Light novels certainly don't lack for terrible families. Beleaguered protagonists often suffer at the hands of callous stepmothers, dreadful siblings, and neglectful fathers, no matter what the genre. The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside by My Fiancé and Sold to Another Kingdom is no exception. Although it plays with the established formula a little – the heroine Philia is abused and neglected by her parents, but her younger sister Mia isn't part of the torture. Mia adores Philia and is completely unaware of their parents' mistreatment of her, believing their lies that Philia chose to train herself to the bone and live a life of deprivation to become a better saint. Foolish, yes, but Mia is a teenager who trusts her parents because, in her life, they've given her no reason not to. She's young enough to make it at least believable to allow the story to work.

She's also not an idiot, which becomes abundantly clear as the story progresses. The novel is divided between the sisters' perspectives and first-person narration, something that works surprisingly well, given that author Kōki Fuyutsuki isn't great at differentiating between character voices. Although the book doesn't swap between narrators on a chapter-by-chapter basis, it still works out that each sister gets roughly half of the novel, with a couple of love interests getting their say-so sprinkled throughout.

Philia's narration sets the stage for most of the major events. She and Mia are from a family known for producing “saints,” spiritually powerful women who can help prevent monster and demon attacks and keep a kingdom healthy using magic. Their aunt was the previous saint of their kingdom, and Philia took over upon her retirement. But Philia's parents, for reasons she assumes were for her own good, subjected her to cruel and rigorous training methods, ensuring that she was rarely home to interact with them or Mia. Although Philia assumed that all saints went through similar training and that hers may have been a little more vicious because she wasn't smart or talented enough, we readers can see fairly quickly that she's been fed a line of bull. In one of the strongest elements of the writing, Philia casually mentions things that are major red flags to us, such as the way she learned to go for a week without food or sleep or the fact that she's one of the only people who can fluently read ancient script and cast spells based on it. Philia has been so beaten down with the belief that she's not and never will be good enough that it would be depressing to read if she was more self-aware. As it stands, we're allowed to feel relief and happiness for her every time someone recognizes her worth in her new country.

Mia, unlike her parents, adores Philia, and after Philia's departure, she quickly realizes what her sister was subjected to. The story then becomes two parallel narratives: Philia working with her new home to protect it and as many other kingdoms as she can with her magic and Mia working to depose Philia's former fiancé and get their homeland back on track. The sisters' affection for each other makes both of these possible, and it's frankly refreshing to see such a solid sibling relationship in a genre (and title) that more often goes the other way. While Mia's half of the story holds more tension – we know Philia's up to her task, but Mia's relies on working around bad people – the way the two intertwine is one of the strongest aspects of the book.

Still, this isn't particularly brilliantly written. As I said before, there isn't a lot of difference in narrative voice no matter whose perspective we're reading, and this becomes an issue when we switch mid-chapter without a subheading telling us who's talking. Philia does at times come across as a bit too dim to be the genius we're told she is, and the male characters are barely developed, which undercuts the romantic subplot in Philia's story. The worldbuilding is also a little undercooked, making it feel more generic than it needs to, although some readers will be relieved to know that the author never resorts to using RPG mechanics to mitigate (or “mitigate”) that. There's nary a level or stat screen to be found, and in today's light novel landscape, that makes up for a multitude of other writing sins.

The Too-Perfect Saint's first volume feels largely complete. There is at least one more volume slated to come out, so the story clearly isn't over, but you could comfortably read this book as a one-and-done. With a very readable translation and art that's pretty enough, this is an easy read. It has its issues, but for something to just enjoy without glaring flaws to distract, you could do worse than to pick this up.