It's difficult to describe what I feel now that I've closed the final chapter of The Girl Wants to Be M*rdered. Perhaps it's something like standing alone on a quiet street after a long, stormy night, so many windows broken, so many things left unsaid, but the sky is finally starting to change colors. I don't feel joy. I don't feel sorrow. But there is something in me that feels alive, and that's not something every story can achieve.

Reading this novel was like staring into a cracked mirror for hours and watching your own reflection morph with each passing line, sometimes someone else's pain, sometimes your own. It doesn't offer the luxury of escapism or the comforting tropes of closure. It denies you catharsis in the traditional sense. But in doing so, it offers something far rarer in fiction: truth. A raw, fragmented, imperfect truth that mirrors life as it is, confusing, relentless, cyclical, and ultimately unknown.

The ending, if it can even be called that, defies every convention. There is no final act of justice. No romantic resolution. No triumphant healing. Instead, what we're left with is the uncertain continuation of Aris's curse, an eternal reincarnation, a loop with no known end. And yet, despite the weight of everything she has endured, despite the crushing reality that she may never know rest, Aris does not collapse into despair. She accepts it. Or rather, she chooses to go on. And in that quiet, almost reluctant choice... there is something unspeakably beautiful.

"Et hoc transibit." This too shall pass.

That phrase, etched in forgotten texts and whispered in the corners of ancient philosophy, feels at home in this novel. Because that's what this story whispers from beginning to end: that all things, joy, suffering, madness, love, loss, are transient. That life itself is both the question and the answer, and even if that answer is incomplete, it's still worth searching for. Aris doesn't find peace. She isn't redeemed in the traditional sense. But she finds the will to continue walking. And in a world as broken and relentless as hers, that may be the closest thing to hope we'll ever get.

I find myself thinking of the author's reflection, that it was irresponsible, that nothing was resolved. But I don't believe irresponsibility is the right word. Perhaps it is better to call it honesty. Most stories lie to us in their final pages. They promise us that closure is inevitable, that love will save, that all pain has a reason and an end. But life doesn't work like that. And this novel doesn't pretend otherwise.

It leaves wounds open. It refuses the final stitch.

It lets characters walk away still bleeding, but walking, nonetheless.

There is a Latin phrase, "Felix culpa"—the fortunate fall. The idea that through great error, great pain, something more meaningful may arise. And this story, I believe, is a meditation on that. On how even the most horrifying flaws and choices can lead to moments of insight and grace. Aris is not a hero, not a victim, not even truly a villain. She is a vessel of contradiction, capable of love and cruelty, of tenderness and destruction. And so are all the girls she touched: Sia, Elli, Remi, Anna. Each of them, in some way, stands for something lost, something reclaimed, something broken, something whole.

What makes the story philosophical isn't the quotes or the literary references, though the author clearly treasures old stories, forgotten truths, and classical absurdity. It's philosophical because it doesn't try to answer the question: What is the meaning of life? Instead, it asks: Can there still be meaning, even if none is ever found?

And it never gives a definitive response.

That, I think, is why this ending lingers so heavily in me. It dares to end without ending. It becomes a paradox, like Schrödinger's box, or the final line of a poem that leaves the last word unsaid. "Spes in caelo, dolor in terra." Hope in heaven, sorrow on earth. The two are not opposites. They coexist. The author understands this. Aris lives it.

There's something haunting in how the story chooses not to reassure the reader. There's no divine narrator pulling the strings. No moralistic voice correcting the characters. What they do, they do. What they lose, they lose. And yet, within this narrative cruelty, there is compassion. The kind of compassion that comes not from excusing pain, but from understanding it.

The author wrote that the girls, Aris and the four others, were all facets of themself. That this novel was born not of market trends or reader demand, but of personal necessity. And that truth radiates from every chapter. It's not always clean. It's not always coherent. But it's always sincere. Each breakdown, each silent moment, each chaotic choice feels like a diary entry written with blood instead of ink. And that's what makes it unforgettable.

I can only offer my deepest respect to the author, 여실정행, for sharing this. The balance between brutal narrative control and emotional surrender is so delicate, and it was achieved here with elegance. Perhaps not in the structural sense, but in the emotional core. And that, to me, matters more.

"Finis vitae sed non amoris." The end of life, but not of love.

Aris may die again. She may live again. The curse may go on for eternities. But the bonds she formed, the memories she left behind, the hearts she changed, they endure. And even if the novel doesn't show us what becomes of Sia, Elli, Remi, or Anna, we believe in their paths because we watched them crawl out of the dark. That's not resolution. It's faith.

And maybe faith is all we need to call something hopeful.

To anyone thinking of reading this novel, I'll say this: It is not for comfort. It is not for thrill. It is for confrontation. With your own fears, your own flaws, your own shadows. You may find yourself in Aris. You may be disturbed by her. You may pity her. You may hate her. But you will feel something. And in this world of dulled emotions and short attention spans, that is a rare and sacred thing.

So yes, this ending is "irresponsible, " as the author wryly noted. But I believe it is only by refusing responsibility that the story finally becomes free. Free to breathe. Free to hurt. Free to hope.

And that, for me, is the most meaningful kind of ending there is.

Thank you, 여실정행.

For Aris.

For the girls.

For the mirror you held up to the world and yourself.

And for the silence you left behind when the story ended. The kind of silence that still echoes.

After a certain amount of reincarnations, the main character went through an existential crisis. Leading to the personality she has now, and that personality likes to die. Unlike others who would commit sui*ide, she prefers to die at the hands of her loved ones, leaving them in despair. She uses her knowledge from her past lives to guide them to an ending where she dies, either by their mistake or their own hand. Willingly and knowingly sending them down the route of self-destruction, with the justifications that it's a learning experience. Which may not even be true! We don't know what happens to the families and friends the main character leaves behind, and frankly, the main character seems to not care. She does what she does for herself, and for no one but herself. Gaining happiness from the suffering of others. Playing with their feelings, and leaving behind those who cared for her. She also vividly imagines scenarios of her dying in her families arms, and enjoying the expressions of despair they would have. Maybe in one of her lives, she was Junko Enoshima?

Around chapter 20, she meets this female monster and in order to heal MC, the monster has to lick the harmed areas, which at the time was everywhere. This led into some strangely graphic and s*xual description, DESPITE MC BEING ONLY TEN AT THE TIME!! At the end of that specific chapter, the author's note said "It's a medical treatment, what were you imagining, " insinuating the author knew of the s*xual undertones. Despite everything in me telling me to stop reading, I kept going as it was such a waste of a well-written novel. However, as I kept going, it became more and more obvious the "sisterly" bond they had was more romantic than originally thought. Keep in mind, she's still ten??? The female monster and MC both (on separate occasions) say they have feelings for the other, so that's when I officially decided to drop this. It's such a shame that another well-written novel went down the pe*ophilic-romance pipeline.