Btw I just finished devil venerable last night and had SO much fun! This ask is an excuse for you to share what your favorite parts of it are/make a pitch for more people to read it 💜💜💜
so so so so so happy to hear you enjoyed it !!!! 🧡🧡
this is not going to make much sense but as I've said before the main points that truly made this novel so great to me are:
1) the excellent balance it keeps with its different tones, it is very much a comedy. Until it isn't. and there's a sense of care and respect there, to the characters, to the story itself, to the audience—the way Cyan Wings manages each shift, they always makes sense, it never feels jarring.
2) the characters, they're all so good all so distinct, no blurring at the edges, no boring filler to pad the cast. they're unhinged fucking clowns but they all have Something, and they all work with each other so brilliantly. the dynamics Cyan Wings chooses to explore are fun and deep and never on the page just for the hell of it, these people learn from each other—for better or for worse, depending on the point of view lmao
3) i think this is a refreshing take to the "what do you mean my life is a book?" type of story, wenren è is the perfect main character for it. his narration is delightful and his point of view is just so funny, he really does just want to know.
4) there's flipping of tropes and metanarrative and someone gifts wenren è the moon and women women women and a whole demonic sect coming together to grab a baili qingmiao by the shoulders to tell her "girl stand up!!!!" and metanarrative and true curiosity and a skeleton woman and the importance of having a strong support system no matter what shape it takes and oh the metanarrative and the shocking disbelief in being loved back and found family except it's not found so much as forcefully cut out of another story and oh the delicious metanarrative, have i mentioned the metanarrative elements?
i've said once that this book wants you to have fun while reading, wants you to have a good time, but it also very much tells a story and most importantly cares about the story it tells and the characters it needs to tell it.