Read-in-Progress Wednesday

[geraineon]

This is your weekly read-in-progress post for you to talk about what you're currently reading and reactions and feelings (if any)!

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Comments

[larryhammer]

After finishing I Am Average and Unremarkable by Yue Xia Die Ying, I turned around and started Like Pearl and Jade by the same author. This one's a historical romance, so roughly on the same lines as her Eight Treasure Trousseau, with some differences: the MC is only 10 at the start, and is a transmigrator from something close to our world/era. This last detail is very understated -- she's not using modern knowledge to advance herself in any way, only to reflect on the world she's in by contrasting it to the history she knew. Well, and also to behave somewhat more maturely than others expect.

Anyway, am ~15 chapters in, out of ~100. It's about half the length of Journey to the West, which I've decided to use as my measure for c-novels.

ETA: Oh, and a detail that amuses me: the food in the imperial palace is not as good as in households of higher aristocrats, because the imperial chefs are too worried about making a mistake to cook with flair. This sounds all too plausible.

[geraineon]

Haha, definitely possible.

What is the role of the transmigrator in Like Pearl and Jade?

[larryhammer]

She's the MC, but there's been less than a handful of references to her status, all in the range of chapters 5-15, and they've all been commentary on the society of her world in comparison to (presumably) ours. No using modern knowledge to get ahead like so many other transmigration stories. It's a cheat code to make the narrator's job easier, basically.

Am up to chapter ~60, and still greatly enjoying it. Deceptively gentle, just like the MC.