Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

Heaven Official's Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu (Novel) Vol. 3 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

8 reviews

nefariousbee's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

loved this one, it finally feels like we're getting to the heart of things and I love it
heaven officia 's blessing's pacing is definitely a lot slower in general. I suspect it will pay off bu not everyone likes to stick around to see it and I get that

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Genocide, Miscarriage, Xenophobia, Child death, Death, Gore, Pregnancy, Sexism, War, Pandemic/Epidemic, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

chrisljm's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Classism, Cursing, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Violence, War, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Pandemic/Epidemic, Pregnancy, Self harm, Sexism, Murder, Abortion, and Blood

Moderate: Suicide, Torture, Xenophobia, Alcohol, and Sexual content

Minor: Rape

iellv's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Child abuse, War, Body horror, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Misogyny

Minor: Rape

wickedgrumpy's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

Well, this one starts with a flashback and to be honest Qi Rong might need three most annoying character so my enjoyment level when he was on page was low.  However, it picked up and we got some little nuggets to tie the past to the present and then we transitioned to the present timeline.

The first section got quite dreary and dark and Xie Lian had a lot of growing as a new god.  That juxtaposed with the second half of the book that was quite comedic and humorous to the point it was close to slapstick was a little jarring but very effective in defining the massive character change that Xie Lian had gone through in his 800+ years.

I'm thoroughly enjoying myself and will shortly be reading the next installment.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Confinement, Cursing, Sexual harassment, Torture, War, Abandonment, Ableism, Abortion, Alcohol, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Pandemic/Epidemic, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Classism, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Kidnapping, Medical content, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexism, Death, Gore, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Rape, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Vomit, and Xenophobia

veraamber's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Body horror, Medical content, Terminal illness, Miscarriage, and War

Moderate: Pregnancy, Violence, Child death, and Xenophobia

Minor: Stalking, Murder, and Suicide

buplupblup's review

adventurous dark emotional sad slow-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

5.0

if they don't light 3000 lanterns and build a temple for you are they really worth it?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, Xenophobia, Death, Gore, and Self harm

Minor: Miscarriage

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tinyjude's review

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The story continues by giving insight into Xianle's past and fall, as well as Xie Lian's attempts to save his people and resolve the conflict between the draught-affected victims and the wealthy elitist capital people. As a consequence, in comparison it is the sadder book of the three published. What at first begins as pure hearted actions to aid the victims, ends up turning his people against him and destroying him. It is very depressive,

although I wish he had been initially on the victim's side instead of allowing the rich and corrupt to antagonize the migrants for their poverty and desperation. Even though they did some wrong stuff, they were on the right and he should have been on their side.

3,000 lanterns??? Man, that is dedicated love. He is such an endearing liar through the volumes akdjs but the flowers he had left in the shrines... was actually the most touching moment in their story for me.

Also, this series needs more women. Often times it appears like women are only seductive and concerned about their beauty which is cool, but we need more variety of women here. There are rarely any important female character (only 2) whose traits aren't just their looks or sex appeal. Yeah, this is related to the cave scene which I'm not a big fan of.

As a side note: Shi Qingxuan, please, genderfluid majesty, marry me. The more they appear, the more I adore them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm and Xenophobia

Moderate: Death of parent, Classism, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, War, and Child death

Minor: Abortion

vigil's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

i actively disliked reading 45-50% of this book. 

i’ve narrowed down my main issue with tgcf. it feels like, and practically written like multiple different stories, yet the author tries to cram them into one while they go down kicking and screaming, yet can’t truly make either side satisfying enough. mxtx has good ideas and excellent character work, but ideas aren’t enough, especially when they’re drawn out too long, or not long enough. this book is trying to a mix of plot driven and character driven, but the plot is too shaky in its execution that it had to carried by the characters in an unnatural manner, as this wasn’t meant to happen occur in the first place.

that’s why, for me, once we reach the second half, some of the romance between hualian rings hollow, like the author is making up for everything she didn’t do in the first half.

i liked the kiss, (seriously. more of them please.) but it really felt like “sorry i put you through that agonizingly long flashback arc, here’s a kiss!”

and the first half is just simply not intriguing enough for me. any vague interest i had in xie lian’s past was immediately dashed once i had to read 200+ of the longest pages in my life about it. not because it was sad, because it was a drag to get through.

the side characters in this are more prominent but we still have next to zero for the mains aside from xie lian.

and no, hua cheng’s tragic backstory as hong-er does not suddenly make him into a fully realized character. he’s just a guy we barely know with a sad life! get in line!

this just. really needed an editor. i dread to think what the extra 100k words that are planning to be added will be like in a novel that is already bloated and overwritten.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Violence, War, Xenophobia, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Miscarriage, and Murder