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17priya's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
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
5.0
mimosaeyes's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this! I like how meta and self-aware, how funny and irreverent it is. Sometimes the exaggerated humorous tone can be a little much, but it's not too grating. (Although interestingly, I have a feeling it might be if I were reading in English rather than Chinese.)
Like many people, I'm sure, I read the much more popular MDZS first, and so despite myself, that became my yardstick while reading this book. As a result, I do think that the development of Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu's relationship is not as deep as I might have liked. But I might have been fine with it if not for the mental comparisons I was making.
As someone who primarily communicates in English in her day to day life, and tends to be influenced by Western ideas about sexuality, reading gay Chinese fiction in Chinese means entering a different paradigm. See: terms like 攻 and 受 that define the dynamic in a way that can seem regressive. All that said, a content warning is still necessary here.
In the final chapter (excluding bonus chapters, even though some of these "bonus" chapters are frankly vital to the story), there is what amounts to a rape scene (dubcon at best) involving the two leads. It is violent and painful, and made me kind of wish I'd been reading a censored version of the novel. You can and should skip it if this description troubles you. MXTX's sex scenes are often troubling, I find.
I'll end on a more positive note. This is the author's first book, but you can already see her nascent talent - her range from cracky scenes to dramatic and emotional ones; her skill with withholding backstory so she can drop the bomb on you so it hits hard; her ability to make you gradually care more and more about characters without realising while it's happening. I'd still recommend this book: it's trashy and fun with just a little bit of structural sophistication.
Like many people, I'm sure, I read the much more popular MDZS first, and so despite myself, that became my yardstick while reading this book. As a result, I do think that the development of Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu's relationship is not as deep as I might have liked. But I might have been fine with it if not for the mental comparisons I was making.
As someone who primarily communicates in English in her day to day life, and tends to be influenced by Western ideas about sexuality, reading gay Chinese fiction in Chinese means entering a different paradigm. See: terms like 攻 and 受 that define the dynamic in a way that can seem regressive. All that said, a content warning is still necessary here.
In the final chapter (excluding bonus chapters, even though some of these "bonus" chapters are frankly vital to the story), there is what amounts to a rape scene (dubcon at best) involving the two leads. It is violent and painful, and made me kind of wish I'd been reading a censored version of the novel. You can and should skip it if this description troubles you. MXTX's sex scenes are often troubling, I find.
I'll end on a more positive note. This is the author's first book, but you can already see her nascent talent - her range from cracky scenes to dramatic and emotional ones; her skill with withholding backstory so she can drop the bomb on you so it hits hard; her ability to make you gradually care more and more about characters without realising while it's happening. I'd still recommend this book: it's trashy and fun with just a little bit of structural sophistication.
diorra's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-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? It's complicated
4.25
palvi00's review against another edition
3.0
This is the first book the author wrote and it can be seen. I read other books written by her, after this one, and she improved a lot.
This book was funny and interesting, although I didn't like a lot of characters.
BingHe has an interesting background but I don't always understand or agree with him.
I liked how Shen Qingqiu changed from the original and tried his best.
I enjoyed the extras about MoBei and Shang QingHua.
This book was funny and interesting, although I didn't like a lot of characters.
BingHe has an interesting background but I don't always understand or agree with him.
I liked how Shen Qingqiu changed from the original and tried his best.
I enjoyed the extras about MoBei and Shang QingHua.
goldkhelle's review against another edition
3.0
Me reí.
Ame la parte cómica del libro, no es forzado ni se siente fuera de lugar. Me gusto.
Posiblemente no lo volvería a leer, no es un tipo de libro que me gustaría volver a leer pero sin duda lo recomendaría si quieres algo ligero con que reírte (obvio debes saber un poco del mundo de la cultivación, si no, se pierden varios chistes)
Ame la parte cómica del libro, no es forzado ni se siente fuera de lugar. Me gusto.
Posiblemente no lo volvería a leer, no es un tipo de libro que me gustaría volver a leer pero sin duda lo recomendaría si quieres algo ligero con que reírte (obvio debes saber un poco del mundo de la cultivación, si no, se pierden varios chistes)
mpfan's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Contains: teacher/student, age difference, dubcon (last chapter)
This novel kind of reminds me of The Cruel Prince (Holly Black). The main relationship starts out with a bit of an antagonistic relationship, which... shifts into something else. Then, there's a scene where the "more powerful" character gets betrayed, but it somehow doesn't damage the relationship by too much. I didn't like The Cruel Prince too much, which might explain why I didn't like this novel a lot either. This story definitely doesn't pass the Bechdel test; the female characters are generally shallow, and their existence revolved around men.
This novel kind of reminds me of The Cruel Prince (Holly Black). The main relationship starts out with a bit of an antagonistic relationship, which... shifts into something else. Then, there's a scene where the "more powerful" character gets betrayed, but it somehow doesn't damage the relationship by too much. I didn't like The Cruel Prince too much, which might explain why I didn't like this novel a lot either. This story definitely doesn't pass the Bechdel test; the female characters are generally shallow, and their existence revolved around men.
However, the narrator was pretty funny, which made the story more enjoyable to read. I also like the idea of falling in love through the little things. There isn't a "moment" where things fall into place for SQQ/LBH, things grow over time. I'm also a sucker for the "dead man comes back to life to find the person who hated him didn't actually hate him" trope (I'm looking at you MDZS). This story reads as more of a parody/comedy, than something serious, so I wouldn't mind reading this book again, though probably not in English.
I read an English translation off of a slightly sketchy website. I did not read the extras.
Moderate: Sexual content
foesandlovers's review against another edition
3.0
3 STARS
Really cool premise, kinda genius actually. But since the love interest is so young in this one, there's no romance between him and the MC. Looking forward to the sequel's 3-year jump!
Really cool premise, kinda genius actually. But since the love interest is so young in this one, there's no romance between him and the MC. Looking forward to the sequel's 3-year jump!
mouse_drum's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
daisy923's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
PREFACE if there’s anyone that for some ungodly reason goes to my profile bc of this don’t expect many long reviews like this unless I have a fit of madness in which I can actually tolerate writing for longer than 5 minutes, this one is just here bc it’s basically copied and pasted from a previous fit of madness on my tumblr the night before I got surgery so it’s like??? I don’t normally write coherent things I have adhd and almost failed 11th grade English bc I had a breakdown during the poetry and personal essays units. Anyway:
I told myself i wouldnt read it bc i hate teacher/student relationships but I did end up caving and like read it so I’d at least have some idea what ppl were talking about bc I do like a lot of the fanart of it I see. Basically it was so incredibly mid that I couldn’t tell you like anyones names off the top of my head except the main ones, or like 60% of what happened and I just never had the motivation to write a review about it, but I do now ig and I love complaining/reviewing things so yeah.
I told myself i wouldnt read it bc i hate teacher/student relationships but I did end up caving and like read it so I’d at least have some idea what ppl were talking about bc I do like a lot of the fanart of it I see. Basically it was so incredibly mid that I couldn’t tell you like anyones names off the top of my head except the main ones, or like 60% of what happened and I just never had the motivation to write a review about it, but I do now ig and I love complaining/reviewing things so yeah.
Like tbh 80% of it was kind of boring or made me uncomfortable so really I did just skim a lot of it but I did have fun with the other 20% lol ig.. but to start with the bad.. like as i said I hate teacher student relationships so for really a lot of the bingqiu scenes I was skimming and pretending that all it was was just platonic. Like I do like sqq I think he’s funny and I know he’s too dense to figure out that he’s not straight but reading him call lbh (his 14 year old student!!!) a little sheep all the time and babying him and then knowing how it goes just! Makes me uncomfy! Like not everything has to be a romance and it would be much more interesting and not weird to me if this wasn’t a romance between them, even if they only get together when they’re both adults. And don’t even get me started on lbh. Like again. I like him. But he is just a walking red flag like I don’t think there’s anything wrong with writing characters who aren’t like. Healthy perfect people obviously but just idk I don’t like, think it’s cute or funny or whatever to have a character be like you’re mine and no one else’s and that possessiveness is just treated as a joke and something for sqq to just have to accept in the end. just kinda wish that were addressed. And a lot of the scenes that didn’t make me uncomfortable I was just so incredibly bored. If you asked me what happened in any given arc I could honestly not really tell you 80% of the time.
Now let’s get into the ✨misogyny ✨ like I know that’s a given with this genre and author but it’s still annoying. Like I was prepared to really like the little demon girl and the girl with the veil and the other girls but they were just like. There ig. Like HONESTLY….. the best female character imo was lbhs mom and she wasn’t even PRESENT in the actual story. But anyway. One thing that annoyed me is, that they only have one (1) female sect leader, and one (1) female head disciple in the 12 peaks, but they don’t even have the dignity of competing against men to gain these positions, mxtx does the cowardly thing and just makes them heads of an all female sect. All the other sects, which are presumably coed (tho iirc nyy is the ONLY female disciple of sqqs sect and I don’t remember there ever being any female disciples of Jiang cheng 1.0’s sect) are all led by men and their best disciples are boys. It’s so incredibly lazy and annoying. And this female sect isn’t even ranked highly on the peaks either. Like what’s the ranking criteria and why are they ranked so low? Huh? Mxtx? Like I get this is a satire of a really bad stallion novel but seriously? Mxtx? You couldn’t even include one female character in a position of power without also being a servant/subordinate/lower ranked to some dudes? even in sqq's fix-it version? Bc the whole point of the book is to fix pidw but neither mxtx or sqq as an extension of her seemed interested in fixing the rampant misogyny. Anyway and bc like that demon girl was
Also the constant feminizing of sqq. Like again. I know that’s a given with this genre but it’s still so annoying.
Now the WORST offender. That™️ sex (read: rape) scene. No. Bye. Completely skipped as soon as I realized what was going on. Spiritually barfing the entire time.
And to the things I liked. in no particular order:
1) lbhs family and backstory: I rly liked the story of his parents. not sure if some of this counts as spoilers but ill just put it all under spoilies just in case.
2) mobei jun and shang qinghua. Okay I went into this liking moshing from all the fanart and the idea of god marrying the dude he created in the image of the perfect guy while being a weird little hamster of a man himself is super funny, also the demon tits. anyway idk where I was going with that, but! I was rather disappointed that they were barely in the book.
3)
4) system and sqq - hilarious. Next.
5)
6)
7)
8) snek!! He was cute
9) and of course.. airplane bro and cucumber bro. I love them. Everything about them. They’re such clowns.
Anyway 4/10 at best probably bye
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Rape, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Death of parent