I honestly have no words. If you're a middle school boy you'll probably love this, other than that it is a senseless misogynistic piece of text based writing.

The premise of this book peaked my interest but the great story telling made me devour this in one sitting. The texting format was a fun way to see all the characters thoughts and perspectives. I will definitely be recommending to my friends and will be looking for Vol 2 so I can continue the Hero's journey.

This book title looked intriguing and seemed to fit my genre preferences but unfortunately I was unable to finish the reading.

ABANDON /5
DNF
(english review below)

Résumé :
BRB... EN QUÊTE DE L'AMOUR ! Dans un monde fantastique où les smartphones et Internet existent, le héros est devenu un solitaire, refusant de socialiser avec qui que ce soit. Cependant, son monde s'agrandit un peu lorsqu'il rencontre le Seigneur Démon en ligne. Le jeune homme et la jeune femme s’entendent bien et le héros décide qu'il veut la rencontrer en personne. Le monde extérieur est un endroit dangereux, cependant, et le jeune homme timide n'a que 1 HP... Cette histoire est une romance d'aventure pour l'ère numérique racontée presque entièrement à travers les journaux de discussion !
¤
Malheureusement, cette lecture n’a pas été pour moi. Je n’ai pas réussi à aller plus loin que les 50 premières pages.
Au début, j’ai été intriguée par ce concept d’intégrer la technologie des smartphones dans un monde de fantasy. Je voulais en savoir plus et en feuilletant les premières pages, j’ai trouvé le texte facile à lire et la mise en page aérée. La lecture était dynamique. On oscillait entre narration et captures d’écran de conversations textos.
Mais mon intérêt n’a pas augmenté au fil de ma lecture et j’ai commencé par m’ennuyer. Ainsi, je n’ai pas voulu forcer et j’ai refermé ce livre, qui, pourtant, avait piqué ma curiosité dans sa manière d’être écrit.
Peut-être que le format manga me plairait plus que ce format light novel.

-------------
ENGLISH REVIEW:

Blurb:
BRB...GOING ON A QUEST FOR LOVE! In a fantasy world where smartphones and the internet exist, the Hero has become a total shut-in, refusing to socialize with anyone. However, his world gets a little larger when he meets the Demon Lord online. The two hit it off, and the Hero decides he wants to meet her in person. The outside world is a dangerous place, though, and the shy young man only has 1 HP... This story is an adventure romance for the digital age told almost entirely through chat logs!
¤
Unfortunately, this reading was not for me. I couldn't get past the first 50 pages.
At first, I was intrigued by the concept of bringing smartphone technology into a fantasy world. I wanted to know more and flipping through the first few pages, I found the text easy to read and the layout airy. The reading was dynamic. We oscillated between narration and screenshots of texting conversations.
But my interest didn't increase as I read it and I got bored. So I didn't want to force it and closed this book, which, however, had piqued my curiosity in the way it was written.
Maybe the manga format would appeal to me more than this light novel format.

I stopped reading this light novel at 32% of it. It was just not picking my interest and I have better books to read.
So why is it a DNF for me? I feel like at one third of the book, I gave it a chance and the style will not change. The story is told through screenshots of texts messages between the different characters and through narration. Even though it is an interesting concept, I did not enjoy it and I felt like it made my read more difficult. The story in itself was promising but the characters made it quite boring. Indeed, they are the worst part of this light novel. None of them are likeable and they all have extreme behaviour. We have one guy and then girls around him and it just felt like I was reading Ecchi with no real story.
I do not recommend this light novel, except if reading Ecchi is what you enjoy.
2/5

Book Review
Title: If the RPG World Had Social Media Volume 1 (light novel) by Yusuke Nitta
Genre: Light Novel, Translation
Rating: 2.5 Stars
I have really ventured into the world of light novels except with manga I am heavily invested in but when I saw If the RPG World Had Social Media and some other light novels available on NetGalley I had to request them. If the RPG World Had Social Media was an interesting read as it combines the similar world of SAO and Overlord with the genres and themes found in Konosuba which I didn’t vibe with at first but it kind of grew on me.
Most people that know me and my anime/manga taste will know that I majorly dislike Isekai manga and anime which follows the trope of living in another world usually after death but certain PRG anime also fall into this category. We are follow the Demon Lord who happens to be female and the Hero. The Demon Lord and Hero quickly become friends because they both share a sense of isolation for different reasons for the Demon Lord it was because she was too powerful and for the Hero it is because he is too weak. The Hero is on a quest to “save” a Princess currently chilling out in the Demon Lord’s castle but he also wants to meet her too as there have been feelings growing between them.
However, for most of his life the Hero has been a shut in and we later learn this is because he was cursed 108 times as a child meaning he can’t use magic and his stamina and health points are tanked. To help the Hero, the Demon Lord sends her Generals to aid him but even with this help the quest is taking a really long time and even over the course of the whole novel they haven’t moved very far. The humour rather than the battles is the main focus in this light novel as while it is on point I felt it would probably hit better in a visual format so I will definitely be checking out the manga that can be read alongside this light novel to see whether I rate it higher but apart from that I don’t think I will be continuing with this series.

Just like pretty much everyone else I know of, I really wanted to like Yusuke Nitta's debut light novel. The main theme was of great interest for me (I am a cultural studies scholar who focuses on popular media and social media), it was set in a JRPG world, and had a weak protagonist. All things I find endearing. Or at least, I should've.

And yet, I didn't find "If the RPG World Had Social Media" interesting or pleasurable at all. Quite the opposite, I think this book is one of the weakest things I've read in a very long time.

Let's start with probably the best part of the book, the story. It's a pretty okay one, involving a cursed hero (named Hero) who goes on a quest to save a captive princess (named Princess) from the evil demon lord (named, as one would guess, Demon Lord). It's just that our Hero is socially awkward boy who uses only social media to talk to people and the Demon Lord is in reality an equally awkward girl, while Princess is a kind of a perv. Demon Lord is so good, in fact, that she sends her generals, all of whom are female, to help the inept Hero reach her. This makes for a somewhat interesting quest in which the shut-in Hero speaks with all other characters only via instant messages (IM).

Here comes one of the easiest to notice weaknesses of the novel - the pacing and writing. Most of the story is told via texts between the different characters in illustrations that looks a lot like screenshots of an IM app. However, there are many parts that aren't. They are narrated like a typical novel, instead. This creates for a very strange and uneven reading experience in which the reader can't really anticipate which part is told how.

The switch between writing modes would've been fine was Yusuke Nitta a good writer. Sadly, he is not. In neither style. The IM parts read more like jokes whose punchline never lands, while the narrative parts are pretty difficult to imagine, and as a result - confusing and lifeless. The last is further exacerbated by the choppiness of the writing where pretty much each sentence is given a separate paragraph. Though it might not sound like much, it's incredibly annoying.

And, finally, there are the characters. They are by far the worst thing in this entire book. They are very reductive and, what's worse, very misogynistic. One is a cute furry, another, a masochistic vampire, while third - a tsundere angel. And so on and so forth. And as expected from a harem story (which this one to a large degree is), all of them exist more or less only to serve the weak main character. It's really rather unpleasant, especially coupled with the terrible dirty "jokes" the majority of the book is filled with.

I can go on pretty much forever with the critiques of the book, but i think that these are enough to convey how bad this book is.

I was so into this premise. I wanted this to be awesome. But what a load of misogynistic garbage. I was so disappointed and annoyed by this book.

I really wanted to like this book. The concept of like what if we had phones in an RPG is super cool and I love that idea but I think it was done very poorly. I think that if it was done in a way that like you see characters out and about on their phones or even like a modern day RPG I think would be cool like with orcs and elves and dwarves just going freely about in the modern-day setting.
I didn't enjoy that the author tried to explain the creator of SNS (the messaging system) and then tell the audience this part is not important so feel free to forget about it. Personally I think that if you are writing a detail like that in here it should be important. I really think that the sarcasm that the author has throughout the book is something that would be fine in a different setting like if you were talking to someone or playing DnD something else but in a book I think it's the wrong move to make.
Something that rubbed me the wrong way was that the hero's name is hero and the demon Lord is named the demon Lord. Also that those two characters have all of the same characteristics.
The characters to me feel flat and very one note. The author tends to repeat themselves a lot of times it's to point out in a very obvious way the weakness of the hero it became very repetitive very quickly.
I feel like the author could have done more to develop the relationship between the characters to make them feel less one know and give them more personality.
I didn't understand how traveling worked in this book I suppose because whenever a new companion would come they would be with the hero of the next page but as the hero is trying to get to the demon lord it takes way too long. He gets five companions at least while traveling who all show up at the speed of light but the hero can't move quickly so it's taking them 10 times as long.

My thanks to NetGalley and Yen Press/Yen On for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

This one was just strange. I think there was quite a bit lost in translation and it seemed to try to hard for laughs that just fell flat. The story idea wasn't bad, but with the bad attempt at humor, the storyline got lost, which is a shame.

Also, it had rather bad language. Some violence and sexual innuendo, but nothing too raunchy.

Not one I would go out of my way to recommend or continue with the rest of the series, but not one I would avoid handing to a customer if this was something they would be interested in.

2, not what I was hoping for and somewhat disappointed, stars.

This was... terrible. I can't believe I forced myself through this one. Let's just say, a lot of this is very much fan service in written form but written very badly. We also didn't need to constantly be reminded of the Hero's weakness every other page. It got super annoying on top of everything else that was super cringy. I kept thinking it would get a tiny bit better but... no such luck. Sorry, but not for me and I won't be continuing this series.