The description for Austin Scanlon‘s first Reincarnated Renegade novel is inaccurate to the point I strongly suspect it was written with malicious intent. The world most certainly does care who the protagonist is and happens to be actively working to enforce its expectation of who he should be. The worldbuilding is also remarkably dark, as far away from ‘cozy’ as you can get, and I had to drop it rather early when it turns out (what appears to be) the female lead is being forced by the setting to converse in visual novel-style multiple choice.
The Singer of Terandria series has incredible highs high enough that they throw the few lows into sharp relief.
The first novel mainly stands out for how flawed the protagonist is; a pathological liar with an irrationally vehement hatred of nobility. It starts out rough only to pick up once out of the tomb and never slow down, going to some dark, dark places along the way. The second initially retcons some of her character development and almost got me to drop the series a quarter of the way in, where an utterly inane chatroom scene pops up to completely immolate any sense of immersion.
Fortunately, I persevered through it and the smartphone never again appears beyond minor references. The third novel then is where the hinted paranormal romance elements finally (and briefly) appear to shockingly outsized effect, and which actually works extremely well as a potential series conclusion if the planned fourth never materializes.
In a way I hate how good the series turned out because it means I’m going to likely be obsessing over the flaws, such as the criminal incompetence of the Hunter’s guild leadership and baffling own-goals like the livechat nonsense, for quite some time.