khyie's Reviews (267)

Look, I'm going to preface this review with two things: 1 is that this is being written after my third (at least) re-read and 2 is that I'm pretty sure KJ Charles wrote this book just for me.  She just doesn't know it.
I love Crozier.  He is exactly my favorite kind of asshole and I'm very much delighted by the fact that this was not a "love redeems people" story.  It made a very deliberate point of ensuring that we understood that this is not a love redeems people story.
I do confess Crozier is my favorite but that doesn't mean I don't also really love Alec.  He's a cinnamon roll in comparison but he's got a steel core and he was willing to do some awful things of his own in order to get what he wants.  Their steamy scenes were exactly to my tastes and I really enjoyed how his vulnerabilities drew out hints of Crozier's own.
The twist in this novel was really well done and I think my favorite thing in the reread was seeing how many hints Charles' deftly dropped that were so exquisitely worded it was easy to mistake their meaning for something else.
All in all, a superb romance novel and this will be far from my last reread.

You know, this book had two things stacked very heavily against it... I don't rate short stories very highly and I hate holiday themed stories.  So it probably says something that I had a genuinely great time reading this novel, with many laugh out loud moments.  Crozier is still my absolute favorite and I was tickled pink over the scenes with him in it but the two leads were fun and interesting characters in their own right.

I have regrets and it's mainly that I didn't read the summary more carefully and truly considered what "gifted" meant before I spent money on this crap.  It's a fucking slave/master story.  I'd give just a bit more credit to it if the token attempt the master made to let the slave go lasted longer than, like, 2 pages.  I'm not even sure the slave made it off the main property before he came running back and insisting to be with his master. 
It's a joke, is what I'm saying, and not a very funny one.
You can roll in some good old species discrimination for flavor.

Whether you like this book or not us probably mostly going to come down to whether or not you like the protagonist and tbh, he's not very likeable.  He's not really unlikable either.  He's just... there.  A mostly blank character who's got a few rigid rules that he follows while the plot happens to him until the very end.  The other characters in the novel also mostly exist around him and also don't have much in the way of personality.  The few I did like, I also thought this would've been a much better book if it followed them.
Overall, it wasn't the worst infinite flow novel I've ever read and there were some interesting things happening in the background but it was wasted on the fact that it was all happening in the background and the main character didn't care about it so it wasn't really part of the book.

I forgot how much I really enjoyed this book at first.  I remember being less than impressed with the ending when I first read this series so here's to hoping it doesn't go downhill with an official translation.

Established relationship.  Main pairing involves a shou who chases every hot guy and his emotionally abusive insecure gong 
Side pairing which apparently has its own story is between someone physically abusive and a cheater.

This was a re-read and I somehow had it my head that the ML doted on the MC a lot more in this story than I actually saw.  The ML was mostly supportive towards the MC, especially once he got to know him, but there was some distance there because of plot shenanigans, to include concubines and a fake true love.  I'm not particularly pleased about how the issues pretty much only managed to get tidied up because of random mpreg caused by gu (wtffff....) and I would've liked it better if they had found another way to resolve the issues with the Emperor.  Or you know... not every ML has to become the Emperor.  I'm okay with that.  He was perfectly fine with not becoming the Emperor once he'd had some time to calm down and think about it.  It would've been fine, Author.  We did not need random insect-driven mpreg so that the ML could become Emperor.

Don't let the title mislead you.  There is pretty much no farming in this novel.  The MC is a gay man who transmigrates into a fantasy version of historical China, where there are no women.  Just men and ger.  This means they can have all the gay while still having all the heteronormative gender bullshit!  There's also mpreg because of course there is.
Disparaging comments aside, it's a nice little farming strength novel.  The MC starts off with a tiny little food stand that they build up into a bustling restaurant with some side business workshopping food for other restaurants.  I actually did appreciate the fact that the MC never becomes someone overwhelmingly outstanding.  He has a lane, which is that he's pretty decent at cooking, and he develops in that direction.  The ML does not recover from a fool into someone who a secret identity that made him turn out to be mind-blowingly powerful.  He is exactly what it says on the tin... a farmer.
It's a nice little slice of life story if you can ignore the hardcore slapping of gender roles onto all your gay couples, because again... there's only men in this story.