To anyone who's reading this,

Whether you're an adult or not, always remember that a lot of the things you read in stories should NOT be the norms you abide by in your own life.

Take this one story I'm going to rant about for example, the "romances" in it are trash. Even if you might enjoy reading it--the reason doesn't really matter--don't choose partners similar to the ones in stories like that one. Some things the love interests do to their romantic partners are crimes punishable by law! They're inhumane things that NOBODY should ever have to go through--be it a child, an adult, a man, a woman, or anything else in between.

Try and find actual healthy romances (in movies, series, books, fairytales,...) to contrast stories like the one that caused me to create this rant diary, because THIS is NOT what real life relationships should be like. Respect, consent, support, care, and so on are the basic pillars of all healthy relationships (romantic or not)!

Just because they do good things here and there and dote on you from time to time, it doesn't mean the bad things they've done to you should be erased, forgotten and forgiven. What says they won't/can't do it again? Don't ever just continue on with your life thinking that it's okay to do to others or be subjected yourself to whatever--triggering--things you find characters do with their romantic partners in medias. Just because it exists in fiction (and unfortunately, also in real life), it doesn't mean it's normal.

You deserve better.

Know your worth, because you're worth a lot more than you probably think. Respect yourself and respect others. Pursue an actually healthy relationship, with a partner who'll genuinely care for and respect you just the way you are. There's no need to undermine yourself for others. You're precious. You shouldn't allow anyone to make you feel otherwise!

I'm only saying this because I know some people are vulnerable, whether from a lack of life experience, from innate naïveté, or from their own life experiences, while some others, more impressionable ones--younger ones, mainly--might be more easily swayed into believing that such things they're reading in fiction is what they should aspire to find in a partner, or be for their partner(s), just because they've seen it multiple times in media and gazillions of people seem to be gushing over it around the world.

Countless people don't have--or at least they don't think they have--any other choice but to stay in unhealthy, TOXIC--relationships even though they might want out. Don't let yourself be lulled into instinctively normalizing toxic behavior you find in media you consume.

Many authors I've been saying these past few years seem to have a problem pointing out questionable traits in their characters and/or their characters' relationships, be it romantic, familial, professional or others. From how they portray the topics they write about, a good portion of their audience find themselves thinking those are what they should aspire to be or reach.

Some things are toxic, they shouldn't be goals, they shouldn't be idolized.

Please research, learn, and try to figure out what is actually healthy and unhealthy, for yourself and for those around you.

Life is precious. Don't make yours or anyone else's miserable because of misgivings some stories spread about certain subjects.

Sincerely, and with your best interests at heart,

- Morissia

...The 99th Divorce...

It's an Asian novel translated to English. I've seen its reviews on this app, which left me quite... intrigued, concerned, scared, and... Well, let's just say that I'm having a hard time understanding how so many people could have agreed that it's deserving of a 5-star rating!

I created this "book" because I had so much to write in my review of it that it seems that my wordcount exceeded the word limit by too much, promoting the app to tell me I had "no internet connection" when I pressed the submit button, even though all my WiFi bars were there, and still are, by the way.

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Trigger Warning (I'm putting one here, the story should also have one in it's description and/or in all the chapters that features such triggering stuff! But that's just my humble opinion...)

- I'm not going back to proofread everything I'm going to write below. It'll just be too frustrating, and I might end up adding more points, which would in turn lead me to grow more annoyed and write more, then my attempts at releasing all this dark smoke squishing my heart would have been for nought.

(Note that THIS is a rant rather than a review. It's my attempt to try and release some of the negative emotions skimming through this novel made me feel.)

[SPOILERS AHEAD (again, TRIGGER WARNINGS!) - basically the entire book summed up below, proceed with caution]

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First off, the author doesn't lack content. (So much so that I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it continues past 2000 chapters!) The author also knows how to phrase sentences and structure the chapters to have some readers scrolling down for more, for hours on end. They have enough dramas, melodramas, overdramas, etc., going on for more seasons of the series 'Lost', so...kudos to their imagination.

It's just... I feel like it's a pity the characters lack substance. I liked a few side characters more than the main couples, but they either become more trashily written, or they don't get much screen time at all (which, according to me, isn't too bad after all, seeing how the moment they start getting some focus, they're turned into mind-numbing creatures). I'm serious here, reading about a random dog chasing after its tail for twenty chapters straight would be more appealing (to me)...

The schemes/subplots just seem like a rehashing of the same central topics but twisted in different ways to come up with more wordcount and different situations...and some are executed even more atrociously than others, for e.g., [SPOILER & TW]

The FL got pregnant from her first time with the ML. She didn't know. She took the pill. He didn't know. He also saw her taking the pill. But their personal villainous nutjob (the woman who killed the FL in her previous life and is basically obsessed with the ML) knew about it...for some reason? She had no medical proof, the FL didn't show any signs or symptoms of a pregnancy, and yet that woman proudly ended up declaring that she'd "successfully made the FL lose the child she didn't even know she was carryin" (and that too through hiring people to r@pe her)!

Now that it's settled that the main villain is a freaking magical pregnancy testing kit on legs, let's move on to the "rehashing of the same central topic" point.

Remember how that magical pregnancy testing kit on legs planned to get the FL lose her kid from the part above? Well, there's also a part where they try to feed her drugs to get her into bed with a horrible personage, which the FL "awesomely" manages to escape from by...pushing one of the women that tried to send her there into that monstrous human being's arms herself! Yep. "99th Divorce" should have been titled "Everyone is Trash" instead, or maybe even "Marry Your R@pist".

Don't get me wrong, I know what he characters wanted to do to her was simply...well, no word could describe just how evil it is, but to actually shove her towards that beast and close the door as if nothing happened and moving on with life, without even a tiny bit of guilt at all? I believe there are actual living people out there who've felt guilt over k!lling the person that ended their own loved ones' lives, so... Additional, the setting of the story wasn't made it such a way that made me feel like the characters are unfeeling and it's the rules of "an eye for an eye" taking place. If that were the case, I believe no one that ever wronged the FL should have escaped her wrath then. But, since I'm writing this, you can tell that was the case. She let her mother-in-law off, and that woman actually supported the trash that--- We'll get back to this later.

So yeah, that's already two subplots using the "R-thing" in some way. Yet it's only now that I'm actually getting serious with my rant. From here on out, there'll only be more SPOILERS and TRIGGERS! Proceed with caution if you haven't already had enough of this journal of frustration by now:

There must be something that's seriously wrong with whoever wrote this story. I mean, what's with the r@pes (and dubc0ns)??? None of the couples this story focuses on has any healthy relationships (romantic-wise), however, what they ALL have in common is at least one r@pe (while perfectly sober) and/or dubcon (while drunk) moment!

The FL got over the ML forcing himself on her in less time it takes me to say, "THE AUTHOR SHOULD ONLY CONSUME MEDIA WITH HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS FROM NOW ON AND APPLY IT TO THEIR OWN "ROMANCE STORIES" AFTERWARDS! or at least make sure to write the story in such a way that it doesn't end such an important and sensitive topic with what's basically the equivalent of an "It's fine, my r💩 pist apologized, and we love each other, so it's not a problem at all hehe 😄"!"

Even the FL's father is one, if I'm not remembering this wrong. And she's got a great relationship going on with him, whilst her mom was forced into marrying him, all because the poor woman loved someone else at the time... Tsk, and it's written in such a way that I feel like the author is trying to pass this off as:

1 "Mommy abandoned the FL (the fruit of her r@pe) \= Mommy bad."

"Mommy also cold and mean toward FL \= Mommy REAAALLY BAD."

"Daddy (who forced himself on that baaaaad Mommy because, lo and behold, the woman was into another--actually GOOD--man, while he was in love with her) treated FL well from the moment they met even though he didn't know he was her dad \= (r@pist) Daddy Good!"

"Also, Bad Mommy treats her (r@pist of a) husband (who also forced her into abandoning her true love and marrying him instead after what he did to her) coldly and harshly whilst he's basically grovelling at her feet \= Mommy Heartless!!"

I'm pretty sure the 2nd couple's relationship started from gr00ming! What's worse, the guy even f'ed her in public just to humiliate her, and now they're telling me she'll get back with him after every traumatic things he put her through, even though his deeds literally had her needing freaking THERAPY to surmount?! The guy made her want to end her own freaking life goshdangit!

I started skimming through the chapters and even skipping some although after the ML that said at the beginning of the story that he had "no interest in forcing women" eat his words by having her in a goshdang car on a public street, with actual people passing by while she begged him to stop!

Hahaha, and the second couple is actually his friend, who said "he doesn't need to force a woman since women come to him on their own" LMFAO and look where it got us.

To be honest, I actually liked the woman he ends up with; she was after the money but she didn't hide it, which is pretty cool. No fake pretence, no emotional manipulation, the reason for their relationship was clear to both of them (in her mind, according to what he told her): He gave her luxury, she gave him her body. Point à la ligne. Her personality was also good, until the story was done with FL and her ML and moved on to the 2nd couple and the toxic show the author is trying to pass off as "✨ romance shalalabeurk!~✨" But then again, she did get along with the FL. So... is this a case of "birds of a feather..." or even "show me your friends and I'll know what type of person you are..."?

I won't be surprised if the story actually goes on and on until following the lives of the kids, as well, all the way into adulthood, and we see FL's daughter also getting into a relationship with her own r@pist (whom in this scenario should be the son of the woman who killed the FL in her previous life, as they adopted him as their own after that woman's death). That's what I'm guessing after scrolling to far off and reading a passage in the ML's POV where he's worried about the little girl's closeness to that adopted boy, and the FL reassures her that "they're all siblings; nothing of that sort will ever happen."

I mean, it's only a logical guess at this point. Her dad is a 💩 and she decided to stay with the man that did to her the same 💩 her dad did to her mom. What's so wrong in guessing her daughter might continue the cycle with the son of the woman that tried to end them all?

I refuse to even comment on the family-in-law and how the FL just went ahead and turned "forgive and forget" into a reality as if she wasn't treated like the worst of trash by them all this time simply because she was an orphan with some grey zones on who her father was. She was constantly shamed for it. And in her past life, nobody even cared to see how much effort she put into becoming worthy of their son. In this life, they don't seem to care all that much either about how she became so competent all of a sudden. All they care about is that she doesn't make their family and their invaluable son lose face with her questionable background and lack of basic knowledge (ambassadors spouses should have).

My brain!!!

Additionally, there's a part I'm not too sure I got right because of how ambiguous it's written. It's right after her Prince charming forces her. At that point in the story, she grew especially afraid of him, leading to her wanting actual REAL distance away from him (the time it takes for a person who's got something in their eye to blink in an attempt at getting whatever it is out!), which he of course doesn't respect! The housekeeper let his family know of the weird situation between her husband and her, and her in-laws sent flowers to her?! I don't know whether they were aware of the actual reason behind her desire to be away from that trash, but even if they weren't, seeing the way they were still treating her at the time, flowers???? For what?? How does flowers mend relationships, when the person receiving them is trying to get away from the son YOU don't want her to be married to?! I'm confused. And appalled. I hope to forget this story was ever written. I feel bad for the translator(s), editor(s), proofreader(s), quality-checker(s), even if they might have been paid to translate it. Nobody deserves to go through such torture!

I don't feel any better, even though I haven't read that many chapters. But I hope I'll finally get over it now and forget it ever existed in the first place. Otherwise, I'll be the one in need of therapy! I'm off to bed. I deserve it.

P.s. I normally would have added up to three stars depending on how interesting the subplots are, the writing style, or for character developments, at least but, like I said, same old same old same OLD topics rehashed, recycled, repuked to create and/or solve new conflicts! I don't see real change much, I mean, the mother-in-law sided with the woman that caused the FL to lose her child in the same chapter--right after--said mother-in-law heard and saw the woman in question happily declaring her pride at successfully causing the FL to lose the child she was going to have with her son! Yes, that's the woman the FL ends up acting all chummy with after all ends, even though the woman kept openly urging her to divorce her son because she didn't deem FL worthy of him as the orphan than she was!

My feelings want me to give a BELOW 1 star rating. But Toon won't let me, so I'm pretending my 1 star rating is actually:

0.1 is for the author's troubles at typing this entire story down. Point for efforts!

An additional sympathetic 0.2 because this could have been a tiny bit more tolerable had they been normal in the head enough to not add a freak R scene to perfectly... fine(in this story's already deranged context at least) relationships! So, the 0.2 is actually a prayer for the author's brains to get well soon and write romantic conflicts that don't need force scenes as plot device to "spice up" an already...fine romance. I mean, the ML was somewhat tolerable (if you're like me and try to force yourself to finish a story you've started even though you think the FL should just marry the simp that's been crushing in her since their school days while the husband in her past life treated her worse than the way I looked at the sole of my shoe that one time I stepped in fresh dog poo right after narrowly managing to avoid stepping onto someone's spit on the road, at least). He tried to solve the problem this time around and get close to the FL and helped her...minus the other questionable things he did to her, not counting the assault bit.

The rest is for the translators and anyone else who went through the process of reading it multiple types and even typing everything down and re-reviewing the translations afterwards for quality check!