If you're feeling worn out from isekai novels, I can't blame you. Nearly every permutation of the genre has graced our reading and watching habits for quite some time now, and even the most steadfast fans could easily feel like they're reincarnated. But Korean author Snow's two-volume series Are You Crazy? doesn't play the genre straight. Yes, heroine Shea Grande is unquestionably reincarnated from our world, something that's very quickly apparent, and yes, there are special things about her because of it, but Snow does enough with the basic formula that the story remains appealing. At times this causes the story to play its cards far too close to its vest for easy reading, but by the time we hit the series finale, Are You Crazy? has more than proved itself.

The story takes place in a fairly typical fantasy kingdom. There's an emperor with a curse, a complex power structure, and people known as “Children of God,” the in-world equivalent of what most other series call “saints.” In Vencroft, the Children of God are a bit more than just people with mysterious and holy powers, though – they're the literal beloveds of the nation's founding god, Roux. He has bestowed upon each of them a specific power that is uniquely theirs, and it runs the gamut from immortality to the ability to wield flames. They're meant to help protect Vencroft and keep it safe and healthy, and to that end, the kingdom is protected by magic stones imbued with the Children's powers. But nothing is without cost, and the family line of the rulers is cursed to go mad, which results in them being killed for the safety of all. Roux, it is clear, drives a hard bargain, as do his Children.

The current emperor is Eid Roux Vencroft, and he hasn't gone mad yet. He lives in fear of it, though, and he's got a few memory gaps related to a woman he loved, which may be a way of protecting him and any children he may have had from the hereditary curse. Everyone close to him watches him with a keen eye, especially his aide Ace and his friend Edward. Their world is fairly closed, and the implication is that it has been since his beloved died, although there's a bit of interpretive wiggle room there, particularly in the first book. The catalyst for the story to start, however, is word of a bakery in the capital that has rave reviews and an odd opening schedule. Apparently, the owner only opens when she feels like it, closes on a whim, and absolutely everything she makes is incredible. She charges an arm and a leg, but everyone who gets to try her baked goods says that it's worth it.

This, it turns out, is the protagonist, Shea Grande. Despite being a noblewoman, she seems to prefer running her bakery, with the only other thing that even remotely matters being her young son Elias. No one knows who his father is, and we quickly learn that Elias is Shea's adopted son, whom she's raising for her deceased friend. At this point canny readers will have made the leap of logic that ties these two storylines together even before we get to the romantic subplot – and the romantic interest isn't who you'd expect in this sort of novel. Instead of Eid, Edward is the man who falls hard for Shea, and it appears to be mutual fairly quickly.

It's hard to pigeonhole this story as a romance, though. The romance element is probably the most important piece of the overall story in terms of how it relates to the key plot points, particularly in volume two, but it still isn't a pure romance or even a romantic fantasy. Despite having a very romance-heavy resolution, the plot is more focused on Shea herself and her roles in all the pieces of the story. Her position as mother, girlfriend, friend, reincarnated being, and Child of God all work together to form a more complex plot than we typically get. She's a more well-rounded character than she seems at first, and the story's strength is in how it slowly reveals her various roles and how they come together to form “Shea Grande” the person.

It's not a balancing act that works consistently. The first novel feels very disjointed for the opening fifty percent, and the second doesn't truly take off until about the three-quarters mark. Both volumes are still good; they simply don't come into their own until Snow begins bringing things together in tangible ways. It's easy to see what they're doing: Snow's laying the groundwork for the major revelations of the back halves of both books, and that does make them both finish more strongly than they start. But it's also risky, because if the opening of a book doesn't grab the reader, it risks going unfinished, and there are moments in both volumes where that feels like a danger.

I do think, though, that the endings make up for it. Volume two concludes on a very strong note, bringing the disparate plot points together to show us the picture that Snow was trying to paint all along. It's a case of remembering the series by how it ends, and it finishes beautifully enough to make the issues that showed up earlier feel worth getting through.

Are You Crazy? isn't the most polished series Editio has published (although the translation quality remains excellent), but it is both one of the shorter ones and a good read. If you're feeling like you'd like a little variety in your isekai diet, it's worth picking up. There may be stumbles, but the ending makes it worth the effort to get past them.