A review by wardenred
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi (Novel) Vol. 1 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

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

3.0

Attempt the impossible.

A few years ago I really, really tried to get into the tv show based on this book because so many of my friends were gushing about it. Long story short, I just couldn’t vibe with it despite trying. Recently, the same friends started talking about it again, and about the fanfic for it that they were reading and writing, and the fanfic sounded interesting enough that I thought, hey, maybe I should tackle the canon again to be in the know. Maybe it will work for me better in book form.

It… both did and didn’t work for me better in book form. The super amateurish translation sadly didn’t help—the resulting prose was of such low quality and full of such weird turns of phrase that it was legitimately hard to focus on reading. Instead of getting immersed into the story, I kept poking at odd sentences and/or thinking, “I wonder what the actual author meant to say here and what the effect would be if I could read it in Chinese“ (sadly, I don’t know Chinese). 

But despite that, when I did manage to get immersed, it was pretty good? Wei Wuxian was an entertaining and interesting protagonist to follow, and I was fascinated by the worldbuilding. And the plotty bits were seriously good. Actually, in a weird turn of events, I was more interested in all the external/setting-focused plottiness than the relationship developments, especially when it came to the main relationship. Apparently, no matter the medium, the hype and I are just. Completely on different pages with this story. It’s strange, because the tropes here are the ones I usually enjoy, and the dynamic should be pulling me in, but every time the book focused on Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, I was like, “Yeah… cool… can we another evil ghost encounter or something now?“

Guess it’s one of those cases where a popular story just doesn’t resonate with me enough, but I’m still glad I gave it a chance and I’m actually interested in picking up some other danmei books now.
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