Not a Recommendation: Accidentally a Shrine Priestess & General Musings

I just want to point out it is woman moment: the book.

Would you like to hear the protagonist worry about nothing, then get over it, then blather about nothing for paragraphs, until she starts worrying about nothing again?

Boy do I have a story for you!

Chapter: "I lit the lamps."
Next chapter: "I lit more lamps. These ones were outside!"
Not a joke. Though it is funny. Naturally, domestic tasks loom large in importance, for women.  

Based on the ratings, it seems like other women eat this shit up.

"This is completely, totally, fundamentally, profoundly, utterly pointless. I love it! I'll take two!"

Women are sensitive, see, and don't like being uncomfortably poked by a point. Especially not a sharp point. Thus, if you want to write for women....well, look, all women are perverts, so write smut. Excuse me, 'erotica,' which means the scenes are 'steamy' instead of vulgar. If you're too blunt she'll feel like a slut for liking it. If you don't write smut, get rid of the plot. Plots have too many points; women don't like them.

I especially like the part where she forgot the wyvern was supposed to be creepy just the previous day and decided it was cute instead. Women: don't even know what they themselves are feeling, let alone thinking. Don't worry if you can't figure it out. It's not like she's hiding it from you on purpose. Only the worst kind of woman is genuinely upset about it. 

If you offer a woman something and she doesn't like it, it's perfectly acceptable to offer it to her again later. Her opinion has no basis and thus it might, without basis, change. If she gets mad at you for trying, just ignore it. It's okay, she's also going to forget about it momentarily.

You might even get hit with the 'you always' line, but remember, most women live in an eternal present. She doesn't remember the past, nor does she imagine the future. So, yes, for all of eternity as she perceives it, meaning right now this instant, you have "always" done whatever thing you're currently doing. Most women don't really have social skills and can't convert her momentary emotional impression into something that makes sense to anyone that isn't her, so you have to do that for her. Much as you have to do many other things for her, starting with opening jars. 

"After I lit the lamps, it was scary! I was so worried! It turned out fine though, and then I lit more lamps!" Riveting stuff.

I suspect the primary reason women have trouble making friends is this comical dearth of social skills. She expects you to figure out what she's thinking because she sure as fuck doesn't know. Other women have it easier, since they're thinking the same thing, whatever it is....assuming they're practically identical.
Bit of a catch-22 there too. To figure out what a woman is thinking the easy way, you have to also be a woman, feeling the same thing, but also be significantly wiser. Meaning not identical. Meaning likely to feel something different.
It's difficult for women to even commiserate. If they manage to bitch together without offending each other, you should congratulate them and offer kudos, because that was genuinely an accomplishment. They went uphill both ways to get there.

Since women can't figure out what they themselves are thinking and feeling, they can't tell their friend, which means the friend can't get to know them. And vice-versa. Meaning....not really friends, now are they? Except, of course, in certain extreme cases which invalidate one of these assumptions.

 

"Great, more dry reading."
Pretty rich coming from you, Shrineling.

Perhaps women like obedience because, having no idea what she's thinking, it's a lot easier to just do what she's told by someone else, and let them do the thinking. Plus it helps her be identical to other obedient women, and thus less unable to be friends with them. 

My second favourite part is how unskilled chores like lighting lamps are given narrative weight like they're epic battles. "Now for the real test...lighting a bigger lamp! DUN DUN DUNNNNN!" (Spoiler: she's fine, she knows how to light the big lamp.) It's not slice of life, it's the legendary journey of the Chosen Sweeper, a vicious campaign waged with the mighty Broom of Ages against the dark lord Dust Bunny. "Oh no, the Chosen Sweeper swept enough to get tired and need a rest! Is this the end? Will she ever recover? Find out next time!"

The tension! The suspense! How many lamps will she manage to light today! Still not joking, just exaggerating a little! She's out of lamps because they're all lit, but, in a shocking twist, there are potted plants! They're nice plants!

My third favourite part was pointed out to me by someone lost in the mists of time...
Women don't really earn adulthood. It just happens. They are granted their important fitness-related skills from on high. Thus, stories by women often have magical abilities just appear out of nowhere, basically as a metaphor for growing tits. All the magic is "natural" and "intuitive," because that reflects how their important skills work in their own life. Except cooking, which is always a tremendous accomplishment both for the woman who learns and the woman who teaches it. "What, you mean I don't just know what to throw in the pot and how long to cook it? What is this nonsense, and how could you do this to me?"

Finally, I would like to point out how the author isn't capable of putting herself in the shoes of her own protagonist. "I don't particularly miss my parents, therefore she doesn't miss her parents." A woman who got isekai'd solo would freak all the way out. Her genes will interpret it as being bridenapped but her new husband was killed by a wild animal and now she's lost deep in the woods. More often than not they'll pass out from hyperventilation, and would die from it if they didn't fall unconscious. She would not go, "You know, I miss coffee. (Because I'm physically addicted to caffeine.) Gee the folks around here are pretty nice, isn't that swell. I think I'll make friends with them!" It is rather more likely she would be a broken shell for years.
"I'm imagining her situation!" No you're not, you're looking at a picture of her situation and continuing to feel what you were already feeling.
I think occasionally you find women capable of empathy, but it's easily unicorn territory. Never expect her to escape her own head, you will only be disappointed. 

"While Sophie followed Acacia back to the bakery, she also kept an eye out for strange mana wisps like she had seen the last time she was in Caulis."
You can tell Sophie is a Good Girl because she desperately follows up on every negligible detail. Very Diligent. It's not just monkeybrains availability bias or anything, no ma'am!
You have to act just like Sophie, or you won't be a Good Girl like she is!

"She was starting to think that it had been some sort of fluke after all."
Or, in English instead of womanese: "Things that don't happen every day only happen once ever, so I forgot all about it."