The cat person apprentice’s way of speaking by including the words “meow” and “purr” into every spoken sentence was starting to get REALLY annoying, but it calmed down some the closer to the end and the plot of the Pope picked my attention up away from the annoying speech pattern of Tarte.
I’m kinda irked that the Pope is a young girl, which makes the at least 20-something year old male bishop’s devotion to her seem…less than savory. If it was made clear he sees her as a younger sister he needs to protect or if she was an older religious figure, it wouldn’t seem so…possibly off.
Also, how is a 13-ish year old girl mature enough and powerful enough to be a POPE?? We need some more background on how that decision was made.
This wasn’t bad and I want to read the next volume, but the issues I have in this one need to be resolved in the next one or that will be the last volume of this that I read.
3, cautiously hopeful, stars.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I couldn't help but ride my momentum from the first book and I ended up finishing this volume in one sitting while having my morning coffee.
This was a pretty good continuation of the story and our MC, going by the name Sharon to hide her identity as a former noble from the neighboring kingdom, has started building the foundations of her own adventuring party. At the same time, she gets pulled into a situation involving a power struggle within the church.
There wasn't anything wrong with this volume per se, though the new member of Sharon's party is a Catgirl who pronounces a lot of words by adding purr or meow to them. This might get annoying to some people. My biggest grief, as usual, is how short the volume was since this felt a bit more like it was setting the stage for a later payoff rather than giving us a more complete arc.
I like how the characters gain and use game items, such as the various ingredients for making potions, without detouring the plot into an endless quest to gather 20 bear asses for the local tannery.
I'm curious to see what sort of overarching plot takes shape in this series since things have been smaller steps so far. I have a feeling the issue with the church will play a role in the grander conflict even after the more immediate challenges are sorted out.
I have read a number of 'villainess' isekai stories (such as Accomplishments of the Duke's Daughter, I'll become a villainess who goes down in history, The Villainess flips the script, With one day left I will break all the destruction flags..) this one starts right before the denouement (similar to Accomplishments of the Duke's Daughter), leading the main character to get themselves out of the situation and make a drastic turn to their own story. For most of the first book it looked like it was just using this as a set up... but then at the end, they started bringing back characters from the main characters family, making the story a bit more interesting). I am not about to call this series 'great', but it was very enjoyable to read and I just kept going from one book to the next until running out of translated material (noooo!).
Charlotte, now going incognito as Sharon, encounters a bunch of adventures with the Hero and her entourage. They save Torte’s sister, Tarte, and Sharon uses her game knowledge to indoctrinate Tarte as an adventurer.
Just when you thought everything was all daisies and primroses, a conspiracy to oust the Pope rears its ugly head. Sharon remembers a way to save them from their instant death curse and spares no time in putting it into motion.
I'm not sure what it's called when someone adds an annoying, repetitive thing to dialogue but the Cait Sith speech does not need this! It dampened some of my enjoyment because it just distracted from what was going on. Otherwise, the adventuring was fun and continued at a good pace so I wasn't bored. I just wish people would stop with adding Meow or other lisping into language.
This volume maintains the same tone, but gets a bit messier. Battles are often a lot of movement names repeated without much context or visual description. Editing errors regarding time tables, power levels, or who is privy to a certain secret are annoying nuggets in the text. The general battle against good and evil is remains solid and thankfully many of the characters are likable. (2.5 stars)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
The first book had me hoping it wouldn't just have everything resolve itself chapter after chapter. I prefer a series that has at least some darkness in it, but it seems this isn't that kind of series. Any serious problem is immediately resolved. I enjoyed reading it, but I don't think I'll get any more out of this series in the future.