i like words a normal amount

Now let's talk about a book that evoked so many emotions in me.

First of, this book is a wife chasing novel, which is a sub-genre of danmei that describes a story where one partner treats the other badly or ignores them. The neglected partner finally leaves or gives up. The first partner then feels deep regret and has to suffer, grovel, and chase hard to win them back.

Usually this means shou chasing.

I think maybe this book was meant to be a sort of subversion of that troupe, because I always felt that it should've been a gong-chasing novel instead.

THAT GONG DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG.

Spoilers

The story starts with the shou going back in time after dying. After which they decide to turn a new leaf and no longer become an "obsessive shou" which you know good for them and all, I'm all for healing and moving on. But my issue with the shou was that they refused to see where they were wrong or even simply just see their gong's point of view.

Yes they were being manipulated by the empress dowager, yes being cooped up in that palace unable to leave, surrounded by people who want to kill you must've been terrible their mental health.

And i really wanted to support them, i really did. But a lot of the issues stemmed from them simply unable to think about any one other than themself.

I started the novel very sympathetic towards them , but later on i realized that the "love" for the gong that they supposedly had in their previous lifetime was extremely superficial. They didn't understand or even try to understand the gong until they saw the gong actively try to ruin themselves to be loved by the shou.

They didn't know much about the gong, about their feelings, and then went around for half of the book complaining because they felt their love wasn't reciprocated? What love! All you did was cause him pain.

And the gong was in such a vulnerable state, because guess what, they're an emperor trapped in a palace surrounded by people who are trying to kill them. They were an orphan, who inherited the throne at a very young age and had to grow up early. The shou was the only person they could depend on. But somehow everything's his fault?

EVEN THE SHOU'S FATHER CARED MORE FOR THE EMPEROR THAN THE SHOU

I realized a while ago that, i never sit down with the books i read and think about them and after reading them i never think about them again. So to remedy that I'm going to give reviews on the books I'm reading from now on.

Art thou Ailing -Ru Si Wo Wen

This is a love story between Chu mingyun, the grand commandant of Great Xia, and Su shiyu the Chief Censor. Its a rivals to lovers story. Cmy and Ssy are the most powerful people in the kingdom after the emperor. Cmy controls the military officers and Ssy controls the civil officers. This causes the court to be split into two, the Chu and Su factions.

The story start when Chu mingyun gets the brilliant idea to seduce Su shiyu in order to befuddle him as regards his true intentions.

This is as much as i can say without spoiling.

My personal comments

To me, the story was okay. Really nothing more than that. The story itself is part romance, part politics and scheming. The political scheming is okay, the romance was okay. I did like chu mingyun, his character was very well done, motivations, character devt etc.

I know exactly what this says about me and i don't like it