River Reads

Sometimes I've got things to say about the things I read. Sometimes I don't. I'm also a little messy. Mostly queer and dark themes.

[whatsriverreading]

Heaven Official's Blessing - Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

This was a 5 stars reading for me. I absolutely loved this series. I've never been too into reading. I liked it and I've enjoyed some books here and there over the years, but I never got into reading as a daily activity, or as a hobby. I'm so happy to say these books got me into it.

I've never known what to read, I didn't know what I liked, and not many books usually catch me enough to want to finish them. But back in September of last year, me and my friend were in this bookshop and we were just having a look at the books when we noticed TGCF manhua on the shelf. Lately, I had been seeing TGCF -a lot- in the stores (it just got translated and commercialized in Spain), and also I heard someone on TikTok talking about it, but I didn't know much about it. Just the title and nothing more. And then my friend said to me "I heard that this is about those gays you like", mf knows me so well cause immediately after getting home I searched about it and watched the donghua. Long story short, I didn't like it. I know, I know. I think the subtitles played a huge role in that, they were awful. Like bad bad. So, I finished watching the series and I understood a total of: nothing. But I was curious about it so I took my 11-year-old Kindle out of the back of my closet, put it to charge, went to the store cause the charger wasn't working, and got the first book. Girlypops when I tell you I ate this book, -I ATE- this book. 2 days and an empty hole inside me later I got the rest of the books and in about a month I finished the 8 of them. I found myself going to sleep at 4 am reading, giggling and rubbing my feet, I got back to my teenage years that month. I was reborn.

It's silly, charming, funny, hopeful, it's painful to read sometimes, it's sad, helpless, and extremely human. Every character is so well thought out, I loved them all (and that usually does not happen). Every character shows their goods and bads, they are complex and contradictory, with their own unique quirks. I could see myself in all of them; in those women who are never enough, never seen, never understood but also everyone needs. In Quan Yizhen who, to me, is clearly on the spectrum, and loses control and is always kinda lost, whom not many people want to understand. In Yin Yu hating someone he loves deeply, facing a punishment for his own actions, and coming to terms with the fact that what he idolized is completely rotten. And I could go on, yk.

But let me tell you something, the thing that I enjoyed the most, the thing that is -stuck- in my head and doesn't seem to be leaving anytime soon... girl, the Black Water Arc. I don't think I need to elaborate. Book 4? You mean The Bible? I read that entire part 3 times plus another couple of quick reads for research, I analyzed every dialog, every interaction between Shi Qingxuan and Ming Yi, everything Xie Lian thought about them, everything. If I had a physical copy of the book it would be destroyed. It's been like 6 months and I think about them daily. And the fantastic fanfics I've read, my, my.

Anyway, this has been my introduction to danmei and oh mama the doors that have been opened for me! Hella good this series 100% recommended, and the manhua is so so so so pretty also 10/10. See ya!

[crowned-crimson-flower]

Danmei is a very unique genre of queer literature which both centers and de-centers queerness. None of the Danmei I’ve read have been essentially “about” being gay. They’re just stories of life, of magic, of fantasy, of love, in which the main characters happen to be gay. Which is a kind of representation I have often seeked from western media and related intermediaries because why is every gay story, a coming out story? Is there not more to queer people than that?

However, while capturing the personhood of queer people; Danmei also captures the queerness of people because none of these stories would work if the characters weren’t gay/queer

Wei Wuxian’s absolute buffoonery of misunderstanding Lan Zhan’s feelings in a decade long telephone game in which neither of them open their damn mouth would never work in a non-queer story because between a man and a woman romance would be the natural assumption of everyone around them and therefore wouldn’t leave space for confusion. The misunderstanding of their romance is so closely tied to the plot succession that the plot would be… non existent without it

In TGCF Xie Lian and Hua Cheng’s absolute aspirational love is literally in the backseat and front seat of the story. Not too different from a classic hero’s journey but instead of the hero being one person, it’s two people. They are so intertwined with eo that they become one character and witness a lot of the story together. Witness being a very interesting word choice. Their queerness doesn’t drive the story but replacing one of them with a woman would dampen the effect— it’d remove the uncertainty, the confusion from everyone around them, the genuine slow burn of the romance. There’s also this idea of Hua Cheng falling in love with Xie Lian so far separated from concepts such as gender or whatever which wouldn’t have been hammered home in a straight romance where those conversations aren’t always had between the audience and the story

And Erha.. well obviously. Half of Chu Wanning’s “this is so inappropriate” spiral wouldn’t exist if he was a woman. And, the idea of Mo Ran being a “cut sleeve” builds up the under current of his character being so far dismissed by society because he’s seen as immoral. Which just wouldn’t serve to the same effect if he was into exclusively women because so was every other character.

Not in a single one of these stories is queerness and homosexuality the central theme of the story yet without them, the romance wouldn’t be the same. Liking the same gender as you comes with baggage in our society which is so heteronormative and that effect has to exist in the person characters become for them to be authentic but at the same time, limiting that effect only to produce coming out stories/falling in love stories is unfair. Danmei mends this through a middle ground where the plot is the focus but it doesn’t exist in a vaccum, it exists in queerness itself

[whatsriverreading]

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation - Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Or how to persist on keep on learning as an author.

On January 16th I finished MDZS; it took me a month-ish to read the entire series, and after nearly two weeks I think my thoughts have settled enough for me to give an opinion.

It wasn`t the first time I had tried to read this series. Around a year ago, having finished TGCF for the first time, I entered the danmei world wanting to know everything, and obviously, the next thing a girl does is to go straight for another MXTX`s work. And so MDZS it was. And around 130 in, I dnfed it. I am many things in this life, and one of them is a quitter. The story didn`t click for me, but I didn`t think it was bad either, so I put it aside for another time, and -surprisingly- that was actually true and I actually ended up reading it.

After volume 1, many things in my head: I still wasn`t connecting with the story, probably because a) how confusing the sects thing was for me, and b) how badly written it was. I know, I just said something big, let me explain. We all know that MXTX`s strong points are her characters, nearly all of them are fantastic -imo-. She started writing good characters right from the beginning of her career with Scum Villain, and got better and better over the books until the end of TGCF. Perfect! We love that, I think we all agree. But her writing itself, her “pluma” as we romantically say in Spanish… I had a very hard time with it. It’s not the worst either, let’s be honest, but I could tell she was a naïve writer; very good ideas, not so good execution. I once (or many times) read on Reddit that the fans weren’t very happy with the translation. I don’t know Chinese, I can’t tell you about the quality of the translation, but my issues with the writing were not something a translator might have done wrong. My biggest issue with it was repetition. For example, if I remember correctly, she explained twice why WWX was afraid of dogs, the exact same story. Once was enough. And don’t get me started on every time a character appears and she describes over and over again every aspect of their appearance. I understand what she was trying to do (letting the reader wonder or guess who that was, create tension, make us understand that WWX is obsessed with LWJ’s looks…) but again, not that well executed. And now that you think I’m the most annoying person ever, let me tell you that I’m both glad and surprised that this gets better with every volume. I wasn’t expecting much change over the series, but to my surprise, MXTX proved that she is constantly learning and evolving, and after volume 5, although some mistakes were still present, they were notably reduced. You got it, girl!!!!!! This leads me to the idea that the story didn’t go through an editor during the commercialisation process, which could’ve been nice.

Anyways, as I told you girls I was about to drop the story again, but then the drunk scene happened. Easy: I loved it. LWJ is the funniest guy around, WWX is, well, WWX. He’s my everything, ya’ know, and if that was going to be the dynamic between those two, I wanted to read more. So we are suddenly on volume two and oh lord that cought my attention. Something I love about MXTX is that she loves horror, but she doesn’t write horror; she hints it. We see this in Scum Villain, that is a whole horror story through the eyes of a blind af dude, and we see this also in TGCF. The whole thing, but the black water arc in specific. I remember reading that part when they are in that temple, SQX is blind and deaf, and they are getting suddlenly chased by a lot people and you don’t know what’s going on and everything is claustrophobic and dark and weird… chills.

So now she puts me up in this decrepit town, with this fog, and this ghosts, and this twisted love story… girl, in my restless dreams I see that town! It’s Silent Hill!! I ate that up I loved it. I also caught another reference to something else in volumes 3 or 4 that I remember thinking “I can’t believe she knows about this thing” but, unfortunately, I also thought “I’m not gonna write it down, I will remember”… well. I forgot.

Then we get to volumes 3 and 4. I love them, great background for our emo queen, etc, not much more to say, vol.4 was my fav, but then...ah, girls Imma be honest, I didn’t love the ending. It wasn’t bad though, but let me explain: MXTX has a very characteristic way of inserting second hand embarrasment in her stories. It’s her thing. But right at the end of MDZS she puts this type of humor in a moment where it took me out of the story completely, and that for me was a big issue ‘cause I lost interest at a very high point in the story and I couldn't reconnect. I don’t think it was a skill issue like those I mentioned before. In fact, I don’t even think it was a bad thing, just a personal preference. Not bad bad, I just didn’t enjoy the ending.

Now, even if I liked the story, the fact that the beginning and the ending weren’t much my thing had a big impact on my opinion. This is a story that won’t stay with me over time. It was alright, nothing crazy. But as I said in my Scum Villain review, I perfectly understand why this is such a fan favourite, it has -a thing-, a thingy-thing. I really get it.

I won’t forget to mention the importance of MDZS for the creation of TGCF. You can see it in SV too, but I think that this story walked so TGCF could run; MDZS explores the ideas that later would be better developed and structured in TGCF, and would make it the masterpiece that it is. The complexity of good and evil, consequences of gossip, innocence, loyalty... all these themes are established and developed in MDZS, and then polished, meticulously perfected, in TGCF. And though I can see some prototype ideas in Scum Villain, I don’t consider it to be in the same category as these other two. It is a completely separate story. But I can see clearly that MDZS and TGCF are the same story told at different stages of life.

And I'll add that she had to fail here to be better; a better writer, a better storyteller, and a better thinker. You need to fail to create good things, and MDZS is the proof that practise, failure, and revision make you a better artist. Keep learning, keep refining, and keep creating. Experience life, evolve and write again.

See ya!

[nic0las-uncaged]

i could blog better than this but i won't

[whatsriverreading]

can you rank your favourite queer novels?

I haven't read that many actually, I used to consume other types of queer media and I only started reading as a habit not that long ago. But here's my ranking:

- Heaven Official's Blessing. I'm getting into danmei and THIS omg I've been obsessed with this for a year now. I can't stop thinking about it, it’s eating me alive (I'm not complaining).

- Masters of Death by Olivie Blake. This is not a book for everyone. Character-driven, sometimes confusing, and even underdeveloped, but one of my all-time favorites. I loved the "trying to fix the father-son relationship" part.

- La Mala Costumbre, Alana S. Portero. This one feels like a hug. Soul-touching, hard, real. Set in a place very similar to the one I grew up in, so I got into the story in a very intimate way. I genuinely think I'm a better person after reading this one.

- Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab. Okay, this is actually cheating because I haven't finished it yet but, so far, I'm loving it. It is one of those that will stick to me for a long time. Also not a book for everyone as it is very character-driven.

I've read more queer novels but, unfortunately, they weren't to my liking or I didn't love them as much as these. Also, if I may, I want to mention Good Omens as a very important part of my journey. I know that some might not categorize this as queer, and a lot of people might find it controversial, or might want to avoid it because of the author. I completely understand, and I respect everyone's decisions on this topic.

I'm very attached to it as it opened many doors for me in terms of queer media, and also settled my taste in books. I got it as a present at 15 (more than a decade ago, Jeez...) and I've re-read it way too many times since then. It is a core part of myself and I thought mentioning it would be important.

Cheers!

[carriesthewind]

On the subject about parents needing to control their child's reading and invade their privacy in order to "protect" them from "inappropriate material:

Until I was in....college? At least? The vast, vast majority of the books I read were either a) assigned by my school or b) (the vast majority of my reading) provided to me by my mother.

My mom is a librarian. She filled our rooms with books, picked especially for us. She pointed out books on the shelves in our home library (separate from our bedroom shelves) that she thought we would like. She bought us books for birthdays, Christmas, and just stacks of recommendations. She once paid me $10 to read one of the Cirque Du Freak books because she said I needed "to be exposed to bad literature."

She respected my privacy in room, didn't go through my belongings. She explicitly pointed out to us that she wouldn't know if we took a particular book of the shelf, as long as we returned it, if we didn't want her to know we were reading it. She purposely brought us books that she didn't care for herself, because she thought we might find them valuable or enjoyable.

And if we wanted to read something she thought might upset or disturb us, she would explain why. She wouldn't stop us from reading it - just ask us to check in with her, to talk through it.

And so when I read something that upset or disturbed me, I would go to her. She would listen and talk through it with me.

If she said she didn't think I would like something, or that a book might disturb me, or that she thought I should wait until I was older, I listened to her.

She didn't need restrictions or control to protect me. Because she proved I could trust her.

Controlling kids is never about "protecting" them. It's just about control.

[whatsriverreading]

He Who Bleeds - Dorian Valentine

2/5⭐️

"Religious devotion was a learned skill, and even the most pious of men have felt the tug of The Devil’s influence. Lord Aurélien Saint-Orlant found he was no exception, always toeing the line between being a true god-fearing man and a barbaric sinner who reveled in hedonism.

This monotonous life of his changes when his world crashes down around him and wolves in sheep's clothing are revealed, leading Aurélien to discover his true origins. As one of many devilspawns, he is locked in a contract with a greedy human who uses him to commit unorthodox killings among the upper echelon. When his contract is partially broken, Aurélien finds himself whole again, and his desire to create his macabre art only grows."

Someone on TikTok recommended this book. It seemed like it had everything I might like: demons, gothic aesthetic, religious trauma, queer characters... but I ended up DNFing it halfway through.

Generally speaking, this book had potential, but the execution needed a little bit of shaping, in my opinion. The story, characters, plot twists, and topics were interesting, but not well delivered.

Some parts were rushed, I feel like a little more tension or development would have been great for certain parts, as some plot twists felt rushed and underworked. The book is short, and not in a good way. It needed more character work too, they sometimes felt repetitive and monotonous.

The erotica was also a no for me. Although sometimes it was enjoyable (interesting scenarios and character dynamics), some other times it felt unnecessary. I understand that the author wanted to explain certain topics through sex content but, to me, some of these topics could have benefited greatly from a different, varied approach. I found myself thinking "alright, he’s masturbating again" quite a lot.

Although I didn’t like it, I think it has a very specific audience, and I know for sure that this is a book that certain people would LOVE.

As said, the idea is good, it just needs a little polishing. Also, the cover art is SO pretty, I loved it so much.

See ya!!

[whatsriverreading]

MASTERS OF DEATH - Olivie Blake

This is one of my favorite books of all times, but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone.

I'll elaborate in a minute, let me tell you the synopsis first.

There's this grumpy-ish girl who is trying to sell a house but oops it's haunted, and then there's this asshole who was raised by Death -yeah like Death, like a person but is not a person cause it's Death, you know, like Death but in a material tangible plane of reality-, who is going through his middle-twenties crisis, AND SOMEHOW, they make a lot of friends and they all end up playing board games in another dimension. It's queer, it's funny, inclusive, and it touched a sensitive part of my heart that usually hurts a little, but it touched it gently, caringly, softly.

Now. Let's start with the basics: paranormal beings. We love vampires, we love demons, we love motherfucking Death itself being the funniest guy around... but wait, you said you wanted a ghost? Sure, why not? A werewolf? All yours, babe. Gods? Angels? Yup, those too. Olive Blake opened Wikipedia, typed "magical creatures", and one by one put them all in this book -and this is not a critique, quite the opposite-. They all fit together perfectly, somehow.

I wish I had read this more recently, I've forgotten the details. Sorry, I'll work with what I remember.

I feel like this book's strength is the characters, as in many of OB books. They were all so interesting and different from each other, it is obvious that the author put much effort into designing them.

Fox was my favorite BY FAR. Emo king who can't get over his ex-boyfriend, daddy issues, and also a grumpy mf who, in reality, feels and loves too much. He and Death have a complicated father-son relationship. Actually, Fox has a complicated relationship with everyone. Remember when I told you earlier that something crushed my heart to pieces? Yup. I started this book expecting shits and giggles (which I got) but it took me by surprise how much I connected with Fox's longing for being seen, understood, loved, and for his loved ones to acknowledge his agency, to show him that they love him. He loves, and needs that love back.

He and Brandt are one of the three main couples, and we all know that I'm a sucker for a good boys love. This didn’t disappoint. Asshole x Asshole, mistakes, abandonment, regret. Gurl I was fed good.

Now, why I don't think this book is for everyone:

The writing style is hard sometimes. I personally love, LOVE, Olivie Blake's writing, but I understand why someone could find it pretentious. The structure is also hard to follow if you're not used to non-linear storytelling; a lot of unanswered questions that are not adressed until later in the book, and a lot of not knowing exactly what is happening. You have to be very attentive to everything and remember small details that will make sense later, but that at first seem like minor details.

This is a book where the plot is not the main object, it is there so the characters can be developed, and if you are someone who's looking for things to happen all the time, maybe this is not your book.

Let's now get into the things I didn't love about the book:

The general consensus is that the final game is kinda ambiguous. I don't feel like it has a stable, solid base, I couldn't tell you -exactly- what it is about, although the idea is there and more or less you get the hint. I read someone saying that it might be intentional, that the idea is that you form your own opinion of what the game is, and that makes sense, although I would’ve liked a clearer explanation.

The other thing I didn't love was another of the main couples, Viola and Thomas. I couldn't tell you exactly why, but I felt like it was not as solid as the other one I mentioned before. I didn't feel like they were in love, it felt forced to me. I understand why they would be in love, but I think that it should've been more developed. A hundred more pages could have been added to this book perfectly.

Nevertheless, it was a book for me. I think that if you liked Good Omens, you might like this too.

After this, I wanted to read more work from this author. I started The Atlas Six (everyone seems to love it, it is quite popular) but dnf it at around 30%. I didn't connect with the characters at all. But I would like to give her one more chance. Any suggestions?

See ya, girls!!!

[whatsriverreading]

All This I Will Give To You - Dolores Redondo

I haven't read this recently, but it is a book that I try to recommend as much as I can. One of my favorite books of all time.

I think it was for my 19th birthday, or maybe Christmas (they are close to one another), my mom gifted me this book, more exactly the Spanish original version, and the moment I read the summary I knew I was gonna love it: a man just lost his husband to a car accident, that leads to an investigation in which he discovers that the man he married might not be who he thought he was. Tragic middle-aged gays, a creepy family with lots of secrets, grief, rage, the struggles of addiction and all of this while delving into Galicia, its landscapes, its vineyards and its people.

This was my first queer book, and I'm glad it was. Dolores Redondo here does a great job creating an interesting book with a gay protagonist whose story does not revolve around being gay, but at the same time, it doesn't ignore the problems we face as queers. It feels authentic.

Something I also really enjoyed was how it works with grief, the anger it can bring alongside, and the acceptance of contradictory feelings towards someone we love.

I'm not familiar with the English translation, but I think this is a really good story and it's worth giving it a try. See ya!!!

[whatsriverreading]

Remnants of Filth - Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou

Another day, another danmei 💅

A lot to say about this one, so let's start with book 1: talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular, etc. I loved this first book sooooo much. I had only read MXTX's danmei so far and this was a little different. The writing style, the flow, the way of touching some topics, the aura... everything felt interesting and "new", I really enjoyed reading another author (not that I dislike mxtx, quite the opposite, I love how she writes, but reading something different felt very refreshing). Another thing that I found nice was that, even though the protagonists are generals and a big chunk of the story is related to war, war tactics and other technical stuff about the army are not discussed in the novel. When I read the premise of the book, I didn't know if I was going to like it as battles are not my thing, and also this scenario is usually led by traditional-angry-manlyman type of characters, which I don't enjoy personally. But this novel has none of those characters, the main protagonists are complex, with a very well-established values system that leads their actions and feelings, and a facade that we as readers can see through and know their true feelings even though the rest of the characters can't, which for me added so much fun to the reading. For me, the best thing in this story was the main characters, I wanted to know more, why they were like that, why they made those choices, why they love each other that much if they're so different. The secondary ones were not that interesting for me, but I must admit that they were also well-built, and they added to the story.

Another thing that I usually dislike is sex scenes, and Remnants of Filth has a few, but to my surprise I enjoyed them? I felt like they were, first of all, not unnecessarily long, and also, they were there to add to the story and the characters. Those scenes tell you A LOT about them, their dynamic, and their feelings.

But then I started book 2 and things went not that well. I'm not sure why, I think it was the pacing, but it was getting hard for me to continue reading, I got bored and felt that everything was taking too long to get to a point that I would find interesting, so I decided to dnf this one at around 35%. I think I'll continue it someday, I really, really loved the first one, but for now, it's not something I'm in the mood to read.

Have you read it? I'd love to know what you think. See ya!!!

[whatsriverreading]

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

I hate to be that person, but unfortunately I am. I did not like SVSSS, girlies.

This was my 2nd danmei, I had read TGCF before, loved it deeply, and then I heard that the author has written 2 more series and that SVSSS was the funniest one. I love a good laugh and the premise seemed good so there I went.

Book 1 was alright, I found it an introduction to what I thought was going to be the main part of the series, like preparing the reader for what comes next. I loved the transmigration idea, the screen-google-alexa thing was hilarious, but the events were not really catching me. Same thing with the characters, I kinda liked the main character but the rest were like "ok you're there I guess".

Then I read book 2 and I got bored. That is. I couldn't connect with the characters at all, and don't get me wrong, I understand why they are how they are and why the author wrote them like that, but their personality and background were not my type. Also, although I get that (or at least that's what I understood) the female characters are written as part of a critique of the genre etc, etc, the way mxtx tries to give them a little bit of power after the main character intervenes wasn't strong enough for me. I see the intention but it felt unsatisfying.

Same thing with book 3, and after that, I dnf book 4. In general terms, I got bored and didn't like the characters and how the story developed. I also understand that it was her first novel and that she has improved -a lot- in telling stories and building characters in her latest work. I don't think it is a bad story, but a story that wasn't for me. I totally get why people like it, and I love to see fanarts of the main couple here on Tumblr, you're all so talented.

See ya!