Metaworld Chronicles

I have enjoyed most of parts of this novel and as it is my first find on RR I'm pretty happy I managed to find something readable right out the gate.

My problem with this novel comes down to pretty much one or 2 things

- Descriptions of what people are wearing, at first I though it was an ammusing inclusion but when multiple paragraphs are consistently devoted solely to describing someone's outfit, I was like (CLAP)WHERE(CLAP)IS(CLAP)THE(CLAP)STORY?(CLAP)

- YES WE GET IT, she has LONG WHITE LEGS and apparently people find that feature attractive. I don't know if I'm using the word appropriately but I thought it made sense but I guffawed (not in a good way) and eye rolled so hard when great pains are taken to ensure that physical feature is mentioned EVERY SINGLE TIME fashion is involved.

- regarding the MC, how unrealistic the MC is as a "30 something" grown woman in a teenage body. She is able to anticipate and counter any attempts at disrupting anything that would get in the way of her BIG ASPIRATIONS. She uses her OLD WORLD knowledge to advance her goals which included intense long winded lectures that involve said knowledge. So I almost believe her character and personality. But than we hit the back and forth internal dilemna of I can't kill them or they are intelligent beings to. Cut immediately towards end of arc after MC killed or wiped out entire city and this happens EVERY SINGLE TIME. Lets not even get into wearing mini dresses that show of the LONG WHITE LEGS to a batlle scene. I really struggled to pair an intelligent, knowledgable and mature 30 something year old woman with a character that has a virtually obsessive compulsion to wear highly impractical clothes into a dangerous situation. My ONLY conclusion is that the MC is in reality not Gwen Song but ELLE WOODS.

- Lastly as a queer person I barely tolerated the queer relationship baiting as the MC's habbit of leading other characters on really started to grate on my nerves anytime a possible love interest appeared. In a sentence the MC, No we can't be in a relationship but you can totally touch me inappropriately, kiss me, hug me and I wan't to touch you, hug you, smell you, kiss you. And this is dismissively explained away as the MC's tendency to be masochistic. I think it was at that point I started to serously wonder if this novel is worth following. But then again the Romance genre is not my cup of tea so I'm highly biased against romance novels which I thought this wasn't because I didn't see it in the catergories. So the Catergories NEED TO BE UPDATED

(tried my best to avoid spoilers)

I was hooked to this novel for about 300 chapters, until I realised that I was just reading for the sake of reading, and not because the story was any good.

The first few chapters (maybe 30 or so?) were quite good for a beginning arc and had me hooked into the story. While the worldbuilding wasn't as initially on point as I thought it was, it wasn't bad by any means. Author is consistent in world building at least.

However, once you begin settling to read more than the first few chapters, you tend to see the same patterns and the same thing over and over again. The main character and her relationship to many of the side characters doesn't progress emotionally at all. Yes, they may progress plot wise, but emotionally, the characters still have the exact same reactions to each other as always, and they don't have much emotional depth. The character Elvia is the weirdest of all, where she is described as a very cute, angelic type person due to her angellic properties, and is literally treated like a baby in every other chapter. The characters all rush to protect her and treat her for every single thing. I guess that's cute and fits in with the emotional maturity of the teenagers that this story initially has. Fine. But then this emotional dynamic is kept throughout the story at times where it isn't needed, isn't significant, and barely relevant to the story; in the China arc, where the protagonist moves to another country, the character puts herself to sleep by saying the name "evee", multiple feats of magic are performed through just thinking of her and saying her name repeatedly, and even when the character tries to grow as a person, Elvia comes through and bashes all of that to smithereens, even if the character is nowhere close to interacting with the protagonist.Her other friend, Yue, is the exact same except that instead of Elvia's angelicsm or whatever you call it, it's just hotheadedness.

You know how I might joke to someone, something along the lines of "haha, I shall protect you and be your knight, milady" or something silly like that? The parts about Elvia is almost written like if that joke was serious, and for literally no reason from the beginning other than that she's really cute and innocent as a teenager. Yes, eventually the story grows on to justify this by saying that it is the protagonist's loved ones, and that the MC will go to any lengths to protect her or something, but for a lot of the story this theme was there and weirdly brought up when the characters are just teenagers who share a dorm.

Aside from the lack of emotional development with the protagonist's relationships, the protagonist's... magical? development is also very repetitive. Protagonist gets magical problem, but she hasn't shown off her terrifying eldritch monster yet, so all is good! Every few chapters she gets a new spell or some other thing of the sort, and every other chapter, there's some poor idiot who doesn't know of this thing and dies. There are almost no challenges, growth is virtually exponential and eventually everything starts becoming monotonous. Even if the type of problems are changing, the character handles them all the same. Essentially, a very extreme Mary Sue, and once in a while, when she actually does encounter a challenge to her personality where she might actually learn and improve, she shrugs it all off after she overcomes it and it feels like "why was that point even there". 

The story's initial theme of a "reincarnation story" doesn't have much to do with the plotline after a while other than that the character is much more powerful than normal in general, and once in a while she steals a business idea or a poem from Earth to impress someone; even then it doesn't feel very fulfilling, but something that's just thrown at us to fulfill this reincarnation plotline every once in a while.

Stylistically, the story is written decently. However, when you look at the overarching story, you'll realise that there is often no payoff between chapters. It's very easy to get lost in this story, not because it is good, but because the author, Wutosama, is very good at keeping us intrigued while constantly baiting and switching. The chapters language (when it comes to the main character) is very unrealisitc. A lot of the time it feels that the main character is throwing in words that are uneccesary simply for the sake of showing off the author's language, rather than actually contributing anything. The author also constantly talks about clothes of the main character. Normally I wouldn't mind and I'd appreciate an extra detail like that. However in this story the author goes on about it to the point it becomes downright detrimental.

Also, the author is obsessed about the character's white legs to the point it becomes very creepy. It's there every other chapter.

There are many other criticisms I have, and not much strengths, so I won't go on. But while the way the story is written doesn't start off bad, the plot, characters and story elements are masochistic to read.

The grammar is the only part where I have no critique. i'd have said the grammar was a 5, as I did not find many typos and I know the author is at good at fixing typos and other small errors consistently.

Written on ch 55.

This isn't a reincarnation story.

Why?

Because the MC who is supposed to be a 30 year business woman with a difficult past and strong character has all the wit, resolve, and social ability of a 16 year old girl. 

Now, this isn't to say this is a bad story. It's fairly good for a pretty standard wuxia, which it is. Just because the MC is a woman and the world is more magic, less cultivation, doesn't make the plot armor any less thick nor the characters any more deep. Personailty is literally affected by elemental affinity, leaving about 12 or so character templates, NoM are general simpletons, and everyone thinks the MC is the best thing since sliced bread, not to mention she gets a power-up every fifth chapter. But, all-in-all, it's totally readable, downright binge-worthy, if it wasn't for the false promise that this was a reincarnation story, because it isn't. The MC is supposed to be a business-savvy mature woman so why is she as clueless as an already pretty stupid teenage girl? Why can't she handle awkward social situations with the 15+ years of emotional maturity she has over nearly everyone around her? Why is she so needlessly reckless in a world she barely understands? There are so many holes in her character backstory, you could pass a truck through them. She thinks and acts like a teenage girl constantly and only pretends to be mature by stealing famous lines from authors in her old world. Just because she dresses fancy and reminds the reader every chapter of how secretly old she is doesn't mean she acts like it. It's more like "Upgrading Specialist in Another World," where the soul that was supposed to travel to another world gets destroyed along the way and the actual MC just gets his power; the story would be more honest if it was written that way. But it wasn't, so now I have to read about a 30 year old woman whose never been in a relationship and can't handle horny teenagers, thinks she can beat evil Magus with her less than a year of training, and wanders around slums in stilletos. 

The grammar is great, the style is above average, and the story is okay, but the characters, especially the MC, just leave too much to be desired for me to give it a good score.

Not that you need care. 

Almost 4,300 pages long, this story is as engaging and interesting years in as it was on page one.  

The author does an amazing job of maintaining continuity, resolving plot points, and introducing fresh and new ideas and characters to maintain the impetus of this world.

Gwen has become one of my favorite MC's, and I have this novel on push notification so that I can read the chapter as soon as it comes out.  And I'm still never able to comment first!.

The 'extras' the author adds, like wardrobe photo examples, character lists, and photo's of main characters, give it an extra dimension that other novels miss.

What's amazing to me, is that almost 4,300 pages in and there is still so much of the story left to conclude.  Gwen still needs to graduate college, win the UICC, move back to Australia.  Visit Japan and England.  Import her business ideas to her home country.  Establish her tower.  Save the house of M.  Improve the quality of life and create a better and more effective government for the NOM's, and kill the void sorceress and the cult of followers that continue to snipe at her wherever she goes.  I won't be surprised if the book reaches 20,000 pages!

This story would've been much better if she was a teenager instead of a grown woman in a teenager's body. She already acts, talks and thinks like a teenager. She is actually a decent character when you think of her as the portrayal of a troubled teenager. Not so much when you try to think of her as a strong, grown woman. The reincarnation/soul-travel bit does nothing but detract from the story.

Author writes very well, has good imagination, world building is very good. Beginning used to be shaky but after the edits it is now fine. I have now read 255 chapters but had to drop it.

My main gripe is his need for the protagonist to solve everything (Marry Sue). I think it is due to the format, it is really hard to do edits and writing it chapter by chapter probably forces the author to concentrate on the "main plot", however it simply does not make SENSE for her to do everything. The amount of "admirers" who are in her thrall now is huge, people much stronger/more experienced than her amongst them.

I would suggest thinking hard how to make her only a minor player in parts of the plots. It would make it all more believable. And adding more cases where she fails. If not everything is on the line, it is easier to sneak this in. Because as this is now, it is getting ridiculous.

Overall I would recommend trying this, it was fun for me most of the time. Not a literary masterpiece, but a somewhat fresh take on the genre.

Well written story, interesting magic system, really detailed and unique setting... My only gripe is how many semi erotic scenes there are. The main character is basically a Lolita who freezes up with panic attacks when talking to her mom or when men look at her lustful or when she's not wearing long pants and men can see her legs.

Lots of scenes of her choosing just the right outfit to wear to some event, often with a corresponding picture from the internet that the author used as inspiration... then going on and on about how many heads she turned or how many people can barely contain their lust for her.

For example there is an early scene where she rides the train and a man starts groping her and ask she can do is freeze in terror. At first I thought this was just a comment on the human condition, or an example of the stories setting, but no, the author just likes writing scenes like that, and you'll find another one every few chapters with some contrived excuse why.

The story has a strong start and sets itself up to have some interesting characters.  However after the first story arc the power creep sets in and everything starts to settle into a rinse and repeat of the main character overpowering every obsicle in her way.

It's a shame, this story started out really well, but it's completely lost it's way.. I used to look forward to reading it but no longer.

I can't tell if it's being milked, or if the author has run out of inspiration, or what. Set an end goal and actually work towards it, like Gwen actually building her own tower instead of all the mucking around going on.

We've now got a bunch of uninteresting and annoying characters, the worst of which is some duck who's purpose appears to be comic relief, but it's anything but.

Another thing that kind of annoyed me is that practically every female MC ends up bi on here (RR that is), to cater to a predominantly male audience I suppose. The worst thing about it is it's obvious, and badly shoe horned in. I wouldn't care if it was done well and appropriately, but eh.

At this point the story is completely missable.