REVIEW: IN BED WITH THE MALE LEAD
First off, I want to give a WARNING to everyone starting this story: It contains a lot of SA. As far as I’ve read (I’m in the final stretch of the story), that’s pretty much all there has been. And a very strong romanticization of it as well, because the act itself is never treated as a trauma by the character who suffers it (Richard). So if you don't like this type of story, I recommend not starting it (I'm offering myself as a sacrifice since I had to pay to access the whole thing).
I am treading unchartered territory here and writing a review as someone who is near the end of the web novel "In Bed with the Male Lead" and DROPPED IT because of an extremely repulsive scene. I searched for other reviews online to see if anyone was talking about this, but all I found were posts from people who just started the manhwa or a few who did read the novel, but were treating the male lead, "Caelus," as if he were the ultimate romantic. Spoilers: He’s not. Honestly, he is extremely disgusting.
STORY:
Overall, I was really enjoying the PREMISE of the story. Caelus and Richard genuinely acted like real enemies at first, and I thought I had finally found a true "Enemies to Lovers" story. I was really liking their dynamic... at the beginning. But I'll talk more about their relationship later.
Getting back to the story as a whole, the characters in general intrigue you, but they don't really go anywhere. (I did enjoy Duke Chesika tho)
Maybe I set higher expectations than what the story actually was, but the reveal of what was really going on in that world was pretty... boring compared to my theories about what the plot would be.
However, the final plot twist reveal was actually interesting and something I hadn't predicted !! But among it, the author makes a mess with the story's timeline that simply makes no sense.
The author tries to split a single regression into two, attempting to make it seem like Caelus already loved Richard from previous regressions. But if you carefully analyze the moment Caelus claims he started falling for Richard, that version simply doesn't hold up, no matter how much you think about it. Believe me, I spent a good few minutes re-reading and trying to fit it into the timeline. It just doesn't work (if I misinterpreted something, feel free to correct me, but I simply couldn't make sense of it).
But despite the flaws, I was having fun because the novel's writing is very light and easy to read. It wasn't really anything that deeply bothered me! I actually thought the idea of Caleus loving Richard from past regressions was really cute, like a 'I've loved you for longer than you know' kind of thing...
But this leads to the main point and where things get complicated: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THEM.
To BRIEFLY summarize Caelus and Richard: Dry and UNILATERAL.
99% of the time, the story is just Caelus loving Richard. Richard genuinely has NO feelings for Caelus. And that continues right up to the scene where I dropped it. No, even in the FINAL stages of the story, he STILL hasn't developed a single drop of romantic feeling for Caelus. This shows a complete lack of tact on the author's part when it comes to developing character relationships. They had plenty of opportunities in various scenes, but simply chose to maintain this tedious dynamic of one-sided feelings.
Richard is mentioned several times as a strong and skilled person. He can defeat giant wolves on his own, defeat magical creatures, and kill several men single-handedly just wielding a sword. But the moment four random thugs corner him to try to assault him, that strength and agility mysteriously vanish, and he can't do anything. Caelus has to be the one to save him.
Caelus is another character who acts completely bland to me. He's the typical "top" who treats the other with coldness and indifference, but deep down lOvEs HiM mOrE tHaN aNyThInG iN tHe WoRlD* ("who did this to you? >:(" and other clichés). The only moments Caelus shows clear feelings toward Richard are when he is drunk or impaired. And when he's in that state, he simply forces himself on Richard and assaults him, even with Richard screaming for him to stop. At points, he even begs and asks him please to stop.
During their first scene together, I even let it slide a bit because Richard was the one who forced a love potion down Caelus's throat, so, in that case, I consider it more of an assault by Richard against Caelus than the other way around.
In the second scene, Caelus is drunk and literally forces himself on Richard again. Ignoring all of his "no's" and his pleas to stop, he assaults him against the warehouse wall. The scene is described by Richard as: "I want to push him away, but my partner knew very well what he was doing and I'm feeling good even though, verbally, I'm saying I don't want to." That's where the romanticization part I mentioned earlier comes in.
I should have dropped it right there but I forced myself to keep going because I had paid for it.
The third scene is the most repulsive one, and the one that truly made me give up on reading, even after paying for the story. To give you an idea of how much it completely ruined the story for me, I'll give the full context.
NOW, I WILL GIVE SPOILERS FOR THE MAIN PLOT TWIST OF THE STORY. DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU STILL PLAN ON READING THE NOVEL.
Daphne kills Richard after revealing that the real Daphne is no longer among them. She is someone who transmigrated into the female lead's body and has been trying, for over a thousand regressions, to find a way out of that story (which is why she knew they were in a novel to begin with).
Context given, I will now describe the scene: Upon discovering this, Richard falls into a very deep depression and begins committing suicide through many regressions in a row, because Daphne is the person he truly loves (no, up to this point, he still doesn't see Caelus much differently than when we started the story).
Caelus, for his part, had already known Daphne's secret for many regressions prior, and tried to hide this truth from Richard because he knew it would affect him deeply, since this, theoretically, had already happened before (that's where Caelus falling in love with Richard in past regressions comes into play).
Richard regresses an hour earlier than Caelus, so Caelus can never arrive in time to prevent the suicide. Up to that point, I thought the story was heavy, but interesting, because it not only worked on the protagonist's psyche (something I deeply missed throughout the narrative), but it also showed Caelus's love and devotion. It was something I was genuinely intrigued to keep reading. There's even a genuinely very sweet scene of him tenderly watching over Richard's body before taking his own life, blaming himself for failing to hide that truth.
At a certain point, Caelus manages to arrive on time and speak briefly with Richard. He begins telling Richard stories of past regressions as a way to distract him. Richard continues to take his own life, but he starts waiting for Caelus every time before doing so. I thought this was SUPER interesting because, for the first time, we were seeing Richard give up on Daphne and give a potential relationship with Caelus a chance. Things were evolving step-by-step, which made me believe Caelus would help Richard through his depression this way: slowly getting closer, soothing his heart until Richard truly opened up to him.
But just when we are finally seeing genuine progress between the two (especially Richard, who were finally developing feelings for Caelus), the narrative shifts. Caelus sets a trap for Richard, creating an opportunity to kidnap him before he kills himself (it was heartbreaking because Richard, for the first time in MANY regressions, was leaving the warehouse to look for Caelus instead of taking his life, which showed SO MUCH progress in his depressive state. Seeing Caelus take this action really hurted me).
Not only that, he ties Richard to a bed, handcuffing one of his hands to the headboard. The room has no windows and only contains a bed and a locked door (right, lock a depressed person to a bed in an empty, dimly lit room. What a GREAT solution !!! /sarcasm).
I even tried to overlook it at first, interpreting it as a desperate act by someone watching their loved one end their life over and over again. He just wanted to stop him from dying again.
When Richard says that he will just starve himself to death instead, Caelus LOOSES IT in anger, says things like "you have no idea how much I'm holding back," and after that... rapes him all night long.
The scene is DEPLORABLE. Richard reaches the point of begging him to stop, starts apologizing for things he doesn't even know he did, cries, and repeatedly says, "please stop."
Horrible. I have a knot in my throat just describing the scene. I couldn't even bring myself to describe it in full because I skipped that part out of sheer disgust. The author treats the act as if it were NOTHING. In fact, they treat it as something erotic.
After everything. After the conversations they had, the evolution of Richard's feelings, and the SLIGHT progress he had made with his depression, the narrative throws it all away by adding YET ANOTHER completely gratuitous abuse scene.
EVERY SINGLE intimate interaction between the two until this point was abusive and one-sided. Because up until this point, Richard STILL has no romantic feelings. He just doesn't hate Caelus anymore (and if he has romantic feelings the narrative then fails in showing it to the reader, even though we are literally reading Richard’s Pov of the situation).
Their relationship is PAINFUL to read. Even more so when the very next scene is Caelus saying he "would never let that world hurt his Richard again!!!" Yes, right after RAPING HIM in a fit of rage.
Not to mention that Richard, at this point in the story, not only lacks romantic feelings, but he ACTIVELY still believes Caelus dislikes him (which, to me, is disrespectful to his character, given that Richard is very smart. And Caelus, by that time, had already confessed his love twice).
Caelus, upon hearing Richard make these statements, simply DOES NOT DENY THEM. He communicates absolutely nothing to Richard and is extremely dry and cold toward him 99% of the time (looking at it that way, it might actually make sense for Richard to think Caelus disliked him. Caelus ACTS like he genuinely hates him).
And, at the end of this review, I want to make this clear:
I didn't mind the kidnapping scenes or the fights they had with each other, because in my mind, that was a relationship dynamic I would expect between two morally grey characters. Richard forces Caelus to marry him. Caelus kidnaps him to interrogate him. Richard starts killing all the nobles tied to Caelus's future reign. Caelus keeps him in captivity to stop the murders.
It was a toxically complex dynamic that I didn't mind and was actually quite fun. What bothered me from the start was how their relationship never evolved. And when it evolved even a little bit, something terrible happened that just left a bitter taste in my mouth. I dropped the story at this last scene because there was no rivalry or bickering between two characters who hate and love each other deeply, it was purely a scene of dominance and power over another character who was in a deep depression. And having that scene presented as somethimg hot/erotic was even crueler to me.
I understand that in the future, people might say Caelus wasn't in his right mind either, but I'd like to remind everyone that these are fictional characters. The one who chooses which scenes to include, how much one character cares about another, and all other perspectives, is the writer. Choosing the characters to react the way they do and deliberately adding only abuse scenes whenever these two characters interact intimately is a conscious choice by the writer.
I'm writing this review mostly because I wish I had access to this information when I started reading, given that the novel itself doesn't carry these tags and warnings.
That's why tags are important, regardless of whether they "spoil" the plot, because they allow people to filter content so only those who enjoy that type of story read it. Those who don't can just scroll past (which is exactly what I would have done if I had access to these warnings!).
I hope this saves someone else their money and time.