- #1
One of my favorite novels from one of my favorite authors.Our FL Xie Yunchu is a typical ancient woman - she regards her husband as the heaven and obeys her in-laws. Sadly for her, they all take her for granted. Due to overwork she gets ill and eventually dies. In her last moments she hears that her husband is going to take her half-sister (born to a concubine) as his second wife. And all the people she pleased have no problem with this - no, they even prefer her.So when she gets reborn, she decides to live her life exactly how she wants to. Watching her grow and stand her ground is incredible empowering.The ML - Wang Shuhuai, her husband in past and present life is the eldest son of a dukedom. But because of past events, his position is rather precarious. Therefore he concentrates all his efforts on amassing power and neglects his wife and children - although not intentionally. When his wife suddenly starts to change, he begins to realize, what he used to have.The book is well written, the characters are nuanced and even the "villains" have solid motives.What I liked the most is not only the groveling - and boy does our ML start to grovel, but also the empathic portrait of different female characters.The grand princess for example is portrait as a ruthless and cold character, but a brilliant strategist nonetheless. She supports other women, disregarding which camp they belong to. And our FL respects her for this, because business is business and private options are private options.Spoiler
The tragic story between the grand princess and the old duke really got to me. I`m glad the ML was as decisive as he was, because the grand princess really took it to far, but her relationship with the duke was really complicated and made me emotional. The push and pull between trust and distrust, familiarity, maybe even love and political opponents...
[collapse]