July 2, 2023

First of all, that story didn't go at all the way I expected. I have to admit I bought it on a whim, based on the title. In general, those kind of romance never get to the point where anything every happen between characters, so reading that the main character was divorced made think that, well, we are past that barrier, so there's a chance for more developments.

I was wrong. (Minor spoiler for the first ~30 pages) She was only married for a short period of time and they were not even living together during that time, so it's like nothing ever happened. However, the divorce was actually filled by the rival character without the consent of the main love interest. He then tries to convince the main character to get married again. Cue typical romance LN developments.

What is NOT typical is that the book contains a lot of violence and gore (because of youkai fighting). Also, it's hard to explain without major spoilers, but things are typically not what they look like (after all, foxes are tricksters). The last chapter reveals what was really happening and that changes pretty much the whole reading of the book. Still, most of the book is the main character getting in "damsel in distress" situations, followed by one (or more) potential love interests to come to her rescue (in a rain of blood and gore since they are powerful youkai). Without the final spin, I would have given the book 2*.

In terms of difficulty, the book contains quite a lot of complex kanji and words, and relies heavily on shinto concepts, which can be a bit much at a low or intermediate level. The last chapter gives the required context with respect to the shinto aspects without going into too much details, though, so you can ignore those.

Gradings:11
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harder thanスレイヤーズ 1L34
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similar in difficulty to川端康成へL37
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harder than化物語 (上)L36
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