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4.38 AVERAGE
4.38 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Cannibalism
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
F*ck, I don't know how to rate this.
This story is NOT for everyone. It is rife with dark, problematic content and trigger warnings up the wazoo. It's also not fully translated yet so I read a good chunk of it thanks to some kind souls that fixed up a machine translation along with some chapters (the extra painful ones) that were translated by humans.
Beyond that, holy fuck, this was intense. Probably the longest book I have ever read in my entire life (word count of the first book is about 200,000+ words according to a tumblr post). I feel like someone stabbed me in the chest, scooped out my heart with a melon baller then closed me up with dental floss. I had never read anything where the pain, the A N G S T was so great, I thought I was going to die from all the crying. My poor Chu Wanning.
This is truly not for the faint of heart. There were many things that I don't think were executed well, but others (like the side characters) were really well written. When Meatbun does romance, they do it SO well but then they stab you with pain. It made for a very jarring experience. Romance novels have spoiled me. Let me enjoy the happy moments for longer than a minute, FFS! I did enjoy the development of Mo Ran 2.0 and Chu Wanning. It gave me all the feels. Taxianjun is a moron but I can't hate him too much.
It's a ride.
This story is NOT for everyone. It is rife with dark, problematic content and trigger warnings up the wazoo. It's also not fully translated yet so I read a good chunk of it thanks to some kind souls that fixed up a machine translation along with some chapters (the extra painful ones) that were translated by humans.
Beyond that, holy fuck, this was intense. Probably the longest book I have ever read in my entire life (word count of the first book is about 200,000+ words according to a tumblr post). I feel like someone stabbed me in the chest, scooped out my heart with a melon baller then closed me up with dental floss. I had never read anything where the pain, the A N G S T was so great, I thought I was going to die from all the crying. My poor Chu Wanning.
This is truly not for the faint of heart. There were many things that I don't think were executed well, but others (like the side characters) were really well written. When Meatbun does romance, they do it SO well but then they stab you with pain. It made for a very jarring experience. Romance novels have spoiled me. Let me enjoy the happy moments for longer than a minute, FFS! I did enjoy the development of Mo Ran 2.0 and Chu Wanning. It gave me all the feels. Taxianjun is a moron but I can't hate him too much.
It's a ride.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief
Moderate: Suicide, Cannibalism
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, Murder
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
There's so much to be said about this novel, with it's extreme length and extremely long list of trigger warnings. However, despite it's length I found it went really quickly. I usually read at least 10 chapters at a sitting, often starting to read it intending just to read a short time and then it would be 4-6 hours later and where did my life go?
Definitely obey the warnings because there is very dark and triggering stuff in this one, but also it's honestly, IMO, so worth it because this is just a tour de force of writing and plotting. Meatbun (the author) has incredible skill at weaving their plot in such a way that characters and plot and history are built up to the reader gradually, only to drop anvils of reveals on your head later that just make you want to die. And every single time I was gasping and tearing up and staring blankly into space like ...what.... I thought to myself "I should have known. I should have seen that coming." And yet I didn't.
This book is a LOT of angst. And normally I'm not an angst fan. Angst scares me. But I've realize through reading this (and some other recent media experiences) that it's not so much that I don't like angst, as I don't like angst handled badly. I don't like angst without a purpose. I don't like angst for angst's sake. I don't like angst that just piles onto the reader more and more with no relief in sight.
This book is so painful in so many places because of how exquisitely the angst is planned. The angst is not bad things out of nowhere or misunderstandings without reason or logic. It's natural consequences of character actions. It's misunderstandings based on deep character motive. It's chickens coming home to roost bearing all the knives. It's beautiful in the way classical tragedy can be beautiful. But even so we do get a lot of lightness in between. There are long sections of fluff and humor in between the most painful bits, so it's not a slog.
So I'm very very glad I read it and this book and its characters are going to take me a while yet to finish processing, as well as staying with me for a long time.
Definitely obey the warnings because there is very dark and triggering stuff in this one, but also it's honestly, IMO, so worth it because this is just a tour de force of writing and plotting. Meatbun (the author) has incredible skill at weaving their plot in such a way that characters and plot and history are built up to the reader gradually, only to drop anvils of reveals on your head later that just make you want to die. And every single time I was gasping and tearing up and staring blankly into space like ...what.... I thought to myself "I should have known. I should have seen that coming." And yet I didn't.
This book is a LOT of angst. And normally I'm not an angst fan. Angst scares me. But I've realize through reading this (and some other recent media experiences) that it's not so much that I don't like angst, as I don't like angst handled badly. I don't like angst without a purpose. I don't like angst for angst's sake. I don't like angst that just piles onto the reader more and more with no relief in sight.
This book is so painful in so many places because of how exquisitely the angst is planned. The angst is not bad things out of nowhere or misunderstandings without reason or logic. It's natural consequences of character actions. It's misunderstandings based on deep character motive. It's chickens coming home to roost bearing all the knives. It's beautiful in the way classical tragedy can be beautiful. But even so we do get a lot of lightness in between. There are long sections of fluff and humor in between the most painful bits, so it's not a slog.
So I'm very very glad I read it and this book and its characters are going to take me a while yet to finish processing, as well as staying with me for a long time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Cannibalism, Murder
i felt every possible human emotion reading this.............God tier