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愚か者の最後の恋人
たった一人の肉親に捨てられ傷ついたみなしごのキユナは、愛なんかいらないと固く心に誓って生きてきた。しかしある日、ひょんなことから惚れ薬を飲まされ、犬猿の仲の雇い主で、貴族のフレイを好きになってしまう。誰にでも愛を囁く節操なしのフレイのことが大嫌いだったはずなのに、彼に甘く見つめられるだけで、瞳は潤み、胸が痛いほど高鳴ってしまうキユナ。そんな初めての恋の感情に耐えられなくなったキユナは、解薬を手に入れるために、フレイから持ちかけられた、とある危険な賭けにのることにしたのだが…。
- GenresJapanese Literature
239 pages, Paperback
First published January 20, 2009
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 18, 2017
WOW. OKAY. SO. you know when you read the summary of something and you think to yourself, "huh, alright" expecting something light, comedic, and mediocre? nothing too deep, none of that hard, complicated shit, just wanna go in, laugh a bit, shake your head, turn the page, stifle a yawn maybe, be amused, finish reading, and call it day? right? right??? yeah...... I THOUGHT??? because throughout this thing, i was waiting for my love comedy fantasy tale, and yet all i got was... drama. drama up the arse, all the drama. drama everywheeere. and man, was it interesting. and just when you THINK you know the direction of where the story is heading to... THINK AGAIN. the end just packs on the plot twists like nobody's business, and maaaan. dayum. was not expecting those plot twists at aaaall.
this summary won't be a thesis long, because there's just waaay too many things that happens in this book for me to condense into a review. judging from the summary, i thought this book would have massive pacing issues with fillers in between, but despite a busy schedule as a nursing student, i ended up finishing this book in 5 days (best to believe it would have been sooner if i didn't have school...). the main reason was, there was no break to chillax here. it was one thing after another after another. and with how vast the plot and characterization was, i'm amazed this is misao's debut novel.
summary: kiyuna is your oriental-origin, main uke character. he was abandoned by his mother, who was a prostitute, and left alone during a cold, winter day in front of the gates of an aristocratic's estate when he was 5 years old. he was adopted by the family (consisting of the current feudal lord of their town, named noxia, and his younger brother) and raised to work as a servant. the younger brother named fray is close to kiyuna in age, and throughout the years, fray enjoyed teasing and messing with kiyuna (for example, placing frogs in his plate of food and making fun of him). present time, fray is to be married to his arranged partner, but being the reputable player that he is, he dodges this expected responsibility of his and escapes to live in another town, away from his nagging older brother. kiyuna is sent to bring fray back home so he can settle down and get married once and for all. fray has no desire for this, since he just wants to flirt and sleep with pretty people, regardless of gender, and enjoy his life of freedom. as a last resort, kiyuna is given a love potion by noxia to use on fray in hopes that if and when fray takes the potion and "falls in love" with kiyuna, he would obey kiyuna wishes and return home. however... things happen along the way, and kiyuna ends up accidentally taking the potion instead, with him falling in love with fray. in order to get the antidote from fray and return back to normal, he now has to go along with fray's request...
so the story deals with these two's crazy and drama filled adventure as they figure out the secrets hidden within their surroundings and at the same time, deal with their unknown yet real feelings for each other. truth be told, the love potion only serves as a catalyst. it only works if the person does have that love for the target person in the first place. a mere potion can't create love, but can awaken what's already there. kiyuna realizes this after the fact... but that doesn't stop him from trying to get his hands on the antidote in order to escape from the pains of unrequited love.
the book also delves a lot into the concept of the "lost love's" children... who are aristocratic kids that are born out of an extra-marital relationship. these children aren't recognized officially by their family, and thus, can't pass on their inheritance to their offspring - in fact, they aren't supposed to have offsprings for fear that they would tarnish their family's lineage. hence why they are required to marry only people of the same sex. but the lost love's children do receive support from their family and treated as aristocrats while they are alive, despite their mothers being the mistress to the feudal lords. this is to maintain peace between the feudal lord's family, the mistresses, and the children born from these relationship. fray, as well as the main side characters, fall into this category.
i really like the side characters, and they brought so much into the story. in fact, they really do MAKE the story. there's so much that goes on with the side characters... that you're not sure who is telling the truth, who is the good guy and bad guy, what their motive is, etc... because who you think is good is actually the villain, and who is rumored to be "odd and different" ends up being an amazingly, sweet person. i don't want to go too much into the individual side characters, but some are asses, some are shady as hell, and some are damn fantastic. there's also a wolf here that's... total love.
what i DIDN'T like, was... and i could totally tell this was misao's debut book seeing as i've read her most recent works... how repetitive her descriptive words were. i almost wanted to played a drinking game whenever the word "hosoi" came up. i would probably be drunk af before i finished the chapter is what stopped me from even trying. i wanted to grab a japanese thesaurus and wave it in the air and be like, yooo, i get it. pls use a different word or not use that word altogether. thankfully, the repetitive adjectives lessen a bit in the later chapters. it's something you definitely don't see much (or isn't as glaringly obvious) in her recent works, thank goodness.
aside from that, this was a surprisingly entertaining read. i expected romantic comedy, and i definitely DID NOT get that at all. this got some crazy 1700-esce english fantasy baby mama daddy family love drama thang going on over here, with crazier and unexpected plot twists. misao mentioned in her afterwards that she was inspired by shakespeare's midnight summer dream and she wanted to bring the "love potion" plot device back into bl.
if you want something not too angsty or deep, but still want that sweet taste of bitter unrequited love, shady af family drama and secrets, blackmail, adventure, fantastical elements, HOT foreplay and sexy scenes, and a frickin' wolf... def check this out.
this summary won't be a thesis long, because there's just waaay too many things that happens in this book for me to condense into a review. judging from the summary, i thought this book would have massive pacing issues with fillers in between, but despite a busy schedule as a nursing student, i ended up finishing this book in 5 days (best to believe it would have been sooner if i didn't have school...). the main reason was, there was no break to chillax here. it was one thing after another after another. and with how vast the plot and characterization was, i'm amazed this is misao's debut novel.
summary: kiyuna is your oriental-origin, main uke character. he was abandoned by his mother, who was a prostitute, and left alone during a cold, winter day in front of the gates of an aristocratic's estate when he was 5 years old. he was adopted by the family (consisting of the current feudal lord of their town, named noxia, and his younger brother) and raised to work as a servant. the younger brother named fray is close to kiyuna in age, and throughout the years, fray enjoyed teasing and messing with kiyuna (for example, placing frogs in his plate of food and making fun of him). present time, fray is to be married to his arranged partner, but being the reputable player that he is, he dodges this expected responsibility of his and escapes to live in another town, away from his nagging older brother. kiyuna is sent to bring fray back home so he can settle down and get married once and for all. fray has no desire for this, since he just wants to flirt and sleep with pretty people, regardless of gender, and enjoy his life of freedom. as a last resort, kiyuna is given a love potion by noxia to use on fray in hopes that if and when fray takes the potion and "falls in love" with kiyuna, he would obey kiyuna wishes and return home. however... things happen along the way, and kiyuna ends up accidentally taking the potion instead, with him falling in love with fray. in order to get the antidote from fray and return back to normal, he now has to go along with fray's request...
so the story deals with these two's crazy and drama filled adventure as they figure out the secrets hidden within their surroundings and at the same time, deal with their unknown yet real feelings for each other. truth be told, the love potion only serves as a catalyst. it only works if the person does have that love for the target person in the first place. a mere potion can't create love, but can awaken what's already there. kiyuna realizes this after the fact... but that doesn't stop him from trying to get his hands on the antidote in order to escape from the pains of unrequited love.
the book also delves a lot into the concept of the "lost love's" children... who are aristocratic kids that are born out of an extra-marital relationship. these children aren't recognized officially by their family, and thus, can't pass on their inheritance to their offspring - in fact, they aren't supposed to have offsprings for fear that they would tarnish their family's lineage. hence why they are required to marry only people of the same sex. but the lost love's children do receive support from their family and treated as aristocrats while they are alive, despite their mothers being the mistress to the feudal lords. this is to maintain peace between the feudal lord's family, the mistresses, and the children born from these relationship. fray, as well as the main side characters, fall into this category.
i really like the side characters, and they brought so much into the story. in fact, they really do MAKE the story. there's so much that goes on with the side characters... that you're not sure who is telling the truth, who is the good guy and bad guy, what their motive is, etc... because who you think is good is actually the villain, and who is rumored to be "odd and different" ends up being an amazingly, sweet person. i don't want to go too much into the individual side characters, but some are asses, some are shady as hell, and some are damn fantastic. there's also a wolf here that's... total love.
what i DIDN'T like, was... and i could totally tell this was misao's debut book seeing as i've read her most recent works... how repetitive her descriptive words were. i almost wanted to played a drinking game whenever the word "hosoi" came up. i would probably be drunk af before i finished the chapter is what stopped me from even trying. i wanted to grab a japanese thesaurus and wave it in the air and be like, yooo, i get it. pls use a different word or not use that word altogether. thankfully, the repetitive adjectives lessen a bit in the later chapters. it's something you definitely don't see much (or isn't as glaringly obvious) in her recent works, thank goodness.
aside from that, this was a surprisingly entertaining read. i expected romantic comedy, and i definitely DID NOT get that at all. this got some crazy 1700-esce english fantasy baby mama daddy family love drama thang going on over here, with crazier and unexpected plot twists. misao mentioned in her afterwards that she was inspired by shakespeare's midnight summer dream and she wanted to bring the "love potion" plot device back into bl.
if you want something not too angsty or deep, but still want that sweet taste of bitter unrequited love, shady af family drama and secrets, blackmail, adventure, fantastical elements, HOT foreplay and sexy scenes, and a frickin' wolf... def check this out.
Displaying 1 of 1 review