- #1
This novelist seems to have a slight obsession with Teresa Teng or maybe she was inspired by her. The first third of the novel where the FL works as a piano player is littered with mentions of Teresa Teng's songs (which I listened to as I read, I did not know before who Miss Teng was) and the main couple has the same ages as Teresa and her French beau at the time of Teresa's death - the FL is 42 and the ML is 27.
Of course, the FL has been reborn back to when she was 21, she is young again in this novel and that rebirth is her pill for regret, metaphorically speaking, but her actual age and life experiences and skills are those of a 42 year old. Which in my opinion robs this novel of the freshness of youth.
She knows it all, been there done that, her real age is the same as that of her parents, so there is no feeling that you actually read about a young couple's first love and them figuring out how to live together, what to eat and what to wear, build careers, build a circle of friends, have a family, be filial, create wealth, etc. There are too many cheats and shortcuts on the part of the FL..
The only thing that I do not get in that story is how forgiving are Chinese authors towards r*pe. In this story, the FL's stepmom plans to feed the FL a powerful aphrodisiac normally used with cows and bulls to make them repeoduce and then arranges for her to be deflowered and r*ped. The FL suspects that her soup is drugged and switches that bowl with her pregnant (!!!) stepsister's bowl of soup. (How could anyone in their right mind feed drugs to a heavily pregnant woman??? Even if that is just a suspision of drugs of unknown nature?) And then all three go to that place where the FL is supposed to be r*ped.
The whole affair ended up with the stepsis hemorraging so profusely, the hired rapist did not even touch her, she lost the baby and the uterus.
And the FL's dad, a doctor (!!!), is OK with this whole affair! His wife arranged for his biological daughter's r*pe then she beat him until he was black and blue and he continues to live with his wife as if nothing was wrong with that woman.
The FL's teenage brother is OK with that too. He lives with his mad rapist mother as if that was the most normal arrangement in the world. He clearly can leave that sick and pe*verted household and stay with the FL's family, with the sane and upright relatives, but no, he stays with his mom, dad and his mother's daughter from her other man.
The FL herself seems to see nothing wrong with that either and continues to interact with her parents and eat her stepmother's food when she visits them. Shouldn't she be wary of being poisoned again?
Why wasn't that woman, her daughter and the hired rapist detained and prosecuted?
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