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)!

For spoilers:

<details><summary>insert summary</summary>Your spoilers goes here</details>

<b>Highlight for spoilers!*</b><span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Your spoilers goes here.</span>*

Comments

[geraineon]

I've read all of ... the translator's notes in Goodbye, My Princess. OTL

It is a very good translator's note though!

In the meantime, I've been side-eyeing the whole issue with Haitang's Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating.

Details:
https://xcancel.com/haitangbooks/status/1956963947614974282#m
https://www.reddit.com/r/DanmeiNovels/comments/1mushxy/haitang_publishing_apologizes_for_ghfod_fiasco/

Review of said book: https://www.reddit.com/r/DanmeiNovels/comments/1m9f37x/review_hai_tangs_release_of_ghfod_volume_1/

TL;DR, unprofessional, and trying their best to throw the translator under the bus.

[thispatternismine]

Ooof! What a mess!

[aurumcalendula]

I'm glad to hear that Goodbye, My Princess's translator note is good!

The Haitang stuff is such a mess and all their doubling down has put me off ordering from them.

[dayadhvam_triad]

... that Haitang mess is 😬😬😬 I wasn't planning to order anything from them, BUT if I had this would've changed my mind for sure.

[naivette]

Yikes.... I was excited for their release of Mist and the Blue Dust Trilogy, but this doesn't inspire much faith in their ability to run localization company.

It feels like they saw how popular fanTLs for certain properties were and figured they could make a quick buck.

[duckprintspress]

ugggggh.

I bought this but haven't read it yet, and was planning to pre-order the others, but if the quality is this bad...

I'd better read it and decide for myself. I have a fan translation of it so I can just finish it with that.

If they fuck up Devil Venerable..........

[stholtzmann]

I just finished Goodbye, My Princess (the library has it as an ebook, hurray!) and I was very surprised by how short it was. (I won't say anything else!)

[thispatternismine]

I've dropped Mistakenly Saving the Villain, & withdraw everything I said about it. Got to about 25% & the story just started spinning its wheels. Main character fell into a coma for a decade so we got a timeskip, but it didn't feel as if anything had really changed aside from the his personality disappearing. His drive to do medical research & help the love interest (to the point of torturing the guy who trafficked him & giving his soul to the LI as a birthday gift because death was too good for him!) sort of evaporates & he's just kind of there being useless. It's all so... meh.

I might have pushed through if it was just that but... An Long. He shows up, causes enormous damage breaking into the MC's home & bites a chunk out of the MC(!), who then APOLOGISES TO HIM for making him worry! Even though he wrote to him as soon as he was out of his coma, telling him he was fine & to stop trying to break in. But apparently it's all the MC's fault. Ignoring boundaries is fine! And he & the LI have an awkward rivalry over stuff that happened over the 10 year timeskip, but don't do anything about it for no other reason than to drag out what is almost certainly the most boring reveal in the history of literature. That's okay though because he's not sticking around, righ- Oh, we're going on an awkward road trip because the MC wants them all to be a squad or something. No thanks. (And the author leaves an author's note reassuring the readers that don't worry he was going to get a good ending! I don't want him to have a good ending - I want him to die immediately.)

Throwing in the towel at chapter 42 (33% of the way through).

I would have liked to have immediately leapt into the official translation of My Husband & I Sleep in a Coffin, but no bookshop in the UK is able to get their hands on a copy, it seems.

I've started on The White Cat's Divine Scratching Post. I'm liking what I've read so far, though I've only just started so I've yet to form any real opinion. (I was planning on starting The Beauty's Blade next, as it's next up in the publication order of the novels I'm checking out, but TBH I'll probably take one for the team & buy it regardless, as this is clearly 7S testing the waters regarding baihe.)

[aurumcalendula]

That's disapointing to hear w/r/t Mistakenly Saving the Villain (the first part sounds more interesting).

I'm curious what you'll think of The Beauty's Blade - I liked what I saw on Kobo's preview.

[lee_bella]

Re: Mistakenly Saving the Villain

An Long is not great. He gets worse from this point on. I never did understand why the MC insisted An Long and Yue Wuhuan ought to be friends. I still didn't get it even though I read the novel to the end. It has some interesting ideas, but the execution leaves much to be desired.

[duckprintspress]

I haven't read Mistakenly Saving the Villain yet but my sense having watched the fandom from the outside for a while is that people either love it or hate it.

[geraineon]

I've tried reading MisVil twice, and twice I dropped it. I never got very far... Just that the story didn't grip me at all and I didn't care for the MC and ML, and when I read spoilers about the rest of the story, I'm pretty sure I'd hate it if I had continued.

But I know it's a popular title for whatever reason.

[aurumcalendula]

I'm halfway through volume 5 of QJJ! Highlight for spoilers! *I was so excited when Hua Xiangyi and Qi Zhuyin finally met. I liked Lu Yizhi investigating Shen Zechuan's character and was amused that the significance of her gift apparently went over his head.*

[geraineon]

it took 5 volumes?!

hm, it's been a while since I read QJJ, but it felt earlier than that... maybe coz I just read everything non-stop.

[douqi]

I'm about to start reading... Bora Chung's Red Sword, which doesn't strictly count I know. I actually started it while on a very crowded train, but being hemmed in on all sides (plus the author's refusal to give anyone in the novel any actual names, which I know probably has a reason behind it but still makes reading slippery in the moment) meant I didn't take much of it in.

[geraineon]

Not giving anyone actual names is an interesting narrative choice... Have you read much further since, and has the reason showed itself yet?

[dayadhvam_triad]

Curious, what is the lowest rating people have seen on JJWXC? B/c I have been rubbernecking the wank around one that imploded earlier this summer with a rating of 2.6/10 last I checked (didn't read it, just stumbled across the wank by chance).

The novel 穿着龙袍穿越了 that I've been following just wrapped up! It was imo a lulzy entertaining read that I could see myself revisiting when I want lighthearted fun, though the first half was more interesting with its humor around the protag faking it as the emperor... I found the second half a bit dull & superficial in how it covered the MC gathering more support and stabilizing the situation. That said, I think the author did a good job with their plot pacing and made the right call to end the story where it did, not letting the story devolve into increasingly unfocused and tediously narrated infrastructure building/territory expansion etc. that is the pitfall of soooo many stories in this subgenre of historical transmigration (among the many pitfalls sigh).

I got sidetracked exploring some historical cnovels that were set outside of China (the Plantagenets, the Golden Age of Piracy, the Gilded Age) + Ming-dynasty cnovels ft. Zhang Juzheng (or his expies lol)... some I bookmarked to check out later, an interesting variety haha XD but haven't been reading much otherwise.

[geraineon]

/eyes emoji/ wank, do elaborate? my inner asian gossip aunty persona is activated.

"that is the pitfall of soooo many stories in this subgenre of historical transmigration (among the many pitfalls sigh)."

100% agree, yeah. The few that I've read, it *must* go there somehow.

[forestofglory]

I successfully read another graded reader. (What words they expect me to know continues to be wildly wrong, but that's what I get for studying classical first)

And I started Ancestors and Anxiety: Daoism and the Birth of Rebirth in China by Stephen R. Bokenkamp which is very interesting but takes a lot of focus to read so is going slowly

[geraineon]

Nice~ Mm, well, your language learning journey is quite unique!

[ehyde]

I'm currently catching up on To Embers We Return. I'm hoping that misunderstanding feelings/intentions won't be a long ongoing theme of the book, but other than that I'm enjoying it!

[geraineon]

Glad you're enjoying!

[duckprintspress]

I finished The Wizard by Shi Wu. I was a little shocked by how quickly and neatly it concluded, especially considering some of the larger issues hinted at? idk, it all felt very easy and at least one longer-term issue is basically just ignored with a shrug. But considering it was a stand-alone and only about 200 pages long, I guess I shouldn't be surprised it's not thoroughly explored or anything. All in all, it was... fine?

And then I got sucked into Lout of the Count's Family again so I'm in Korean novel land at the moment, lol.

[naivette]

I'm also mostly in Korean novel land haha. I'm reading both the novel and manhwa for Lout of Count's family, and I even started ORV recently. I've been reading them through the yen press releases.

[lee_bella]

I just finished Lu Ye Qian He (绿野千鹤)'s Temporary Bodyguard (临时保镖). Wasn't expecting it to be a suspense story. It works quite well as a suspense story with all the loose ends tied up by the end. It also has that Lu Ye Qian He quirk to it that made me laugh. I think the best way to approach this book is to go into it blind and let it surprise you.

Also finished Zhichu's (稚楚) Fanservice Paradox (营业悖论), a showbiz story about a struggling male idol group accidentally getting a lot of attention when a fan uploaded a video of two of the group members having a vaguely suggestive moment at the airport (it's actually one member bullying the other). It strikes a good balance between the showbiz plot and the romance plot. And it's a beautiful love story.

[geraineon]

I've heard good things about Fanservice Paradox. Glad you enjoyed it!

What is the Lu Ye Qian He quirk?

[stholtzmann]

I'm 62% of the way through Clear and Muddy Loss of Love and it is stressing me the HECK out!!!

[geraineon]

Oh no! Well, whatever it is, I hope it gets resolved soon in the story.