the villains were planning one last stand, but it was so weak and so obvious that it wasn't going to work, that was laughable. And after this, the only thing remaining was to finish the vengeance (and unfortunately the story was so boring by that time, that I didn't enjoy this moment at all). Lastly, this story has that type of ending whare everybody is super happy and everything is perfect for the FL and her family/friends.

The revenge is SO DRAGGED OUT!! I wish after a certain point, she would just give up on getting revenge on Mielle bc homegirl shes always past that point. You don't need to do anything more!! Like to the point where she brings Mielle to her friend's wedding (the teacher who taught her embroidery) just to humiliate her and I just sat there like..... really? Is this necessary

She easily manipulates people around her to create connection and thus power and has an interested Deux ex machina to help her out. Aka her hourglass which reverses her time for 5 minutes. I really like Aria as a main character she keeps to plot nicely going by manipulating her step family slowly into ruin. While some people were given a better chance, like Annie, the maid who originally was supposed to spy on Aria on Mielle’s behalf but ended up seduced by the devil and switches sides. Aria’s original maid who had stayed true to her until the end and the crown prince who ends up falling in loe with Aria, despite her flaws and wicked character.

Gosh oscar does not deserve any of this ahg my sweet boy I honestly would have preffered him to be the ML not because I dont like asher but more like it would have been a little more interesting cause I always see the MC in these types of stories to be with the king or the emperor in this case

And I would like to note that the romance aspect is not very good (not that I expected much but still..) the MC and the ML I honestly hve no idea how the ML fell inlove with her nor do I understand how she fell for him I cant really see the turning point is ive read another review that said that after he descovered her identity at the princesses palace he just starts flirting with her and thats it and the way she fell for him? A little out of nowhere

Something to note the MC is not very smart the only reason shes won was because her enemies were idiots and she has time travel

By the end of it public perseption of her has gone to the roof and everyone is under the empression that she can do no wrong and that all who oppose her are tr*sh even people who werent even responsible for making her previous life shet like the count who was demoted to being a commoner and paralyzed or cain who just accepted his fate and became the busboy of the empire then died due to poison anyway and I even started to feel bad for mielle who is the main villain in all this and

im never gonna forget what they did to oscar he did no wrong he just did what his sister told him to do and he's been demoted to a commoner!? Why!? That scene just made me hate asher like you demote someone who confesses to the sins of his family gve you the alibies of the people who worked against the empire why!? Just because a rumor that your honey (who wasnt even aware of who you are) was seducing him to get back at the blcht step sis and you were even mad that he came peacefully because you wouldnt have an excuse to execute oscar

resorts to harming her own family to frame the FL without any remorse. Mielle never sees what she is doing as wrong and will go to all lengths to harm the FL. I truly believe that if Mielle stopped her vicious thoughts and actions, the FL would have stopped pursuing her revenge, as the FL eventually realizes that the princess and Mielle's head maid were the ones truly behind all the schemes.

If not for FL's advice, ML would have ended up married to that evil bit*h princess and ended up as the puppet of the Aristocratic Party (led by the princess).

to include a few scenes of their life after marriage and future children

WTF was the king doing this whole time? He literally didn't even make a single appearance and was barely mentioned. What was the state of the royal family affairs and how/why did the princess amass so many followers among the nobles? What happened to poor Sir Oscar who was just a victim of his oppressive older sister?

What I dislike about her is that for all her conniving and (i guess) intelligence, she still couldn't figure out the identity of a specific important character. Clues are shoved to her face left and right and she even actually comes up with the correct answer, but she couldn't accept it because she believe it to be too ridiculous to be true. The answer glares at her face for a long time until this character actually just unmasks his own identity and only after hearing the truth from his lips does she accept it. It was incredibly frustrating.

I also did not like her ability to turn back time (5 minutes to the past). I feel that it cheapened a lot of her victories and the author used it as a crutch when they couldn't come up with a way for Aria to resolve some things. Granted that it came with its own price and can only be used once per day but really the 'price' for using this ability never really became a relevant issue. It just made her suffer. A little.

I'll just be honest and say that the chemistry between Aria and Asher (the love interest) is really poor which is a shame because this is advertised as a romance novel. The character of Asher is incredibly boring and bland, he is someone without weakness or flaw so he is completely uninteresting to me, he also brings nothing new to the table unlike Aria because beautiful, powerful and morally ambiguous male leads isn't new. His 'mysterious' identity was never really a mystery to the readers and he appears sporadically at the first half of the novel. Their affection for each other also felt rushed and felt out of the blue because they never really shared romantic moments together during the few meetings they had. (Or maybe that's just me?)

the mystery of Aria's biological father. I was personally not really interested in it and I felt that it only served as another way to slap the faces of Aria's enemies because it actually proved she is of noble blood. I also believe that not being blue blood was an integral part of Aria's character and appeal as being lowborn was something she was unapologetic for, it was never an issue for her but instead an issue for those who were critical of her. The identity of her father was also not something that she was interested in due to her mother's shady career so the whole subplot just fell flat.

Aria also spends a lot of time as Investor A, an identity she used to make money by making multiple smart investments. In the end, she never really used this identity much and most of the transactions are summarised. It's a shame because it was quite interesting watching her use both her knowledge of the future and business to make money and I was hoping she'd encounter some hiccups to pose a challenge but those never came. Again, even this identity is ultimately used as to slap her critics.

The downfall of the antagonist is inevitable, but a victory without suspense is such a bore. These people suffer multiple loss to Aria largely due to their own undoing and their 'evil plans' that make no sense, it's honestly being generous to just call them s*upid and leave it at that. Perhaps it's also the author's fault for setting these villains up to look so mighty only to watch them stumble their way to the finish line. Also it's worth noting that Aria was executed during her adulthood and reincarnated back to her youth, so she's (mentally) an adult fighting and scheming against Mielle who was WAY younger than her (around 13 years old I think).

I DO WISH that the MC would have some sort of redeeming quality in her but uh ERROR404 can't really find it. I really hoped that by the end she would at least learn to trust others more and basically be less of a only-doing-it-if-she-sees-the-benefit type of person. But I guess with her past and the way the story needs to be, it's sorta inevitable.

I read up to c143 and it's starting to cool down for me, I'm not feeling it between the MC and ML the "sudden" meetings and the interactions from their meetings are a little confusing and lacking to me. The strongest impression I've gotten from the story so far was about how ridiculously beautiful the MC is. Which is not a bad thing since it's one of her strongest weapons but wow I've never read anything that talked so much about how enamoured others were with a characters looks so consistently in almost every chapter. All in all it's been a decent pass time read I hope I can make it to the end.

The MC could have let the younger sister and older brother live the rest of their lives as servants as revenge since they reflected on their mistakes but she was so hooked on the past she refused to let them go until they died. That was a bit too much for me.

She makes Sarah her tutor just because she'll be the future Marquis' wife. And everytime they meet, she always emphasizes how much she's using her.

Take Oscar and Cain, for example. I mean, I get that they caused your death, but they were just used. I... just don't agree with her methods of seduction.

I wish the author also gave more meaningful scenes to the heroines powers. Because other than her return and the one time where her maid gets poisoned, the hourglass just seems pretty useless.