#her books are a keeper

[bellaroles]

I think I made the list before but I can't find it. So I made a new one since I just finished reading Beidou/the Plough

Meng Xi Shi's books signature

The Slow Burn romance is really slow but I love every single little bits of relationship development in every ship so far. Also the payoff is so good! I also love the banter in every one of her books. Very satisfying to read!

Tsundere shou! ( Not always but I think Shen Qiao, Tang Fan, Cui Buqu are these types and also Ling Shu to a certain degree) Though they're under the same category, they're portrayed as very different in personalities and I can't get enough of them. Their respective gong are also very unique and cunning in their own way when it comes to making the shou admit their feelings!

Cross dressings! Hilarity ensues!

Solving mysteries! be it crime investigation, treasure hunting, political machinations, unmasking evil cult or even ruining evil cultivators plan to rule the world etc.

Strong women side characters. Also if they're among the very beautiful then they usually are either evil and end up dead or they find a way out of their predicament on their own.

Spoiler alert: the betrayal! We need at least one scene of either true betrayal (looking at you, Yan Wushi!) or it was just an act (Peerless, the Plough) or qi deviation (Shen Shang)

The last few chapters at least one or both of the main characters fight to the brink of death and yeah their love for each other is reaffirmed because of this but...that's not the true ending though! Go read that in the extras!

I've read 5 series of hers so far and I like them all very much.

Thousand Autumns

14th year of Chenghua

Peerless

Estranged

The Plough

Have Bu Tian Gang on my shelf already. Might start on that next, or All under heaven.

[milo-igidk]

i dont think we talk enough about how fucking raw this line is

[song-tam]

rip sophie foster you wouldve loved wireless earbuds

[purplesoup-lad-le]

sometimes i wonder if one of those couple name generators would do better than what we've come up with.

I don't have to wonde anymore

[autistic-daydreamer]

Question for my KOTLC fans out there: what is something you read in the series that you couldn't defend the possible reasoning it was written. For research purposes (and specify what book)

[reiningsoral]

sophie foster should be allowed to say fuck

[waddles-ex-machina]

I know maybe some of us are grieving the gang losing their signature colours but can we talk abt how frida is slowly shifting into kaisa’s colour palette

[moondust-on-the-hijabi]

Sophie: Can you keep a secret? Maruca: Do you know anything about my life? Sophie: No, I don't. Good point.

[daydream-draws]

what if we were girl best friends and i was in love with you (also i’m a mirror)

[lucyshypemaster]

it's kinda funny to remember that sophie canonically listens to rock

[the-great-gullon-incident]

Something I noticed throughout my reread is Stina(outside of the first book) seems to be the narrative stand in for whatever the public’s thinking about the decisions the council or Sophie and her friends are making.

[sophitz]

“authors make 3 plot holes per series” factoid actually just statistical error. average author makes 0 plot holes per series. Shannon Messenger, who lives in cave & writes 10,000 lose ends each book, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[feralboo-the-weirdo]

I think my favorite trope in middle grade books is how firmly the narrator manages to convince themselves they're going to have a "normal" anything. (vacation, walk, school year, etc)

Like it's definitely not healthy in any way, but I admire their total commitment to it. like, bud. did you see the cover of this book? the MC tries so hard to have the major plot point not happen so hard, and they never succeed.

feel free to add if you know of more books/MC's that do this, I made a list in the tags, but it's kinda short.

[faeriefully]

for research: Are there any books you know of that involve siblings of children with chronic illnesses?

[frizzle-mcshizzle]

📖

📖: If you had to remove one book from the series, which would you choose?

ive talked about this before but Unraveled.

it's such an obvious cash grab, if you're writing a long series you cannot switch POV ten books in and write a .5 book that's not how it's supposed to work. its bad writing. she's obviously stretching out the series to make money, it feels like it's gonna be a plotless book with maybe one or two plot points that really don't need to be in a separate book. I genuinely feel like she's actually gone down in the target age. because originally while said 8 to 12, the first book had children being kidnapped and tortured and addressed grief and adoption in like a genuine heartfelt way. it felt more like a book for 12-14yos. with what being posted about unraveled it really feels like a book for middle schoolers which I understand is the official target age of the series but it wasn't always like that, a good children's book can be enjoyed by adults, and kotlc is no longer like that.

on top of that the series has been going down in quality since nightfall. she had a chance to save it with Stellarlune, because everyone was cutting her slack for having babies. but it just got worse. The thing is she's a genuinely good writer you can see that in the first four books which is why I'm so disappointed in where the series is going.

[chiropteracupola]

a bright young lady of good family and excellent disposition

[moth and compass is a collaboration with @natdrinkstea]