Reviews with content warning for Rape - The Husky & His White Cat Shizun: Erha He Ta De Bai Mao Shizun (Novel) Vol. 1

This is my first "lengthy review", but in all fucking honesty, I was recommended this with the premise that it would be heartbreaking and soul shattering. What did it end up being? An author basically romanticizing pedophilic behaviour with the excuse of "oh, but this guy has the mind of a 30 year old but he's in the body of a 15 year old". And somehow, THAT excuse is supposed to make Chu Wanning seem like a "better" man for liking a fucking child? I won't even get into how according to this author, the bodies of 15 year olds are "MATURE" as stated in some quote from the second half of this book. Are we even gonna discuss how fucking normalized this genre of "romance" is? This book was also so long for no reason with so much useless backstory for random characters who will probably never appear again. In the end, what I'd like to say is: stop labelling pedophilia as romance. End of story, end of review.

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dragon_lord's review

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I was unsure about this book when I first picked it up. I found the main character to be stuck-up, self-centered, and, quite frankly, an asshole. However, the magnificent writing and wonderfully handled character arcs quickly won me over. Within a few hundred pages, Mo Ran went from being insufferable to one of my favorite characters of all time.
Volume One of The Husky and His White Cat Shizun is a perfect introduction to the series, giving readers a perfect snapshot into the character and plot arcs that follow it. Despite clearly introducing its main character as what any reasonable person would consider to be an irredeemable tyrant in the first chapter, the story still forces the reader to empathize with Mo Ran to the point where they have more faith in him than he does in himself.
Throughout the series, his many crimes are not shied away from, but rather are embraced, using the complexity they create to ask thought-provoking questions on the nature of redemption— who deserves it, who can achieve it, and when a person can truly be considered redeemed— and intersperses them with commentary on accountability, the assumptions we make about other people, and the black-and-white nature of the criminal justice system. However, because it tackles these topics head-on, the trigger warnings are no joke. The series contains numerous graphic depictions of torture, death, and rape. If you think that you can handle that, then the story is more than worth it.
Husky has to be my favorite book series of all time. Beneath all of the darkness and tragedy is one of the greatest depictions of moral grayness that I have ever seen, a captivating world, and deep characters, all wrapped inside beautiful prose. One of only three books (at time of writing) to ever make me cry, Husky will grab onto your heart and refuse to let go.

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paradicsomleves's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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bumblebeefarts's review

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adventurous dark funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

I wish I could read this in the original Chinese because the translation leaves a lot to be desired. There doesn’t seem to have been any effort made to make the translation enjoyable to read. That on top of cardboard flat characters made for a pretty bad read.

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