but at the end he as well left him

the MC leaves his diary at his old apartment when he decides to leave ML. However, said diary was supposed to be so important to him (he has been carrying for seven years) and just left it like that? A diary is not something big nor heavy to take so in my opinion it felt like the author ran out of ideas here

I found the story, as I mentioned, just decent. I think the author could have done a lot more with the story and its characters, but they only shallowly wrote about everything that happened and is happening.

Things fell into place "too perfectely" and easy it felt like at times.

No satisfaction from people getting what they deserved.

Characters left unpunished.

No sense of urgency or something being at stake.

MC was actually not bad at all, but he did nothing the entire story. Everything was just handed to him.

I wish we didn't get so many peoples' stories and relationship shoved in. Make extras for them, not that hard. I, personally, felt like I read more about other peoples' romantic entanglements than the main leads.

Would have been great if we had some separate chapters just for specific characters that clearly were more complex than the main character, for example his mother. We could have had a chapter dedicated to her past, since she was more interesting than 99% of the characters shown.

To add to the previous point, too many characters that added nothing to the story. A bunch were thrown at the very end too.

I think the author got tired of their story towards the finale. The extras hint at MC's father and I wonder if that was even needed? Because it goes as quickly as it comes.

The beginning had a lot of momentum, but then it's lost quite fast. And I don't think it's because the author has no talent in writing or setting a plot, so it's really a shame.

As I mentioned in the very beginning of this review, I could not wait to finish the story, not because I loved it and was excited to see how it ends, but because I felt like I already exhausted a lot of my time and emotions reading it and I simply wanted to mark it as completed and forget about it.

I would not recommend this to anyone to read and the why behind this is very easy: there are many other stories way better written out there. And far less lazy plot settings.

I feel a bit sad to see this novel, that seemed to have a potential for at least a 4-star rating, struggle to stay a 3 if rounded up. I wonder why people like this novel so much, considering its many flaws.

If people read this and hate it, I would completely understand why. Haven't seen many or any negative reviews about it, but I wonder if people were hesitant to write one and become one of the "bad apples" in the sea of all those reviews praising this novel to Heavens and back.

I wish the author focused more on the main leads, their past and present. Describe more of their interactions and thoughts. Only towards the very end they communicate properly and explain some of their thoughts, which I feel like it's quite late.

The story also goes through a bunch of ups and downs in quick succession that doesn't let you breathe for long, but, ultimately, nothing has a true sense of danger or pain or remorse or whatever else. S*it happens just for the sake of it happening and to kick the plot into a faster progression.

To continue my previous point ^ I bet the person that wrote it was thinking about how they want the bare bones of the plot to be like and as they started writing, they didn't have any idea on how to actually get from point A to point B, so they included every cliche possible, wrote about a bunch of downs in a dramatic way, and hoped that's enough to give justification for the characters' behaviors and to transition to the scenes they clearly wanted to write a lot more (you can clearly feel and see the difference of how much thought was put into some scenes versus others, I will not specify which ones are clearly lacking but it's obvious if you read the novel).

Even having a second child

She might be a tragic character herself in her story but that ain't an excuse to treat her child the way she did. After finding out that her child was pregnant, she just slaps him on the face instead of asking what happened. Takes him to get an abortion which the MC greatly rejects and never cares for him. It was just so anger-inducing. Even after years, she fakes that she has the MC's child and that back she never actually killed to force the MC to marry the ML. The MC hoped so much for this to be true. It's just sad.

I feel like the relationship between ML's parents is so wrong and the fact that his father suffered absolutely NO consequence for basically helping his own son be r*ped is unforgivable.. And how ML's beta father just easily forgive him like that is gross. Speaking of ML's beta father- I think he is pathetic and cowardly. Honestly, in the entire novel, the biggest victim is the ML. Not only did he get abandoned by BOTH of his parents, he was also r*ped by his step-brother who was "dying" (i do not feel bad at all) and was forced to take care of the son that came out of it. Also what is up with the stepfather sending that video to the ML? To make him feel guilty? So he would forgive him? Disgusting.

MC is an unreliable narrator so I'm unclear if he was serious when he said he never liked the ML when asked but was in fact lying to himself. At some level his feeling of bringing desserts/baked goods everyday is contrasted with that action - do you always bring baked goods to someone you don't actually like even if you claim it's a "payment" fee? It does hit the spot of angst though - I cried about the pot of flowers and how misunderstood and defeated the MC was. We never get an explanation of why/how the ML decides to marry the MC after 7 years especially when he hasn't forgiven MC. I was expecting some exposition on how he took the opportunity and that he still thought of him regardless in the 7 years they didn't meet. So I don't know why the ML decided to go and fall in love again with MC, it does seem he liked him during the school years and was just appalled disappointed when the exercise room situation happened.

ML was basically forced to have s*x THREE times by the same type of scheme. He was locked in a room with someone and induced into heat. They used tranquilizers and many other things the first time and the goals of those evil people were successful as Song Mo was born from it. The second time was zhu li locking ML and MC in a room together. The 3rd time was a new marriage candidate but ML successfully got away by getting rid of his own glands. So after the first two times I do understand ML's own trauma after being forced to do it with others so many times. Because of it, his trust was so low.

MC's suffering was self-explanatory since that's what the POV of the story was set in so it shows what he's been through.

The one thing is that the villains don't seem to get much satisfying punishment. At most, MC's mom just ended up married to a dude who was failing in his business due to ML's family. Zhu Li was a marked omega who got pregnant and was being investigated by police. But there was no further update as to if he really got punishment. He was very relaxed the entire time and felt like everything went according to his plans anyway. The ones who put ML in that room locked up, at most got a lecture and was pressured by intimidation from another family member and ML's dad. ML's dad in a way was considered a villain since he also didn't protest when ML was first forced the first time as well as when beating ML. But I guess he somewhat got redeemed since he helped the last time when ML was locked up and protested this time, as well as doted on his grandchildren.

On the plus side, the ending parts was mostly sweet. Though I don't think there was a true chasing arc or redemption arc in my opinion. But due to the misunderstandings and trauma of both I didn't blame them. The MC mainly stayed with the ML cause he was pregnant again and was diagnosed with an illness believing he only had limited time so he just let himself be taken care of by ML. Thus ML was real nice and took care of him. That's how it naturally happened where they got closer.