neixin's reviews
189 reviews

this man really ran to work after having a near-death experience huh….somebody help him </3

this was such a unique and entertaining take on an isekai with some great commentary about work culture in a capitalist system. the plot is intriguing so far as well. also considering the fuck or die trope was used—a trope i generally vehemently hate because of the slew of consent issues inherently baked into it—i actually think the sex scene was handled pretty well. not perfectly, but it still did a better job of establishing consent than a lot of other bl works, and it avoided most of the usual side-eye-worthy trappings, so like, i’ll take what i can get.

the horror elements were fascinating—disregarding the fact that the parasitic nature of the fungus did, in fact, trigger my health anxiety and nearly make me put the book down for good (that’s on me)—but i wish the characters and their relationships with each other had been explored further so that i could actually get invested. like, there’s enough there to make them feel like more than just vessels through which we can follow the story, but not enough to make me actually care about them, unfortunately.

i also have some mixed feelings about the ruritanian romance approach to pronouns. on the one hand, i always appreciate the seamless and respectful inclusion of different pronouns, but on the other hand, why not just use an existing language that has gender-neutral pronouns instead of inventing a whole country and language when everything else is so firmly rooted in reality (geopolitically, at least)…..

shen qiao my new bestie shen qiao <3