(novel) Lessons on Raising a Partner
Nov. 10th, 2019 04:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fruittea_cheToday I finished reading a novel! I liked reading it, although it was a distraction from things I needed to do (well it also distracted me from my depressive thoughts so hey!). Been slowly getting through it for the last week or so.
It's called Lessons on Raising a Partner written by Ācí Gūniáng.
The translation is by ExR.
Basically the story is a big sci-fi space opera!
The story follows an elf-cum-baby grass plant named Hai'an. Something goes awry during his magical rite of age passage and he is transmigrated to the body of a cute little seeding in a different world.
There he comes to be owned by a retired marshall named Auguste, and is taken to explore a space-age. Auguste is actually a dragon, and he currently searching for the others of his race. While caring for his cute little plant, Auguste finds that it is quite intelligent and begins falling in love with the plant Hai'an.
It's weird to see the ML fall for a plant but hey! Open mind open heart-- right? They do point out that plants can have personalities and IQs, it's still odd but at least we know the mc is technically an elf. Plus Hai'an is so cute as a plant (oh no could my perversion be getting that much stranger...)
General thoughts about the novel
It was a really interesting novel, and was really unexpected! In a good way for me. I mean, my expectations were more along the lines of a unique BL (bc of the label and the other work by the translation team and the title) that focused on the romance. The actual work hardly has any lessons about "raising a partner" haha.
There was a tremendous number of lessons about the world though. Came for romance, stayed for intense worldbuilding (and romance).
It's much easier to get into the story after you come to know who all the characters are instead of just having names pop up and hardly any explanation of what's happening overall. I started enjoying the story a lot more once plant Hai'an actually got into Auguste's hands.
Sadly it can feel too info-dumpy at times, as there is a lot of things happening in the story and they have to provide a lot of description about such and such yet the overall plot gets muddled, especially when the war element is brought into the story. Things get especially disjointed during the lengthy middle portion after a certain event (I'll mention it below the spoiler cut. So much happens out of the blue, and there are a lot of moving parts suddenly brought up and sometimes just as easily dismissed. Even if you're reading attentively, it's really easy to forget whos whats whys. Nearing the middle portion chapters often have a lot of emotional whiplash (jumping from comedy to tragedy in a snap). There is much more flashback and chara background building as the series goes.
Although the pacing and story is muddled, it was exciting to read and I'm glad I stuck out the groggish middle-end portion and made it to the end. Eventually some plot parts seem a bit to convenient, but it's not disruptive overall and I really like how the author managed to tie u the elements from the beginning of the story that seem to lose their place for the finale.
Andddd opops I accidentally deleted an entire portion with a lot of my dedtailed thoughts...
Vague Spoilers Below
Basically Hai'an does gain an elf form back, but you have to go through some uncomfortable parts where he's extremely infantile and is an actual baby. It's weird. When he becomes an adult again its better bc they can be lovey dovey but tbh I miss when he was a plant bc that had a lot of charm. Things get reeeeally messy around this time and when the war becomes a bigger deal.
You also get a bunch more info-dump tragic backstories. Sometimes they seem sad just as an excuse for sads... and also a lot of plot conveniences. Characters keep popping up and stuff just happens, so lots of action but less sense.
If you have squiks for underage and incest they don't impact the story a whole lot but it is there. The underage is more prominent, as there are a lot more cases of characters like. Baby-status or childhood. I think it's really common in Chinese novels for some reason, but I find it uncomfortable when they're like babies and act like children... There are also some big age-gaps but I don't mind that so much bc there are a lot of species in this series. The incest is more suggested and happens close to the end, so it's barely there.
Anyways I think it's worth taking a chance to read!
It's called Lessons on Raising a Partner written by Ācí Gūniáng.
The translation is by ExR.
Basically the story is a big sci-fi space opera!
The story follows an elf-cum-baby grass plant named Hai'an. Something goes awry during his magical rite of age passage and he is transmigrated to the body of a cute little seeding in a different world.
There he comes to be owned by a retired marshall named Auguste, and is taken to explore a space-age. Auguste is actually a dragon, and he currently searching for the others of his race. While caring for his cute little plant, Auguste finds that it is quite intelligent and begins falling in love with the plant Hai'an.
It's weird to see the ML fall for a plant but hey! Open mind open heart-- right? They do point out that plants can have personalities and IQs, it's still odd but at least we know the mc is technically an elf. Plus Hai'an is so cute as a plant (oh no could my perversion be getting that much stranger...)
General thoughts about the novel
It was a really interesting novel, and was really unexpected! In a good way for me. I mean, my expectations were more along the lines of a unique BL (bc of the label and the other work by the translation team and the title) that focused on the romance. The actual work hardly has any lessons about "raising a partner" haha.
There was a tremendous number of lessons about the world though. Came for romance, stayed for intense worldbuilding (and romance).
It's much easier to get into the story after you come to know who all the characters are instead of just having names pop up and hardly any explanation of what's happening overall. I started enjoying the story a lot more once plant Hai'an actually got into Auguste's hands.
Sadly it can feel too info-dumpy at times, as there is a lot of things happening in the story and they have to provide a lot of description about such and such yet the overall plot gets muddled, especially when the war element is brought into the story. Things get especially disjointed during the lengthy middle portion after a certain event (I'll mention it below the spoiler cut. So much happens out of the blue, and there are a lot of moving parts suddenly brought up and sometimes just as easily dismissed. Even if you're reading attentively, it's really easy to forget whos whats whys. Nearing the middle portion chapters often have a lot of emotional whiplash (jumping from comedy to tragedy in a snap). There is much more flashback and chara background building as the series goes.
Although the pacing and story is muddled, it was exciting to read and I'm glad I stuck out the groggish middle-end portion and made it to the end. Eventually some plot parts seem a bit to convenient, but it's not disruptive overall and I really like how the author managed to tie u the elements from the beginning of the story that seem to lose their place for the finale.
Andddd opops I accidentally deleted an entire portion with a lot of my dedtailed thoughts...
Vague Spoilers Below
Basically Hai'an does gain an elf form back, but you have to go through some uncomfortable parts where he's extremely infantile and is an actual baby. It's weird. When he becomes an adult again its better bc they can be lovey dovey but tbh I miss when he was a plant bc that had a lot of charm. Things get reeeeally messy around this time and when the war becomes a bigger deal.
You also get a bunch more info-dump tragic backstories. Sometimes they seem sad just as an excuse for sads... and also a lot of plot conveniences. Characters keep popping up and stuff just happens, so lots of action but less sense.
If you have squiks for underage and incest they don't impact the story a whole lot but it is there. The underage is more prominent, as there are a lot more cases of characters like. Baby-status or childhood. I think it's really common in Chinese novels for some reason, but I find it uncomfortable when they're like babies and act like children... There are also some big age-gaps but I don't mind that so much bc there are a lot of species in this series. The incest is more suggested and happens close to the end, so it's barely there.
Anyways I think it's worth taking a chance to read!
