My Unexpected Marriage

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[More info about my review style can be found on my profile]

▶Summary and recommendation: -----------------------------------------------------------------
The initial premise of the story is quite unique and interesting, but after a few chapters, it throws away *most* of the things that makes it stand out, and becomes a very formulaic.
I recommend this to fans of Otome Isekai, but do not expect something revolutionary.

▶Story: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It starts out quite unique. It has all the familiar hallmarks of an Otome Isekai, but it is not an isekai. It is simply a romance set in a european medieval fantasy setting.
The story follows an illegitimate child who escapes from her family to ... a mountain cottage. Where she enjoys her newfound freedom while toiling (not unhappily though) to make the cottage liveable. This is a very fresh premise for an otome isekai. Most focus on court intrigue and the lifestyle of nobles.

And sadly. So does this.

It quickly abandons this setting and it turns into a very formulaic Otome Isekai (minus the isekai part) with the standard mansions, maids, buttlers, balls, and extravagant spending on jewelry and dresses. It does not do any of this poorly however. And uniquely the Male lead is dark skinned. Which is quite rare for this genre, but I can not say I was not disappointed that the manhwa abandonned parts of what made it unique.

▶Artwork: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The artstyle is a bit basic, but the use of rustic colours suits the story well. It is however a bit lacking in presentation when it comes to its characters.

[This review is one of my older ones and do not meet my current standards. It is lacking in a dedicated character section and romance section.]

When the Count's Illegitimate Daughter Gets Married/My Unexpected Marriage starts with a promising premise, the poor illegitimate daughter is married off to a "dead" man, left to rot in a remote abandoned villa, but surprise, he is alive! Thus the beginning of a cozy and heartwarming slice of life story of these two married couple overcoming their harsh daily life and turns the place into a comfortable place to live in.

Our female lead Laritte is quite the oddball, she's been abused her whole life but it doesn't seem like she have any sort of deep long lasting trauma; this is not inherently bad, in ... fact it's quite charming seeing her laissez-faire attitude with her husband who is not sure how to react and feel about it. But it does gets more problematic as the story progress, since she is the straightman in a world of progressively absurd developments and drama, us the reader doesn't really get much in the emotional payoff department; she could be sad, but it's just a teeny bit sad, she could be happy, but not so much that she cries like what you would expect in a story climax.
There are exceptions to this, but it all happened in the first half where, in my opinion, the story peaked and it's all downhill from there (once they left the villa).

Our protagonist is too aloof, the villains are too cartoonish that you couldn't laugh about it, dramatic development that came out of nowhere in which the characters could do nothing except mope around waiting for the deus ex machina to arrive; things becomes so underwhelming yet overwhelming at the same time that at some point I just can't wait to get this over with.

Like a typical romance fantasy story, our active female lead slowly but surely gets passive and just turns into deadweight going into the second half. Usually this wouldn't bother me, but the execution here is quite horrendous; part of the reason why I'm hooked is because it's really nice to see this girl finally attain freedom and agency in her snowy little villa, it's nothing much, she's not those overpowered heroines, she's just living the life she's always deserved on her own accord; the story then took a sudden 180 and we rarely see such active participation from her in the story. Saying this was disappointing might be an understatement.

Despite everything that I have said so far, I really do think that the first arc is worth reading. Just end at some point whenever your interest wanes. It really is one of the comfiest story I've read in a while and the climax of said arc is very satisfying.