This was such a sweet story. I can't wait to re read it after KK's done translating it because some of the jokes were definitely lost with the MTL but the overall light hearted, sweet and funny tone came across well. The supporting cast was a trip and really helped make the novel a delight to read. Highly recommend for those who love BL and want to read something that genuinely loves it too.
The more I read of this, the more tired I was off the main relationship. They're sickeningly sweet. It's too sweet. And the side couple is almost a complete replica. The exact same personalities and just as disgustingly sweet. There's no real variation.
I loved the relationships between the entire band and that the author really didn't skimp on showing them interact with each other and be a full group. I also really enjoyed Pei Tingsong, who had all the hallmarks of the stereotypical rich, arrogant gong, but was tempered and made far more real by those moments where you could tell that yep, this was definitely a 20 year old boy trying to look cool and is actually a bit of a derp. It's still very a much a MC and ML are so perfect and so beautiful and so good at (just about) everything they do but it has a bit more depth than some of these novels do and a very strong message about pursuing dreams.
There were a lot of funny and entrainment moments in the novel and I got pretty choked up a couple of times and yet, for some reason that I genuinely can't put my finger on and articulate, around chapters 69-100 or so, it was a slog. I was literally forcing myself to pick this book back up. So as much as I overall liked it and what it was doing, it's down two stars for being a struggle to read for a not inconsiderable portion of the book.
I'm so baffled. I've read so many stories where adopted siblings marry and it's perfectly okay, even embraced, but apparently marrying the brother of your dead husband is incest...
DNFed because literally everything about this book is a steaming pile of crap.
Thinly veiled excuse to sexualize a child, rampant pedophilia, and textbook grooming of a minor by an adult. I genuinely don’t care if the MC is a 30 yo in a child’s body. He doesn’t act like it, literally no one else is aware of it (especially the ML who gropes him constantly) and the book spends a lot of time focusing on sexualizing how cute and young and adorable he is. The ML controls every aspect of his life, to include what food he is and isn’t allowed to eat and blatantly violates his boundaries until he gives up fighting him and tbh, I genuinely felt sorry for most of the people the MC was trying to get revenge on in this life because the situation was so wildly different this time around and tbh most of the things they did to him in his previous life seemed to be consequences of his own shitty actions and they were nice enough people this time around, being punished for something they haven’t done.
Excuse me while I go throw up a little and hate myself for ever even starting this.