vigil's reviews
189 reviews

such an improvement over the first volume. this actually feels more like the story we should've been getting from the start as it is actually a story. the pacing, plot lines, and character exploration is much better in this installment rather than the previous. 

it (mostly) moves past the arduous set up of volume one, while still introducing new plot threads and character information in an organic matter. this one had an actual plot within it that felt like a main story, even when it traveled in different directions. we begin to fill in the outline of xie lian, though much of hua cheng is still left a mystery. i will say it was nice to see him in his element in

his domain, ghost city

the side characters are also finally important to the narrative and one actually kicks off another portion of the plot, that is very illuminating for our protagonist, and previously unseen antagonist

green ghost, qi rong.

the misogynistic undertones that are present in the first book are largely absent from this one thankfully, but that's only really because there's no women here. 

the reason for it getting a 4.0 is the fact that for the last hundred pages of this book (and the next TWO hundred pages of volume three) we're relegated to a clumsily introduced flashback arc. my issue with mo xiang tong xiu's writing is that she will introduce concepts very early on, and when she suddenly decides its relevant to the plot, she shoves you backwards into at least around a hundred pages of flashback exposition, and then immediately tries to pick backup where she left off. this doesn't mean i don't enjoy the flashbacks themselves per se, just i don't enjoy their ham-fisted inclusion, and often unnecessary  and odd length. too detailed on things that don't matter, and a paragraph of exposition on things that do.

see the beginning conversation during arc two with the state preceptor that could have been cut back, along with the descriptions of xie lian's clothes vs mentioning how he ascended for the first time in a short paragraph at the very end of the volume.

the nature of most web novels is that when they move to trad publishing they could use professional editors. mxtx is absolutely no exception to that, and i'm really beginning to understand why this is eight books long. 

as a final, seemingly everpresent disclaimer, translation and related issues abound. please stop saying xie lian didn't know whether to laugh or cry, i got it the first six times.  

i enjoyed this one more than the first volume (which i still really liked) because it feel like that after the build up of vol one, it had finally begun to find its footing. this volume is defintely faster-paced, along with having more action sequences to go with it, and overall has more plot events compared to the first one. it still has the downtime moments of domesticity, but never loses the momentum it set up at the start. it answered some questions, and brought up about fifteen more, and i'm interested to see which ones will be solved. it also seems that every volume ends on, if not a cliffhanger, then a suspenseful note. 

the art is beautiful as always but it is also why it falls shy of five stars, as it has multiple panels where the coloring is too dark to truly make out anything. 

it was cute. which is the only emotion i'm really feeling coming out of this. i read it really quickly, the story is blunt and uncomplex, the characters are engaging enough for me to keep turning the page, the prose is plain and easily understood, if not rather bland and awkward, etc etc. there's nothing quite wrong with this first volume, but there's not too much right with it either.

it is the first volume in the series and it's aggressively obvious. the entire volume is set up. setting up the world, the characters, the plot, everything is just beginning. if we began in a place where the main couple is already or soon to be established, this would be the flashback b-plot. the actual plot itself is a bit akin to taking two video game side quests, and making them your main story: plot events that are meant to serve your characters and the world their in, not necessarily further the narrative (though in this case i do suspect there will be callbacks and tie-ins later on, hence the flashback b-plot comparison) or to be the most engaging by itself. this did get a bit irritating in the banyue arc, which dragged on for longer than it needed to.  

the characters are engaging enough, but everything in this series seems to move glacially, so we learn them better much slower than you'd might like, if at all. we have an messy outline of xie lian by the end, but by no means the full picture. san lang

aka hua cheng

is still largely a mystery. the side characters are present, but not especially noteworthy. 

this is probably the mxtx work with the most misogynistic undertones (at least in this volume) with the crazy overbearing jealous scorned woman trope, who takes her anger at a man out on other woman, and the near constant description of nearly every woman of prominence as ugly, which is especially noteworthy because there isn't many of them. 

i have checked out the next two volumes from my library and i will be continuing with the series, but my first impression of tgcf so far is that it's aggressively fine. it's a slow burn in everything, character, plot, relationships, and unfortunately, this first volume was a spark that didn't really lead anywhere. i could tell you what happened, but outside of the relationship inception and further development, not much did so it'd be pretty useless. i don't think they chose a bad place to cut off per se, but that the start of the web novel so far is more concerned with set up, exposition, and info-dump, and didn't bother to leave room for much else. i'm aware things will get meatier later on, but for right now, it has nothing to really go against or for it. 

as is standard with mxtx translations by seven seas, translation issues abound. they are not as present or severe as the ones in mdzs, but they have not disappeared.

overall, i'd say if you already like mxtx, go for it, but if you're a newcomer to her or danmei in general, pick up something else. tgcf is longer than the bible and the first volume doesn't give you much incentive to continue with the rest of it, because it has very little meat to it, and relies on established tropes of the genre. 

a bit of a slow start to this one! if you don't mind or enjoy domesticity in your supernatural books i'd recommend it. i will say, for this volume at least, is primarily concerned with establishing the dynamic between the creature "teacher" and shiva, their day to day routine, banter, and their general ways of interacting. for the beginning and middle sections of the book, the supernatural fantasy element is largely implemented in undertones and implications, or small scenes peppered throughout. towards the late middle of the book, the fantasy portion ratchets up in comparison to the earlier parts. this is where some darker elements that were hinted at in the beginning really begin to come out in full force.

one thing i really loved was the world building, it is very reminiscent of folktales (as an aside, if you read and enjoyed this element you might also like oksi by mari ahokoivu) and i especially appreciate the delivery of the lore, in the form a children's tale read to shiva. it simultaneously managed to deliver the world building in a clear and concise way, as well as enrich the dynamics between the characters. 

overall this was a really cute manga, and the ending was absolutely perfect in setting up intrigue for the next volume. i will definitely be continuing with the series. 

this could be confusing to anyone not familiar with finnish mythology like myself, but i was able to keep up adeptly enough. the art is obviously beautiful, continuing the story on in place where other graphic novel’s would’ve used words. i think oksi reached its most impressive moment when it combined the two, sliding seamlessly between art, and the written word. there are some awkward moments in the narrative, but that is often a given. all translations fail, but this one, all in all, seemed pretty solid. 

the art style is really the shining star here, and i think i would’ve been completely fine having a book with no text, just the illustrations. it totally set the atmosphere and the tone for the setting of oksi, one that is grounded heavily in a darkly whimsical forest. 

take note of “darkly whimsical” for your own sake. this book took a 180 on me when i least expected it.

this book was so weird and bizarre that i have no idea how to give it a review. I cannot in good conscience recommended to someone but I would love for more people to read it, and I say that because it is too weird to pitch to a person. 

the writing is beautiful and untraditional, switching between “regular prose,” epistolary, and ethnography (?) formats. the author discusses child labor and abuse, feminism, sex work, disability, how young men are groomed into violence, water, the past, nature, humanity, linguistics, knowledge, etc etc. 

if i tried to discuss everything In this book would be here all day. i do think at certain points the book was stuffed full to bursting of these themes, but she did so much of what I enjoyed, in such a way, that i did not mind, though I do think certain people absolutely would.

this book read like a fever dream. It was out of bounds of what is normally considered the “literary standard” (whatever the hell that may be). it is written nonlinearly; it has a plot, but the plot is meant to serve the greater purpose of the narrative and is unconcerned on telling a cut and dry straightforward story.

i don’t think this is anywhere near an adequate review of the book, but it’s the only one I can provide. this is a book that you really just need to read and decide for yourself about.

what a simmering disappointment. to get the positives out of the way, the atmosphere of the book is crafted masterfully. the descriptions are lush and the writing style is clear and concise while still being beautiful to read. the character work was mostly okay (except in iris, and a bit in vivi who i'll get to later) and i think grey hollow is the shining example of that. she is easily the smartest, cruelest, and most interesting character in the book, and balances it out by being incredibly compassionate, and protective of her loved ones, her sisters. for the first 200+ pages this book had me.

once

they entered the halfway place

my interest began to wane. tyler, who is so unremarkable i forgot to include him in the list of bad character work, is trapped in an evil horrid body horror filled place with iris, who has no discernible personality. i did not care about them individually and i definitely didn't care about them together. everything about this portion of the book is so repetitive that any of its earlier unnerving atmosphere immediately dissipates from how often your told how unnerving it is. 

iris hollow is a shell of a character and waste of a protagonist. she has no character traits aside from being the victim in everything somehow, having her only friend be her mother, and she's not like other girls (namely her sisters, and the popular girls). she has a dissonant picture of morality, especially her own that does not line up with her actions. she chooses (along with vivi, who is barely a character as well) to condemn her elder sister grey for her actions that she a). went along with, b) actively chose to forget about in order to ignore her own culpability, c) continuously benefits from, even as the book ends. i bring this up because for a large portion of the book it had allowed space for ambiguity, power, and for girls to be unlikable, inaccessible, and the like without condemning them. which why i thought the black and white thinking on display was a waste for a book like this. especially when the main character is either culpable, or actively benefiting from the things grey has done.  tossing aside your most interesting character like this was not a narrative choice that i enjoyed nor one that enriched the book imo. where's her introspection about that, or

how her not acting and allowing a TEN YEAR OLD to defend her instead of getting off her ass led to her death.

  it makes the oddest choices on when to gloss over something and when to nail it down, usually in the most nonsensical ways. 

it has representation, if you could even call it that. iris is bisexual, and vivi is a lesbian. there is no romantic plot for really any of the sisters, yet

iris manages to makeout with her missing-possibly dead sister's boyfriend

while vivi gets??? nothing??? the only hint we get at iris liking girls aside from a hamfisted mention of it in the narrative is a

mention of a spin the bottle game played in the past, which leads to a kiss which it almost immediately portrayed in negative light, with a girl who later becomes one of her tormentors.

all in all, this book fell off hard for me towards the end. the plot twist was ultimately unsatisfying in its execution and easily predictable. i'm more disappointed by this one than other ones, because it had excellent potential, especially for the first 200 pages. everything after that after that is just a waste. i think my largest complaint is that sutherland set up a plot that is not fully suited to the genre that it’s in (YA) and would have been a better richer the narrative as an adult or even new adult book.

DNF’D at 50 pages.

i just couldn’t for the life of me give a fuck. if you’ve read a YA folklore-esque fantasy romance before then there’s no need to read this one. it’s not doing anything new or particularly interesting. read the winternight trilogy instead.