently after she gave up chasing the guys, and it became even more cliché with the jealous real male lead. His secret was also totally obvious to everyone but her. 

Also wasn't expecting smut in here, but there wasn't a lot. I honestly thought the wedding night would be smuttier compared to all of the leadup lol. 

Anyway, at only 9 chapters, don't expect great plot or characterization, but at least the art was nice.

Arabia Mountain

Alec and I are made a plan to go hiking at least once a month. We got to a pretty late start by going to Arabia Mountain during the last Saturday of January, but it was well worth it! We didn't know that it had snowed over there the night before, so there we were able to see a lot of snow during the drive up and some ice on the mountain! 

The place was super cool and unexpected. We did zero research before the hike, so we didn't know that the mountain was full of granite fields. 

All of the trail markers were made up of rocks, too! So cool!

There were some water areas that were in the middle defrosting from the cold weather that night, so we saw a lot of ice on the ground!

We made it all the way to one of the lakes and stopped for a picnic since it was already one in the afternoon. There were already stumps available for our table and chairs! How cute lol.

Because we kept on stopping every few feet to take pics and explore, we actually didn't get to the top of the mountain. Since it was already 1:30, we decided to stop and call it a day before going somewhere else for lunch.

Next time, we'll hike to the top! However, the lake was not a bad place to stop for the day lol.

Book Unhaul 28

Was trying to make room for all of the new books I got, so I figured it was time to unhaul a few that I lost interest in. 

Smash It! ARC by Francina Simone

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow

Poems That Make Grown Men Cry by various authors

Someone Else to Love by Susan Polis Schutz

Manga Review: Gogatsu no Hana wa Mada Sakanai by Rico Sakura

Title: Gogatsu no Hana wa Mada Sakanai
Author: Rico Sakura
Chapters: 5 chapters + 1 extra
Publication: 2017
Summary from Manga Updates:

Tsubaki is a well-liked and very rich high schooler whose mother usually works. One day while coming home from school, Tsubaki was shocked to find that his mother brought back her new boyfriend, Reiichi. Reiichi is a nice person, but he likes touching Tsubaki intimately, confusing the young and innocent Tsubaki. After Reiichi confesses to falling in love with Tsubaki, he becomes even more confused.

2.5 STARS - IT WAS OKAY

MY REVIEW: 

This was all sorts of fucked up. This review is going to be spoilery, but you should really know what you're getting yourself into.

Obviously, this was only a one volume manga, so it couldn't go into great detail about the mom's relationship, but what type of mom goes on a 3 week business trip and comes back with a super younger guy saying that he's her boyfriend, that she might marry him, and that he was going to start living with them starting right now to her son??? 

Granted, Tsubaki is not a little kid that needs looking after, but he's still incredibly naive and sheltered and has been fatherless for a long time. How could you just spring that on him and then suddenly leave on another business trip and leave them alone together? That's so weird and irresponsible! It doesn't even show that Reiichi has a job or anything, so why would a successful businesswoman like Tsubaki's mom even be interested in Reiichi to begin with? 

Then, after her son tells her that her boyfriend and her son fell in love with each other while she was gone, she still let's her son chase after him?! And just slaps Reiichi the next time he comes over and threatens him if he hurts Tsubaki? This is just bad parenting. 

Not to mention Reiichi's actions. He toyed with Tsubaki in the beginning because it was fun before he actually fell for him. Then, instead of listening to him or letting Tsubaki understand what happened, he r*ped him and then ran away?? Wtf?! 

And Tsubaki forgives him immediately anyway and wants to have sex with him again because he didn't like how he couldn't see Reiichi when he r*ped him the first time! This kid was too starved for love and attention growing up. Plus, he's a teenage boy, so I can understand his high sex drive in place of physical affection, so I actually don't blame his love brain for taking things the wrong way. 

It's the adults that really irritated me. A lot of the comments said that Reiichi basically groomed Tsubaki, which I think was true, especially with the extras near the end. 

But despite all of these complaints, I couldn't stop reading the manga. The art was too good, and I kept on having high hopes for the mom. I didn't hate it enough to quit reading the manga, so my recommendation is to read this at your own risk lol.

Books I Want to Read This Month

I didn't manage to read anything off of this list last month, so I want to do better in Feb!

1. The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System vol. 1 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
2. Graceling the Graphic Novel by Kristin Cashore & Gareth Hinds
3. StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath
4. A Man & His Cat vol. 3 by Umi Sakurai
5. A Man & His Cat vol. 4 by Umi Sakurai
6. Seven Days: Monday–Sunday by Venio Tachibana & Rihito Takarai
7. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? vol. 12 by Fujino Omori
8. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? vol. 13 by Fujino Omori
9. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? vol. 14 by Fujino Omori
10. I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level vol. 2 by Kisetsu Morita & Beniso
11. Euphoria by F.S. Yousaf
12. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda
13. The Anatomy of Being by Shinji Moon
14. Home Body by Rupi Kaur
15. The Sun Will Rise & So Will We by Jennae Cecelia

January in Retrospect

Well, I definitely was on an anime kick for most of the month. However, I've gotten back into reading webnovels for the past week. Hopefully, I won't lose interest soon. However, I would like to read some manga when I have more time... This past month has been crazy busy, so I'm surprised that I managed to read and watch all that I did in this time.

I read: 

• Married to the Male Lead’s Brother by 美人无霜
• The Boss Became My Three-year-old Son by 美人无霜
• I Have One Tail by 西大秦

I watched: 

• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2 (2021)
• The Devil All the Time (2020)
• The Irregular at Magic High School: Reminiscence Arc (2021)
• CHOYOYU!: High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World! (2019)
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
• Isekai Cheat Magician (2019)
• Wise Man's Grandchild (2019)
• Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles (2021)
• The 8th son? Are you kidding me? (2020)
• Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai (2007)
• Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
• Pokémon: Giratina and the Sky Warrior (2008)