Mr. Mom

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

*Participant in the November 2022 Writathon Challenge!

Adam was just an orphaned boy with some responsibility. That was before the Creator slapped him with the class of Mother.Now, he has to navigate his new life with a class he is in no way prepared to use. He's got a pile of problems, no applicable life experience, and someone else's kids to watch over. The only help he'll get will be System Assistance, better known as system assisted slavery.If he can break the shackles that bind him, Adam may one day be a great warrior. Or a cook. Caretaker of children? Wizard? After all, what can't a mother do?

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2022
Author: Xeln

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 133
Views: 89,084

Reviews

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Community Reviews(9)

SSJ VegitoRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This review is for the author so I won't talk about why I like it. I'm enjoying the story very much so far and unless some major fuck up happens, I'll continue to do so. It is a surprise how it isn't in the rising stories. Author, don't let that keep you down. That's all from me
P.S I love the little stories in the author section or whatever it is called
ShyFrogPrinceRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I'm a big fan of childcare stories and was incredibly excited when I found this story on this site. Although still quite early, the quality of the story leaves me wanting more. A giant badass daddy/mommy bear! Hell yeah! I am ready for the journey that this story will take me on!!
StarbugRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
So far the story's off to a good start. I've got no complaints in terms of grammar and spelling. The pacing of the plot is decent and the characters are believable. In terms of world building, obviously there's a lot more to come and I'm looking forward to seeing how that pans out.
MurphyzLawRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
To summarize this review: read the story, it's good!
The title kinda tells you where the humor is going to be. The main character is a boy who is inadvertantly given the class of [Mother]. Shenanigans will likely ensure. Add in political machinations, petty corruption, and a pretty brutal feudal society, and I think Mr. Mom has the makings of a great black comedy / action story.
I think characterization for the protagonist is very well done, he's believable as a young teenager, more so than a lot of other fiction's protagonists. We haven't seen the supporting cast enough to know how they will be, but it seems promising overall.
Style and grammar are good. The author writes cleanly, clearly, and concisely. My one critique is that there is a lot of world-building going on, which can really slow down the story. However, this is still only like 12 short chapters in, so hopefully the pacing will pick back up. The first chapter is an excellent example of how Xeln can really write action well.
Regarding some of the story tags and warnings, at least so far this hasn't been one of those stories that revels in it's own depravity. It depicts realistic humans, some of whom are dirtbags, corrupt, etc. But it also has people who are kind, self sacrificing, or just normal people in behavior. I think the author may have overstated things in the interest of caution.
Overall, I think this is a story to follow.
Ramdom57Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
As someone who reads a lot of litrpgs, there needs to a good hook to really draw me in. Mr. Mom has an intriguing but not unusual dystopian setting for the world, that is being built up. The MC is an orphan who is initially in charge of a group of thieving orphans, again well done but it's also something that is not uncommon.
Where Mr. Mom thrives is the MC's class. It's somewhat comparable, in my mind, to Fluff in that when you first read it, your first inclination is to wonder how useful this is going to be for the MC and why this idea for a class was specifically chosen. Now, though, it is clear that this class is both moving the plot forward, as it is taking the MC to places he otherwise could not go, and that is has a lot of thought behind it, both in how the class (and class system) is designed in general and in how the MC can be creative with it. The author is also smart to first address how the class handles combat, which I think would naturally be the first concern after hearing about it, in a way that is balanced between being OP and having drawbacks.
Very nice job!
bukvyrmRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
So i wasn't expecting much, i was mainly hooked by the final line of what is apparently the new synopsis: "After all, what can't a mother do?".
Turns out i was correct, the boy, who is a good kid but very much a 13 year old boy with basically no education and very few positive role models, has a totally OP Class, that initially he really hates and does pretty much everything to self-sabotage his ability to use it. This is writing gold i think. The author just needs to mine it. Now that the MC has started to realise he was actually kind of lucky with his class, we're starting in on the true growth arc now i think. Hopefully we continue with hilarious hijinks as skills don't do what you think they do and people in your mind make fun of you, and teens comment on middle-aged romance.
Btw author, is the evolved class of Mother going to be Mr. Mom? I think that would be totally fitting. The only title that has the same sort of meaning is Parental Guardian (as in, both mother and father), but that's not really in keeping with your class naming style. (heehe land shark).
The author has excessive authors notes that i wish he'd put under the spoiler tag like most other authors who have excessive notes, but when you actually get to the story it always pays off. Despite some reviews and author's rants about it, the story is actually very light compared to most litRPG/progression fantasy. Fits into the juvenile fiction category imo, even if the subjects that are danced around (eg. pedophiles who prey on needy orphaned children) are quite heavy, the treatment of them is very much the way you'd explain it to your 10-12 year-old so they'd know what to watch for but not have screaming nightmares or anything.
That said, this book is quite funny. The characters are really what makes it, and like any good JF or YA, the bad characters are very bad and the good characters are very good so you aren't stuck wishing the bad guy had won or at least survived, in the end (i'm looking at you, B
PussandraRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Good story thus far. The characters and their motivations have been believable. The dialogue, both internal and between characters, also makes sense. The story also moves at a consistent and story compatible pace. Though I did subtract one star just from personal taste. I tend to dislike periods of agency loss/slavery so if you're similar you may want to skim until the end of that period. Not sure when that will be.
PiratejackRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
The writing and grammer in the story is amazing.
But the writer writes about the existence of slavery and children slavery in the world. If you dislike abuse and children abuse it is very hard to ge through the first ten chapters. As the main character is forced into slavery at the age of 13 and will be abused by different people. The adults we have seen so far in the story just sit and watch while children are abused and make no effort to help them in anyway. While the one person that is supposed to help him is a total jerk to the main character and does not care at all about the main character through their actions. The reader is then told how this is all normal in the world and the main character had no chance to say otherwise when he was forced into this situation.
This book is very hard to read. If you don't like to read about abuse or children abuse don't read. But if you can tough it out I do think the story might be for you.
AtroRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
Taken purely at face value and never considering anything more deeply this an alright story with a few quick laughs. However, most of those laughs are premised heavily on "but that's for girls!".
And I'm ok with some of that, for a bit. The puns and interpretations of a mother class can be amusing for a bit. But honestly there's a lot here that pretty quickly makes this feel heavily dated even as it comes out.
If you let yourself have any level of thought, then the whole idea is pretty heavily dependent on their being man's work and woman's work. The MC doesn't have a father class because only mothers care about kids or something? A bit annoying given how often in the real world dads might actually have the police called on them for holding a kids hand across the street.
They portray slavery, highly effective slavery, saying it's just a part of the tale and setting. But the execution both removes the MC's agency, and also softballs the institution into a mildly harsh temporary job.
The writing early on is not great, and some spots are rougher than others. Struggling to convey the story in a way that draws the reader in and maintains cohesion. But it does improve at a good pace and you can expect that problem be gone before it becomes too bad so no real complaint there.
The MC as mentioned lacks depth, because he doesn't get to actually do anything but what he's told after the first scene, and what depth he does have is contridicted as often as not. We're told he is abnormal for his age because he distrust adults and at first that's what happens, and is even blatantly further foreshadowed. But shortly after he's doing and believing whatever others tell him including when that attempted foreshadowing said he wouldn't. We don't see much of the other characters, and they don't have much to them perhaps because of this.
So honestly, I was mostly enjoying this. But as the story went on and continued to just rely on the girly name of his class. And just smothered the earli