Transmigrating into the heartthrob’s cannon fodder childhood friend Review
While hospitalized due to an illness Song Yu's cousin suggests that he read the novel ‘Gentle Control’. It’s danmei or a boy's love novel and it revolves around ideas of sadistic love and coercion.
Song Yu absolutely hates it. He can’t understand why the other readers enjoy a story where the main character is constantly humiliated and forced into awful situations. He feels sorry for the protagonist shou Xie Sui. So when he wakes up in the novel in the role of the main character’s childhood friend he immediately decides to change the plot and stop Xie Sui from suffering. However, there’s a catch Xie Sui has been reborn into his 15 year old body which means that this character is not some sweet downtrodden boy. He’s cold and ruthless having lived all of this before. Anyone who crosses him will be in for a nasty surprise. What will happen when these two meet?
There’s some fluffy and adorable moments between the two male leads so if you’re into that you can read this and enjoy it on that level. However, this is a face-slapping story. What’s a face-slapping story? I would define it as one with a series of mini revenge plots. They often go like this; you’ll be introduced to a malicious or several malicious characters, who try to harm the main character. They are then punished or humiliated in some way as revenge for their evil deeds. It’s a pretty common setup. A meet the bad guys and then watch them fall type of scenario. The downside of face slapping novels is that you have to sit through all the disgusting behaviors of “the bad guys” before you can get to watch them fall.
If you’re coming into this novel then read it for the fluff and the face-slapping. I’ve gotta warn you though, the ending of the story makes no sense. The overall explanation as to why everything is happening is pure gibberish. The author tries to explain it but does so by introducing several other elements that were never mentioned in the story before. Things like interstellar worlds and psychic abilities. The author has Song Yu say that “it makes sense now”. He says that multiple times while he’s listening to the system explain its overall goal. Having your main character say that something makes sense doesn't magically make it so.
Another problem I have is that Song Yu constantly mentions socialism. Now it’s not unusual for people to have a sense of nationalism in their writing. With authors promoting the belief systems of their home country. You see this a lot in American and Chinese novels. As long as they’re not doing it at the expense of other countries or cultures I won’t care much. My issue with this story is that Song Yu talks about the importance of socialism whilst using his family’s power and social class to solve every major problem he has. Socialism is built around ideas of equality. You’re not supposed to have this hierarchy when one group is suppressing another and yet that’s exactly what happens in this story over and over again. Him using his powers for good doesn’t change the fact that he’s still doing the same thing they are. He’s using his social class against other people. It would be like someone saying that they think murder is wrong and deciding to kill murderers. Surely, you see the conflict? Anyone here ever read Dexter?
It creates the same effect as those dramatic Dhar Mann videos where a mean person belittles someone only to later find out that the person is a secret billionaire and they’re punished. There's a little lesson in that of don't judge a book by its cover. But wouldn't an even better lesson be simply to treat everyone with the same amount of dignity and respect regardless of who they are. What’s that? You say that’s too boring. Ok, then go back to indulging in power fantasies of destroying the rich and powerful. It’s not really my thing though.
I’m probably at fault for using too many brain cells while reading what is supposed to be a bl romance for teenagers so that’s on me. However, Harry Potter is meant for children and it’s pretty good.
If you’re willing to follow the romance between the two leads then go ahead. You might enjoy it. If you want a solid explanations, or fully developed characters who grow and change over time. Well, sorry but you’re not going to find that here. Read but would not recommend.