Chinese GL

I had a lot of fun with this contemporary (for a given value of contemporary; it's set and written in 2014) food-themed romance, which had great banter between the leads, excellent food writing, and some genuinely touching emotional moments, both romantic and otherwise. It's still one of Ning Yuan's more 'realist' novels, but is overall gentler, sweeter and smoother around the edges than her earlier The Path of Life (生命之路, pinyin: shengming zhi lu) (reviewed here).

( read more; mild spoilers )

Anyway, this has now vaulted into first place in the list of the food-themed baihe novels I've read (not that many), followed in second place by A Taste of You (食局, pinyin: shi ju) by Si Bai Ba Shi Si (四百八十寺) and in a very distant last by Xiao Bao (晓暴)'s The Movie Star Puts On 1.5 Kilos a Week (影后一周胖三斤, pinyin: yinghou yi zhou pang san jin).

I read the Chinese original of the novel here on JJWXC, under the revised title Hunger (or Food; 食, pinyin: shi). Sex scenes have been excised from some of the chapters in the current JJWXC version of the novel, so I had to read them on one of the somewhat less offensive pirate sites, here. At the time of writing the novel, the author also posted an explicit sex scene (meant to fit in Chapter 64) to Lofter. The chapter has since been removed from Lofter, but I've managed to save a copy of it from elsewhere and uploaded it here (I really liked this sex scene, which was both very tender and felt very true to the characters).

Pre-orders for the Chinese mainland print edition of Above the Fates (万丈红尘之轻, pinyin: wanzhang hongchen zhi qing) by Si Bai Ba Shi Si (四百八十寺) will be opening today at 1900 China Standard Time. This is a corporate thriller, and both of the leads seem to be hyper-competent CEO types (in the best romance novel tradition, they also make a cameo appearance in the author's subsequent novel, A Taste of You (食局, pinyin: shi ju). This edition is in simplified Chinese, and censored. An uncensored print edition in traditional Chinese was previously released by Taiwanese publisher morefate.

3,000 signed copies in total will be available on the market, distributed among a number of bookshops participating in the pre-sale, and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis (with an upper limit of two signed copies per purchaser). These bookshops include:

• Motie (the publisher)
• Jinse
• Wangou
• Xinshijiao

The web version of the novel can be read here on JJWXC.

As an aside, I feel the author should be commended for providing English versions of her novel titles that actually make sense as titles to an English-first reader. A Taste of You also mentions (i) Schengen visas; (ii) Cheltenham Ladies' College; (iii) Yorkshire (!!!) (I used to live in Yorkshire, so this was especially exciting, and I've headcanoned that the section set in Yorkshire takes place in Hebden Bridge), and part of it is set in Aalberg, which is treated as a specific and real place rather than a nebulous and nameless 'foreign' country.

I read Waiting for You (余情可待, pinyin: yuqing kedai) more out of a sense that this was a book I ought to read — Min Ran's massive popularity as an author; this novel's massive popularity with the fanbase; the popularity of showbiz romance (of which I had only properly read one very atypical example) as a subgenre among baihe readers generally — rather than any feeling that I would actually enjoy it. As it turned out, I was right: I did not enjoy the novel, although I can perhaps see how it might work for readers who don't have my particular preferences.

The plot of Waiting for You is essentially exes-turned-reunited-lovers courtesy of a handy rebirth and time rewind. The main characters are Ji Youyan, a TV actress who'd been toiling in the mines for some time before finally winning a major acting award and achieving acclaim, and Jing Xiu, a legit major movie star. They met during an idol audition programme, and dated for two years after that before breaking up. At the start of the novel, they've been broken up for five years. Jing Xiu is at her own literal wedding ceremony (to a university classmate of hers, a man named Song Wenyan) when she hears the news that Ji Youyan has died from alcohol poisoning. She abandons her wedding and rushes to Ji Youyan's side, but too late. Then Ji Youyan finds herself waking up, reborn at an earlier point in time — just two years after she broke up with Jing Xiu. She's determined to make amends and win her ex-girlfriend back again, starting with taking part in an acting-focused reality show she and Jing Xiu have both been invited to be judges on.

( Read more; I tried to avoid detailed/major spoilers )

( Somewhat more spoilery bit about the reason for Ji Youyan's rebirth )

So, in short, I did not enjoy this novel and it frustrated me in a number of ways. However, I can see how it would appeal to readers who are after a sort of mostly wish-fulfilment, low-conflict story, with generally good (though not remarkable) prose and characters who are mostly likable (Ji Youyan can be quite entertaining, especially when she's teasing Jing Xiu, or bantering with her assistant, wide-eyed, bad-at-getting-innuendos Lin Yue). Readers who are invested in the social media and celebrity/fan interactions aspects of the entertainment industry will also probably get a lot more out of this novel than I did. I still plan to read Min Ran's other massively popular novel, the age gap romance For the Rest of Our Lives (余生为期, pinyin: yusheng weiqi), but I'm in no real hurry.

I read the Chinese original of the novel on JJWXC here. I'm aware of an English fan translation floating around on the internet, but since quite a lot of is MTL, I will not be dignifying it with a link.