When determining whether or not I would recommend a novel or not, I always wait until I have completed it. If I don't recommend it, that means that somewhere along the lines the novel has faltered considerably - in plot, character development, character interactions, world-building and so on. I'm usually lenient, so it would take
something serious to make me place a novel here. Current sentenced prisoners are:

1. Mo Dao Zu Shi: A lot of people love this one, but I can't bow my head to them. The world's setting is barely touched. A lot of promise is put into Wei Wuxian, yet his development from cheerful student to the founder of diabolism is rendered to a group of people saying he's evil without much elaboration. Probably the biggest crime for me here is the alleged romance.

2. Kaleidoscope of Death: This was a 5.0 novel for me until the end of the last chapter. It felt like tripping and falling face-first into the gravel before the finish line. The extras do not excuse the lack of a proper ending. In my opinion, extras serve the purpose of giving readers a treat, a snack between meals or a good drink after a full meal. Instead, the extras here are meant to be a full dish and as such fail to deliver. They carry vital information, yet since they are out of the main story's pace, it feels like every single one of them is the author's attempt at apologizing for not knowing how to write them in. I truly regret placing this here, but it is what it is.