Standard isekai-esque premise but from the same world. The OG romance with the prince is quite cute and I’m very intrigued by the traitor.

DNF @ 50%

Gorgeous gorgeous cover, but the content was lacking. I'm not sure if it's due to the translation or the original author's writing (probably some combination of both), but the prose felt so mechanical and dull and incredibly boring to read. The events throughout this book are spelled out to you in the way of a bored, uninterested narrator. Peak tell, not show. Like a lot of BL novels, Leo/Ionia takes the role of the weak, frail, helpless uke who can't do anything on his own but support is seme from the background. It's never been a dynamic I like, but paired with the weak-to-non-existant worldbuilding and bland writing. I just couldn't bring myself to continue reading.

Thank you, Netgalley and publisher for this advanced copy. This light novel had so much drama and slow burning romance. I loved every pages of this book

This is a beautiful male male romance that’s sweet and intreasting I love manga that’s male male so I thought I’d dip my toe into this type of book and I thourally enjoyed my experiance and I would love to read more from this author in the future as this was intreasting complex but also fast paced with a great relationship as a base

I read the prolongue en the romantized abuse was enough to stop. It's sad that the author made one of the characters such a predador and the other just a victim with little to no agency because I seriously wanted to like this book.

2 ⭐️

The concept and idea was intresting and unique. The worldbuilding was similar to other books but still had its own distinctness to it which I liked. However, the age difference was a bit unsettling. Leorino as himself first meets Gravis at 12. Leorino may be “older” as he reincarnated and gained the memories of Ionia but before Gravis really knew that there was still that strange attraction between the two of them. I think the ideas were good but could’ve been executed better. I’m not very motivated to read the next book however if you don’t mind the very strange age difference it’s not bad of a read.

Favorite quote: “Vi and Io. The names that could only be called by each other - and no one else.”

Amari Patel:
beautiful

I loved Leorino. He was the right amount of feisty that I really love for this genre. He had a lot to overcome, especially his crazy mom trying to make him her daughter-she-never-had. I liked the whole idea of "transcending the idea of gender" and I probably could have read an entire book of just Leorino living in a world, just being too pretty for it. The love interest is a bore, and the only time I was actually interested in him was in the flashbacks that Leorino dreams about.

It's not the worst BL light novel I've read, but whoever did the translation for this needs to be fired. It's downright awful at parts, especially any action scene. I spent a lot of time rereading things to make sense of what was happening. For an official translation, it was disappointing.

Thank you Yen Press and the author for the ARC. The above is my honest opinion.

Summary:

Leorino Cassiex is the fourth son of the Margrave of Brungwurt. His life was complicated enough without suddenly having the memories of a knight long dead. So, when he starts seeing the memories of knight Ionia, he knows he has to find a way to make sense of it all.

To do so, he'll have to dig into the past. It's the only way to understand what happened. This essentially means he needs to solve an old crime, uncovering the traitor to the kingdom.

Review:

Admittedly, I have not been reading enough light novels. I need to change that (maybe I should read the My Next Life As A Villainess light novels?). So, I decided to give You Can Have My Back a try.

While I enjoyed the plot and writing, I'll admit that I struggled to stay invested in this story. For one thing, the pacing wasn't ideal. It was too slow at times, making it feel more like I was walking through mud (sorry).

Second, Leorino doesn't really have any agency. I hate it when characters aren't given agency – especially the main characters. It makes the whole thing concerning at best, dangerous, and disturbing at worst.

Long story short, You Can Have My Back had a solid foundation, but the follow-through could have used some work.

Highlights:
Light Novel
LGBT+ Romance

Thanks to Yen On and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

In the past couple of years I’ve started reading Danmei novels and was excited to try this Japanese bl novel but unfortunately I wasn’t impressed by the writing.

This was a bit of a let down for me.
I was very interested as I love me a good BL and the cover art was very eye catching but then I found some things that didn't work for me and it just became a chore just to read it.
I love the idea of the reincarnation and how it it presented, as dreams for Leorino but I absolutely despised how little agency this poor guy has, and frankly it was a bit much absolutely every man that ever sees him just creeps on him. The whole idea that he is so beautiful that other man can't contain themselves so he must be sequestered and protected... It was very much not the type of fantasy I enjoy.

I found the writing style distractingly awkward and the plot oddly paced. While this is definitely a style that I could see being fun, this specific story didn't work for me.

This seemed right up my alley. I read the description & I was immediately interested. Plus who could resist that beautiful cover?

Halfway through & this is not for me. I feel like I am slowly pulling teeth with this novel. The characters are severely lacking depth & I don’t find them enjoyable. Very disappointed with this outcome.

Thank you to the publisher, the author, & to NetGalley for the Arc!

The writing and themes weren't as complex as I hoped. I think specific readers will enjoy this book but it is not for everyone. Those who enjoy the transmigration trope and age gaps may like this. However, the writing lacks depth.

I was very excited to read the book, the premise sounds great and it has all of the elements I love: political intrigue, fantasy set-up, and reincarnation love story. But the execution itself wasn't that good. Instead story opening the door to a new world, it sets up the future stories, while not standing on its own.

I felt like was reading a sequence of events, but without an actual plot. It was quite confusing, especially at the start and had trouble staying focused. The age gap was a bit much too.

You Can Have My Back Volume 1 (light Novel)
By Minami Kotsuna
Thanks to Netgalley. for the ARC Copy for an honest review.
Overall I found 'You Can Have My Back Vol 1' just ok... that being said I would probably pick up the second volume to see if my opinion improves, as I feel there is a lot of potential, I would love to see more depth to the story.
Rating: 3 1/2 Stars

I unfortunately had to DNF this story about 150 pages in. I would've stopped sooner, but I kept going in the hopes that the story would time jump to when Leorino was finally an adult. When it became clear that this would not be the case and that the rest of the book would be a slog of Leorino's recovery and sheltered youth, I finally decided to give up. Had the almost 450 pages of this book been condensed down to max 100, thereby allowing the plot to actually progress, I may have kept going.

This isn't my first light novel/danmei style of story. The plot contains lots of amazing political intrigue, a web of conspiracy, supernatural powers, reincarnation, and many elements I love in fantasy stories. Despite all this potential, this story suffers from "first book syndrome," where so many things are trying to be set up for future novels, that this book on its own falls very flat.

Leorino reads as a bit of a Mary-Sue, and given that he is a child/teenager for most of the story, this makes the attention that he receives from other characters really uncomfortable to read. He is commonly described as angelic and the most beautiful being to exist, and this somehow means that strangers more or less assault him multiple times during his life, as if they cannot control themselves. While I not unfamiliar with the danmei style of writing, where age gaps tend to be common, the almost 2 decades that separate the MC and the future love interest was too much for me to continue, especially when the reincarnated individual's love interest starts showing interest in a 12 year old boy.

Testing my hand at light novels and it just isn't for me,I don't really feel right talking about how the book actually was because it just felt so different. Nearly like reading a storyboard for a film over a book. I couldn't get through this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Yen Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When I initially read the description for You Can Have My Back I was excited to read it, and I thought I knew exactly what I was getting into. It wasn't my first light novel, so I knew what to expect with regards to the general style, and also with regards to reading translated works of fiction. However, by the time I was about 20% of the way through the novel, I was fairly confident that I knew exactly how my rating and review would turn out, and that feeling only solidified the more I read.

I feel like I say this a lot, but the premise has a lot of potential. I love political intrigue, and I'm no stranger to the reincarnated fated love trope. Unfortunately, the execution of that potential is quite poor. By the time I reached the end, I felt like I had read 400+ pages where nothing really happened. Partially, that's because we follow the main character, Leorino, from childhood to (barely) adulthood. To make matters worse, most of that was through a heavy-handed process of telling rather than showing that felt more like reading a summary of events and characters' feelings rather than an actual plot.

Perhaps the biggest problem I had with this novel was the way Leorino really had no agency throughout the entire story. It is reiterated again and again that he is beautiful in an angelic sort of way, but this just means that he is also assaulted at multiple points by various strangers. Because he is so beautiful, he is sheltered from the rest of the world, meaning that he really has no hand in moving the plot forward. None of that even begins to address how uncomfortable I felt reading his interactions with his supposed love interest, Gravis, who was in love with his previous incarnation, Ionia, before his death. This creates a 17 year age gap between himself and Leorino (who is only barely 18). Gravis is obviously still pining for Ionia, and seems to be projecting his feelings onto Leorino who possesses Ionia's memories. However, that doesn't change the fact that Leorino, as he himself states multiple times (not that anyone really listens), is his own person and not merely Ionia reborn.

Further adding to my frustration was the way the text itself was laid out. Leorino's recollections of Ionia are presented in a confusing way because he seems to forget important details from them (or even lapse into a state of being possessed by Ionia, although I could be wrong) despite the way that those memories are laid out clearly to the reader. It always felt like I knew far more about what was going on than Leorino ever did, rather than discovering the truth of events with him. There are odd section breaks within the text that read like places where one would indicate a time skip, or a perspective shift; none of that happens, though, making the reading process itself confusing and frustrating to follow.

Since this was only the first book in a series, I'm assuming the story will unfold more clearly from here. Maybe the political intrigue will become clearer, rather than the B or C plot. Maybe Leorino will begin to take more control over the story. Maybe characters will begin respecting the fact that he is his own person, and not the vehicle for the soul of a dead man. I honestly don't know. Unfortunately, despite how excited I was to read this first volume, I don't think I'll be able to stick around to read any of the others. Maybe a more patient reader than me will be able to parse out aspects of this text that are working towards subtle foreshadowing or characterization. I just know that I am not that reader.

It’s never easy trying to evaluate a series with epic ambitious when you only read the first volume. The job is not any easier when the volume is a chonker nearly 500 pages long, as it largely sets up things that will be resolved somewhere in future volumes… you know the drill.

Anyway, this light novel opens with a very straightforwardly non-con sex scene in the prologue, establishing a few key dynamics that will remain throughout: power imbalance, struggling against lack of agency, disability and physical frailty, and well, the fact that it’s not really a reincarnation story at all. If anything, the protagonist is an unwilling vessel, caught in a position of sheltered powerlessness between the baggage of the past and political games of the present. There is a 19 year old difference between him and the love interest, which is a bit of a mental whiplash, given that after the sex scene in the prologue, the novel digs into the childhood of the protagonist. Not an endearing choice to me, but others may be more chill with that - YMMV.

On the plus side, there is loads of politicking in the story (I mentioned unresolved arcs and conflicts - that would account for it), so, this is definitely for those readers who love a chewy historical intrigue for a setting of their BL reading. The illustrations are beautiful, but not too many - fewer than I would expect from a LN. The cover art is absolutely gorgeous, and the translation level is great.

Thanks to a NetGalley and Yen Press for an arc of the book.

An excellent light novel! The cover illustration is very beautiful and immediately drew me in. The story is unique and the characters were very captivating. I would like more depth to the setting of the book and the history but overall I think there is plenty of room for this to grow and bloom through the oncoming volumes!