Monroe

This story started out great and I love all the concepts, but at some point they just started showing like every PoV of every person we've ever met and some for people we haven't met and it's just so so tiring.

I originally had this story rated 5 Stars, and moved it to four stars when all the PoVs started popping up constantly...

And now I am moving it to 3.5 Stars because I swear, the last hundred chapters have been practically nothing but logistics. The story seems to be bouncing between Love the kitty, Bob planning to do something, Someone else being introduced into the system or what they're doing, someone blaiming bob for what someone is doing, someone doing something, praising some government, Someone trying to figure out the logistics for a town/moving people over ect, trying to paise the queen, trying to show praise to the Austrailian bushman lifestyle, I'd think it was trying to show some sort of nationalistic worship if it didn't come across the same way for multiple nations and cultures.

I feel like I don't even see the MC that much, it feels like the majority of my read time is showing some random PoV where they are doing some sort of logistics.

I personally am just tired of all the PoVs and Logistics. Way too much military stuff, way too much everything really, besides bob. I feel like I know what like every single group from earth is doing on Thayland, and it's just depressing because I feel like I only really see Bob actually doing something once every 5-10 chapters and it's usually really minor.

EDIT: Oh, and the constant repeating explainations... Instead of just saying 'I settled in to repeat my well worn introduction to the system speech..'

I end up reading something that has been explained like thirty times to yet another person, like this crap has to be explained to pretty much every person, why are we not skipping over most of it by now?

the explainations are just repetitive, why are they not skipped? It's the same thing over and over.

Whats worse is that I am still reading this, I enjoy the idea behind the story, and if I let enough chapters build up, I might actually get to enjoy it a little bit! But at the same time, I am constantly wondering if it's worth it to keep reading it. I more or less let 30 chapters build up and then decide if i'm going to read it or unfollow it...

I enjoyed reading this book but I can see that there are some issues that might be deal breakers for some people. First a disclaimer, I didn’t read the first chapter. I saw a lot of people complaining about the first chapter and I don’t know if the author changed it in the meantime, but I’ll write in the spoiler below what I think happened so you can skip it as well. I do recommend skipping it no matter what because most of the complaints that I have seen are because of it.

When I look at this book objectively, I can see a lot of bad parts, be it the system, characters, pacing or the story and I will be focusing on those bad parts in this review but in spite of that I still enjoyed reading it. Don’t let this review dissuade you from reading it but don’t expect a perfect work of fiction either.

Something that is done well in my opinion is the world building. Everything has a purpose and an explanation for the way things are. Nothing bad to say about it.

My problem with the system is that it’s too complicated. You know that the system is too complicated when you need chapter after chapter of exposition just to explain how everything works. From skills, leveling, currency, stats, paths, tiers, there are so many different things to keep track of that for me it’s impossible. At the time of writing this review I don’t really know any of the MC’s stats or skills, I don’t really know how strong he is compared to regular people. This may be my personal failing and a convoluted system might not be a negative for a lot of people, but if you don’t want to be bogged down by numbers most of the time, you should be prepared.

Combat is an integral part of many LitRPGs. Here it’s not. Combat in this book is as follows: I can kill a monster every 3 second, each monster has a 10% chance to drop a mana crystal, so after spending 8 hours in the dungeon I’ve got 960 crystals (not sure if my math is correct). Combat in this book is a chore. It’s the means to an end and nothing else.

The problem with characters and mainly the MC is I think inexperience of the author. The MC is an extremely damaged individual. He suffered mental trauma in his childhood, he is introverted, his only friend in the world is a cat, he doesn’t really know how to interact with people. But if the author didn’t specifically write that in the story you would never be able to get that. You might find yourself confused at times, MC’s actions sometimes seem disjointed because the MC is perfectly capable of having conversations, socializing, and making friends, but then there are moments when he acts really unnatural because the author wanted to show how he is damaged and anti-social. Once I understood what the author was trying to do, I didn’t mind that much, but it is there.

The pacing is really slow, and both the system and the characters play a part in it. A lot of words and chapters are dedicated to explaining the system and of course in those times the story goes nowhere. In a story with only one MC having extra POVs is completely unnecessary. I think the author wanted to set up events for the future but it could have been done as simply as MC overhearing snippets of conversations or hearing rumors that would foreshadow future events. It is sometimes made even worse by those side POVs following characters that were not that relevant to the story and me not even remembering who they were while I was reading their POVs. Monroe’s POV serve no purpose, they are usually very short so I don’t mind them that much, but they could be easily removed from the story and we would lose nothing. Repetition is another thing that slows down the pacing. Every time MC interacts with someone there are paragraphs of people fawning over Monroe or talking about pet overlords. It was cute first few times but it got annoying really fast. There are a lot of parts that could be straight up removed from this story, not change anything and we would still lose nothing. The main issue that I have with that is because it is a recurring problem chapter after chapter. Someone once said: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”. Writing short and concise but keeping the same amount of information is very difficult and requires a lot of skills. This is prevalent in RR fiction, so you might be used to it, but authors should always strive to be better and not repeat the same mistakes.

The slow pacing almost ruins the story for me. The first 1k pages felt more like an introduction to the system, characters and the world. It feels that only now we are getting into the meat of the story. The trend of extremely slow pacing almost promises that there are going to be few more thousands of pages before we come to any sort of resolution. On the other hand, the story seems like it’s going to be very interesting but will it keep my interest when chapter after chapter we are plagued by unnecessary side POVs that go nowhere in the end?

Like many other stories on RR this one has a lot of unnecessary parts, characterization and actions of those characters can be unconnected or illogical at times, while the system can seem fun, more often than not I just felt lost, the story promises exciting things in the future but considering the slow pacing I might just lose interest at some point.

Should you read it? Yes, give a try, but keep in mind that this is far from perfect and doesn’t improve as it goes on that much.

I have been following this story since the very beginning, and really appreciate how you haven´t ever drop it. I have to say its a little on the slow side of action, with many interpersonal interactions, with little to almost none litrps elements, but i really like the world building you have made. Keep up and thanks!

I binged up to chapter 150ish. it's got some things going for it but I'm finished with it and moving on.

Pros: Cute cat. Fun world to power fantasize over. Always a good sense of urgency keeping the MC moving. Lots of numbers if math's your thing.

Cons: Boring combat, mostly just effortless number raising. All side characters are the same character, he changed location at one point and you wouldn't even know it. Lot's of numbers if math isn't your thing. And finally, it is very repetitive:

Overall, thanks for the read! But I can't really recommend this book.

Lots of breakfast, reminds me of breaking bad. Most characters, except MC, are likable. Cat is nice, took a while to see it. I am assuming that later on the cat becomes more useful?

First chapter was weird but I carried on, assuming there was a purpose and it didn't seem to actualize.

World is interesting. System is confusing. Lots of reference to the word 'level' without context. MC is level thirteen now. Is that his level? His spell level? magical school level?

Feels very repetitive and LOTS of numbers.

I like the story cover.

This is either a decent fantasy slice of life w/CAT or a by-the-numbers litRPG. 

So, the first chapter is garbage. It gets better, in that the character is shown to be faulty and... kind of moves on from his persecution complex, but the authors biases never really entirely go away. Also, the amount of numbers for the sake of numbers is amazingly high. The MC kills thousands? Hundreds of thousands of monsters in a few weeks’ time? And in a way that isn't narratively interesting, just “I kill lot thing, look amazing I am.”

The author also tries to excuse how the MC manages to figure out his amazing special fantastic cheat skills, but ends up feeling more like a ham handed “I do lot thing, look amazing I am. Authority figure bad evil, numbers go up!”

The story waffles between being a nearly adequate slice of life in a fantasy world story dragged down by the authors biases and a by the numbers litRPG where the fights and grinding get time-skipped for “I killed X number of monsters, I need to kill X+Y number of monsters to reach level 7, all the authority figures that I haven’t directly interacted with are evil.”

first chapter is poorly made for some kind of revenge i think... mc's character doesnt fit that he is all alone from childhood to adulthood. Author tried to drawing him that he is alone and discriminated but actually normal guy? Accepted isekai thing pretty fast and became social guy pretty fast too.

Second thing is; it is became boring so i'm dropping this. At some point i had to read multiple chapters that nothing really happend but "he gone dungeon, out then played with monroe end of the chap. next chap same things...same same same". plot is not distinguishable. Is plot Bob saving earth? Or ending nobility in that country? what about other continents? what is the end goal? It is more likely slice of life.

But it is easyly readable and generally fun. I tasted it somehow like it but dont want to try it again kind of taste.

I have very much enjoyed this story. The author does a very good job setting up his main character and his personality quirks. The beginning of the story can put someone off as it has a very different feel to the rest but it is completely in line with the character and the plot. If you only read a few chapters and dip out I will just recommend trying to stick it out till....

The first couple of chapters are a little offputting but as the story progessess it becomes quite engageing. I gave it a chance and I hope that you will as well. It is a very engaging plot and has some wonderful characters. The melding of fantasy and the modern world is well done and I look forward to every installment.

I find it hard to say this, but the story is so SLOW. In the last 20 chapters I've read, it seems like the story has stopped entirely. Okay, I get it you have some plans to spread information. Why does it have to take so many goddamn chapters to get everything done?! There is no need to have a conversation about tiny, irrelevant subjects in every chapter either.

There is also the issue of the magic system. It is an exciting system, but it's so hard to understand. It's like you put every magic system ever and blended them into an insanely hard-to-understand mush. There are tiers, elements, gods, levels, paths, etc. In addition, there are these godawful infodumps and long stats and explanations of paths(some of which are utterly irrelevant to the story), which i doubt anyone bothers to read. 

Another thing. The combat is completely butchered. It's all stats and numbers. The grinding is also so annoying. Large parts of the story are him fighting in the dungeon.

But it's also interesting worldbuilding, and there is a lot I like about the story. It just needs to fix some things, especially the pacing, which is horrendous.