Review Detail of ihateyounot in Second Chance Addison

As of this review, 62 chapters have been posted. Looking at the title and synopsis, my first impression had been, ‘Great, another transmigrated-to-my-past-self type of plot.’ To my surprise, it was in fact NOT a transmigration story, which is rare in the current webnovel trends. This is a story about a man who had once reached success but later tasted failure after he was betrayed by his business partner(s). But his prior experiences and success did not fail him, as he received a second chance at building his empire again after he inherited a fortune from a past associate who thought he was a suitable heir. He was approached by the associate’s assistant—Fait—who offered an olive branch to him just when he thought he was done. Now, her entrance into this story was one that made me misunderstand the genre of the story—the way she was introduced made it seem as if she was some sort of mysterious deity who was there to pass the man to his next life. And while it did not involve magic or reincarnation or anything mystical, she did indeed granted him a second chance by giving him a new position, a new company, and a new home. Although there is an impending threat to his life floating in the background, there is very little feeling of suspense, and perhaps the rather laidback and calm personality of the protagonist might attribute to that. The image he had presented in the earlier chapters were considerably different than the person he had showed himself to be in the later chapters to the point that he could very well be another person. That being said, stress could change people, and realistically, it is not strange for someone who had—or is currently trying to—overcome failure to change their personality to a certain extent. Despite the unexplainable feeling of unease I feel over the protagonist who seem to have a mysterious past yet to be discovered, the disparity in his reactions compared to other people’s expectations are amusing. They often lead to hilarity and/or a sense of satisfaction, and I quite like it when he proves his capabilities to others (a.k.a face-slapping) especially since he does it in a way so natural that unless you were the receiving party you wouldn’t have realised he’s been slapping faces. Conversely, the author should be careful in developing his character, as it would be so easy to turn him into a Gary Stu who just bulldozes his way to the top with his amazing (plot) capabilities (armour). The story reads smoothly, and the straightforward style of writing made it easy to follow the story even when the perspectives change. For once, I am glad that I found a story written well enough that I don’t have to break my head trying to decipher the texts. While there are mistakes here and there, they aren’t really noticeable or too bothersome that it would break one’s concentration over the story. Kudos to the author for that. I would suggest the author to get an editor to weed out the little errors since there’s only so much you can fix with self-editing. My only complain is that while the story isn’t boring, it’s pretty anticlimactic as it feels as if there’s nothing going on yet a lot is going on. It feels more of a slice-of-life story, if anything, and if that was the author’s goal, then lucky for you it has been achieved. ...Just me? ...Maybe I wasn’t paying attention well enough when I was reading. Oof. All in all, it was a good read. Good work, author.