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A Gilded World
Jeon Seokjin has exactly four weeks to stop the impending engagement of his younger brother, doomed to a loveless marriage. The only way to stop it is to make a better match, more advantageous, more lucrative for the Jeon family. It's impossible. It's his only option.
Min Yoongi does not want, will never want, will never ever even consider, marriage. It's not in the cards. He's stubborn enough to achieve the total ban on marriage talks. Except maybe his grandmother is a little more stubborn than he is, and maybe she's determined to see him march down the aisle.
The chaebol arranged marriage au that exactly one and a half people asked for.
Min Yoongi does not want, will never want, will never ever even consider, marriage. It's not in the cards. He's stubborn enough to achieve the total ban on marriage talks. Except maybe his grandmother is a little more stubborn than he is, and maybe she's determined to see him march down the aisle.
The chaebol arranged marriage au that exactly one and a half people asked for.
- GenresFan Fiction
378 pages, ebook
Published October 31, 2016
5 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
January 7, 2021
this THE yoonjin fic
November 20, 2020
I told myself repeatedly to GIVE IT SOME TIME after Echo Chorus to maintain separate identities of the characters in my head, but did I follow my own rules? Obviously, no.
After determining that I wanted to read Yoonjin/Sin fics, I very practically decided to start with the fics that were most popular on AO3, because why shouldn't I be reading the best material? A Gilded World was actually the first result, but I love the exes-to-lovers trope a sliver more than I love the marriage-of-convenience trope, so I picked EC to read first. It was certainly not a bad decision, because I was speechless with how AMAZING it is. I spent half the day wandering my home, desperately wanting to shout from the rooftops about how everyone who appreciates romance should please read this and please, do it soon because I badly want to gush about it to a receptive audience. Alas, as usual, it was just me and myself. I have friends who are ARMY, but they understandably aren't interested in BTS slash fiction and I respect their decision, although I can't help randomly throwing in bits of my favourite scenes into our conversations (I'm sorry, please bear with me).
Compared to EC, AGW has four times the number of hits and is nearly twice as long. AND - this deserves to be mentioned twice - it's an arranged-marriage/marriage-of-convenience AU. So did I start it with extremely high expectations? You're damn right I did.
AGW is a sprawling fic, encompassing events and people and things and places from Busan and Daegu to Seoul. The writing is lush and the emotions are eloquently described. The main narrators are Yoongi and Seokjin, with occasional bits of narrative by Jimin and Hoseok, but all the boys' characters are beautiful and distinct, and the story would be incomplete even if one of them was missing - they are so much more than secondary characters. The rest of the cast was hardly any less important, each of their threads weaving seamlessly into the story to make it so much emotionally richer. Apart from overheard snippets and the occasional ads that YouTube forces on me, I am completely unfamiliar with K-dramas, but I am very well acquainted with the romance genre, so the plot points were new and yet vaguely recognizable. As usual, I almost skipped right over the chapter names and had to come back and read them.
My heart has had to make a lot of room as I read the book, because with each line, with every new scene I appreciated each character more than before. My heart ached for Yoongi, Seokjin, Jimin and Jungkook. Each of them had experienced such troubles in life that even hoping for good things was a difficult task for them. I almost cried at so many scenes and was silently cheering for all of them to take control of their lives and seize their chances of happiness. Taehyung and Hoseok were absolute gems.
Words do not suffice to describe how precious Seokjin and Yoongi are. One of my minor quibbles with EC was that I wanted to see a little more of upbeat Seokjin, the one who's sexy and he knows it (wink) and is equally generous with both his dad jokes and flying kisses. I was overjoyed to have my wish fulfilled in this book. Yoongi is Yoongi - brilliant at everything he tries his hand at. Domestic Yoonjin is just simply 😍😍. The only thing that tops that is probably possessive/defensive Yoongi. The scene where he stood up to Chairman Jeon had me grinning like a maniac, not to mention what comes after 🔥🔥. They truly were perfect for each other, so different and yet, in their heart of hearts, exactly the same. I loved how the telepathy is included as part of their story. They were determined to keep their marriage simply a transaction, but they were helpless against being drawn into each other's gravity until they no longer knew where one's life began and the other's ended. I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but my reading experience was largely improved by the fact that I found this beauty on Twitter (credits-@st7dio):
I have very few characters I call book boyfriends, but as of now, AGW's Taehyung tops that small list. His patience, his care and consideration of his loved ones is simply amazing. As much as I was sympathizing with Jimin's struggles with his feelings, a part of me was also like "snap out of it already! Can't you see that this guy is absolutely gone for you, he'd get you the moon if you asked!" Jungkook's struggles were of a different nature, but no less poignant. Hoseok was such a lovable hot mess and definitely one of my all-time favourite best-friend-of-the-protagonist characters. Namjoon was his perfect complement, and the two were simply adorable together. (I will forever hold a grudge against the author for dangling the possibility of Namjoon's POV right in front of me and snatching it away just. Like. That.)
The question is, did it meet my expectations? Oh, yes, it did. But the thing I'm still stuck on is the part where I expected it to far exceed my expectations, the way EC did. That isn't fair to the author, considering I bumped up my requirements from decently good writing to 'mind-blowing, wrecks me for all future characters' in the span of one fic. I love it, I really do - but. I can't quite put my finger on what about the book fell short for me. The only thing I do know is the prose was a little too purple - I know Yoonjin is suffering, stop beating me about the head with their emotions, I can't handle it! As with EC, the fic had so much angst that even after everyone got their happy ending I'm mentally still willing them with every fibre of my being to "please, please have hope, please reach out, please don't let go, please be happy - oh wait, this is the epilogue". I read all AGW drabbles I could get my hands on, and seeing Yoonjin content in each of them helped glue the pieces of my heart back together, but it wasn't quite enough. That's why I started reading the book all over again, thinking maybe the second time around I'll appreciate it as much as I want to and soak in every single detail. However, I'm busier than I was before and I feel like reading snatches of it this way is only making things worse; I'm taking in fewer details, not more. Even though I'm slightly obsessed with chronicling every book I read on GR, I think I'll retain the original reading dates as of now, give myself a nice long break, and then pick it up again, when I have the time and headspace to give it all my attention for as long as it takes (It took me 7 hours the first time, and I don't regret a single minute of it).
Update 20-11-20: I did not listen to my advice at all, and continued to read it for the second time. I completed it yesterday, and, well, I don't have much to say that I haven't already said. Since there was quite a bit of a gap between me reading each chapter, the prose didn't overwhelm me as much as it did the first time and instead really helped set the mood, taking me back to the characters' exact emotional states. It truly is an excellent story.
After determining that I wanted to read Yoonjin/Sin fics, I very practically decided to start with the fics that were most popular on AO3, because why shouldn't I be reading the best material? A Gilded World was actually the first result, but I love the exes-to-lovers trope a sliver more than I love the marriage-of-convenience trope, so I picked EC to read first. It was certainly not a bad decision, because I was speechless with how AMAZING it is. I spent half the day wandering my home, desperately wanting to shout from the rooftops about how everyone who appreciates romance should please read this and please, do it soon because I badly want to gush about it to a receptive audience. Alas, as usual, it was just me and myself. I have friends who are ARMY, but they understandably aren't interested in BTS slash fiction and I respect their decision, although I can't help randomly throwing in bits of my favourite scenes into our conversations (I'm sorry, please bear with me).
Compared to EC, AGW has four times the number of hits and is nearly twice as long. AND - this deserves to be mentioned twice - it's an arranged-marriage/marriage-of-convenience AU. So did I start it with extremely high expectations? You're damn right I did.
AGW is a sprawling fic, encompassing events and people and things and places from Busan and Daegu to Seoul. The writing is lush and the emotions are eloquently described. The main narrators are Yoongi and Seokjin, with occasional bits of narrative by Jimin and Hoseok, but all the boys' characters are beautiful and distinct, and the story would be incomplete even if one of them was missing - they are so much more than secondary characters. The rest of the cast was hardly any less important, each of their threads weaving seamlessly into the story to make it so much emotionally richer. Apart from overheard snippets and the occasional ads that YouTube forces on me, I am completely unfamiliar with K-dramas, but I am very well acquainted with the romance genre, so the plot points were new and yet vaguely recognizable. As usual, I almost skipped right over the chapter names and had to come back and read them.
My heart has had to make a lot of room as I read the book, because with each line, with every new scene I appreciated each character more than before. My heart ached for Yoongi, Seokjin, Jimin and Jungkook. Each of them had experienced such troubles in life that even hoping for good things was a difficult task for them. I almost cried at so many scenes and was silently cheering for all of them to take control of their lives and seize their chances of happiness. Taehyung and Hoseok were absolute gems.
Words do not suffice to describe how precious Seokjin and Yoongi are. One of my minor quibbles with EC was that I wanted to see a little more of upbeat Seokjin, the one who's sexy and he knows it (wink) and is equally generous with both his dad jokes and flying kisses. I was overjoyed to have my wish fulfilled in this book. Yoongi is Yoongi - brilliant at everything he tries his hand at. Domestic Yoonjin is just simply 😍😍. The only thing that tops that is probably possessive/defensive Yoongi. The scene where he stood up to Chairman Jeon had me grinning like a maniac, not to mention what comes after 🔥🔥. They truly were perfect for each other, so different and yet, in their heart of hearts, exactly the same. I loved how the telepathy is included as part of their story. They were determined to keep their marriage simply a transaction, but they were helpless against being drawn into each other's gravity until they no longer knew where one's life began and the other's ended. I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but my reading experience was largely improved by the fact that I found this beauty on Twitter (credits-@st7dio):
I have very few characters I call book boyfriends, but as of now, AGW's Taehyung tops that small list. His patience, his care and consideration of his loved ones is simply amazing. As much as I was sympathizing with Jimin's struggles with his feelings, a part of me was also like "snap out of it already! Can't you see that this guy is absolutely gone for you, he'd get you the moon if you asked!" Jungkook's struggles were of a different nature, but no less poignant. Hoseok was such a lovable hot mess and definitely one of my all-time favourite best-friend-of-the-protagonist characters. Namjoon was his perfect complement, and the two were simply adorable together. (I will forever hold a grudge against the author for dangling the possibility of Namjoon's POV right in front of me and snatching it away just. Like. That.)
The question is, did it meet my expectations? Oh, yes, it did. But the thing I'm still stuck on is the part where I expected it to far exceed my expectations, the way EC did. That isn't fair to the author, considering I bumped up my requirements from decently good writing to 'mind-blowing, wrecks me for all future characters' in the span of one fic. I love it, I really do - but. I can't quite put my finger on what about the book fell short for me. The only thing I do know is the prose was a little too purple - I know Yoonjin is suffering, stop beating me about the head with their emotions, I can't handle it! As with EC, the fic had so much angst that even after everyone got their happy ending I'm mentally still willing them with every fibre of my being to "please, please have hope, please reach out, please don't let go, please be happy - oh wait, this is the epilogue". I read all AGW drabbles I could get my hands on, and seeing Yoonjin content in each of them helped glue the pieces of my heart back together, but it wasn't quite enough. That's why I started reading the book all over again, thinking maybe the second time around I'll appreciate it as much as I want to and soak in every single detail. However, I'm busier than I was before and I feel like reading snatches of it this way is only making things worse; I'm taking in fewer details, not more. Even though I'm slightly obsessed with chronicling every book I read on GR, I think I'll retain the original reading dates as of now, give myself a nice long break, and then pick it up again, when I have the time and headspace to give it all my attention for as long as it takes (It took me 7 hours the first time, and I don't regret a single minute of it).
Update 20-11-20: I did not listen to my advice at all, and continued to read it for the second time. I completed it yesterday, and, well, I don't have much to say that I haven't already said. Since there was quite a bit of a gap between me reading each chapter, the prose didn't overwhelm me as much as it did the first time and instead really helped set the mood, taking me back to the characters' exact emotional states. It truly is an excellent story.
February 11, 2023
pochnah da piq chai zaradi toq fic
July 19, 2025
cuando estamos todos en cualquiera (cargando fics de ao3 al challenge de goodreads)
January 3, 2022
disclaimer: this is definitely a biased rating
First ever fan fiction i’ve read and it did not disappoint!! The story of Seokjin and Yoongi as partners will make you want a love like that too. Light, natural and true. 💜
As you read each chapter, you’ll either cry or laugh - but definitely love each character. Even the side characters!
Kudos to writer Smiles for writing such a great story! I know this has been released for some years now, but it’s still such a good read. 💜
First ever fan fiction i’ve read and it did not disappoint!! The story of Seokjin and Yoongi as partners will make you want a love like that too. Light, natural and true. 💜
As you read each chapter, you’ll either cry or laugh - but definitely love each character. Even the side characters!
Kudos to writer Smiles for writing such a great story! I know this has been released for some years now, but it’s still such a good read. 💜
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 20, 2022
this is what every fic aspires to be it is THE yoonjin fic everything by smiles is a masterpiece and i wish this were published so i could own a physical copy of it
January 18, 2024
This is the perfect example of why fanfics can surpass certain books in terms of quality. It amazes me the fact that I get to read this for FREE, when it is actually one of the best literature piece I have ever encountered.
I grew fond of every character that appears in this book, I laughed out loud and hide some tears. I screamed in my room as if it was the first time I read it (not second, not even third hehe). This book is the type of book you'd love to immerse yourself, to live between their pages, to taste their first moments as if they were your own, to read it multiple time as if it were the first. It is the type of book you find once in a hundred, the type of read that makes you understand why words and worlds are so similar.
This is the perfect example that cliché is not a synonim of bad quality, dull or shabby. It can be cliché and it can melt your heart as if it is the first time you have ever heard of fake marriage.
I grew fond of every character that appears in this book, I laughed out loud and hide some tears. I screamed in my room as if it was the first time I read it (not second, not even third hehe). This book is the type of book you'd love to immerse yourself, to live between their pages, to taste their first moments as if they were your own, to read it multiple time as if it were the first. It is the type of book you find once in a hundred, the type of read that makes you understand why words and worlds are so similar.
This is the perfect example that cliché is not a synonim of bad quality, dull or shabby. It can be cliché and it can melt your heart as if it is the first time you have ever heard of fake marriage.
October 2, 2023
I have no shame reviewing this singe handedly changed my life two years ago and its so well written ill cry just thinking abt it because i loved all the characters and this should be published as a real book instead of remaning as a fanfic :( youll never get me to stop talking abt chaebols anyways my fav trope
February 7, 2024
El yoonjin es completamente mi debilidad y no hay nada que ame más que escuchar o leer a yoongi diciéndole "hyung" a jin ♡♡♡♡
amo los matrimonios arreglados que, predeciblemente, terminando siendo un matrimonio amoroso y feliz.
me encantó el desarrollo de yoon y el carácter de jinnie, es de mis relaciones favoritas ♡
amo los matrimonios arreglados que, predeciblemente, terminando siendo un matrimonio amoroso y feliz.
me encantó el desarrollo de yoon y el carácter de jinnie, es de mis relaciones favoritas ♡
August 14, 2021
Actual rating: 4.5
June 21, 2022
lo mejor de la vida
August 17, 2022
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
October 17, 2022
smiles, you will always be famous
June 14, 2024
Bro 😭
Es que qué bonito, ambos protas tenían tantas barreras y tantos miedos pero al final el amor ganó :')
Es que qué bonito, ambos protas tenían tantas barreras y tantos miedos pero al final el amor ganó :')
October 20, 2024
Pushed myself to read English books before my IELTS test, and I found this fanfic on my Kindle! Although I’m more interested in the Vmin plotlines, I managed to get through 36%. It was a good read!
January 13, 2025
this is my third reread and it still slaps
April 8, 2019
All the romance feelings. You don't need to know the fandom (in fact it might get in the way) to enjoy this well thought out, angsty deep marriage of convenience story.
December 17, 2024
one of my fav fanfics i gotta reread it its so so good even if the plot is a classic arranged marriage their feelings feel so real i love it so much
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews