The Abandoned Empress, Vol. 1

Characters talk around each other and many misunderstandings stem from the the main character suddenly being unable to speak aloud. It's the most annoying kind of noble-political drama.

The first half of this volume is taken up by Aristia's execution and flashbacks to what led up to the execution. Then we're thrust back to Aristia at age ten, with full memories and PTSD, trying to find a way out of her doomed betrothal. The age difference is jarring, from hot angst to cute sad.

This book is full color, so it should be easy to tell characters apart with the rainbow of hair colors. It is not. All the adult men have the same face. There are few enough women and children that those groups aren't confusing, at least.

Content warning: Miscarriage

First things first, before I address this volume, as a warning to anyone who comes here, the ending of the series is somewhat spoiled in the reviews of this volume by other people. Reader beware, I'm not sure why people did that, but here we are.

That said, this review will be only about this volume, volume 1 of The Abandoned Empress. I had never heard of this series before seeing this volume at my local bookstore (admittedly I don't read a lot of web comics), and was delighted by the cover art and the artwork throughout. Fully colorized! What a novelty.

We start out in a bit of a lengthy prologue, where Aristia is living her young adult life as consort to the prince. Things go terribly awry (and also contains some problematic plot elements that I wasn't pleased to see), and Aristia is suddenly wrenched backwards by the world's deity to relive her life differently, starting from age ten, with the memories of her adult life intact. Sort of an “oops, my bad” moment on the part of the deity, but less levity and more seriousness. The rest of the manga involves Aristia getting used to this second chance at life, and the setup of her love interest(s) in the way these types of stories go. Some minor mystery elements about Aristia's past(? I think?) are introduced, which is interesting as well.

I'm pretty positive I'll be picking up the next volume, whatever the reviews here say.