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Review: The Movie Star Puts On 1.5 Kilos Per Week (影后一周胖三斤) by Xiao Bao (晓暴)
I read this to recover from the very emotional experience of reading Burn (which I wrote about here). This was advertised as a fun, fluffy food-focused novel, and for the first 55 chapters or so, it was precisely that. The last 25 chapters were a confusing out-of-character rush as the author for whatever reason hurried to wrap up the novel.
In terms of the genre as a whole, I don't get the impression that this novel is a particularly notable one. I only noticed it because it was recently licensed for a manhua adaptation. On looking further into the author, however, I did realise that she's extremely prolific (having written almost 50 baihe novels) and well-known among longtime baihe readers (though perhaps less so to casual or new baihe readers) particularly for her sex scenes. Fun(?) fact: she was previously under contract for JJWXC, then terminated her contract with JJWXC (over, I suspect, censorship) and re-acquired the rights to all her novels previously published on JJWXC. These are now offered for sale as ebooks on her own Taobao shopfront, though due presumably around Chinese licensing regulations for the publication and retail of books, the listings are disguised as listings for digital fonts.
The protagonist of this novel is Gu Yaoxi, who is transmigrated into a parallel universe where same-sex marriage is legal. In this parallel universe, not only is she in a contract marriage in a movie star named Bai Manqiu, but at the moment of transmigration, she's actually sitting in front of Bai Manqiu's lawyer, poised to sign divorce papers terminating the marriage. The system, that omnipresent entity in transmigration novels, suddenly appears in her head to warn her that signing those papers will mean DEATH. She manages to fob off Bai Manqiu's lawyer without signing the papers. Through the system, Gu Yaoxi - and we - learn that in this parallel universe, Bai Manqiu only married Gu Yaoxi in order to please her late grandfather, who was friends with Gu Yaoxi's own late grandfather. The arrangement was that the marriage would be on paper only and would last for five years, after which they would consensually divorce. We also learn that the parallel universe version of Gu Yaoxi was a fame-hungry wannabe beauty vlogger, whom Bai Manqiu very much disliked (not helped by the fact that parallel universe Gu Yaoxi had tried very unsuccessfully and not very subtly to seduce Bai Manqiu on one occasion). The system informs Gu Yaoxi that her mission is to stay married to Bai Manqiu for another five years, after which she'll be returned to her own universe. Gu Yaoxi deals with this the only way she can think of: treating Bai Manqiu with respect, and cooking her delicious, lavishly described meals (we learn later that Gu Yaoxi is not only a highly-trained chef in her own universe, but also the head of a fine dining business empire that her family has run for generations).
The stage is thus set for Bai Manqiu to be gradually won over by Gu Yaoxi's inexplicably changed demeanour and culinary skills, and for Gu Yaoxi to come to the slow realisation that she's interested in Bai Manqiu as a romantic prospect, not just as her ticket home. The first 55 chapters of this novel is devoted to developing the relationship between them, through a series of enjoyably rendered, trope-laden arcs and many lavish descriptions of Gu Yaoxi's cooking. The food writing in this is excellent: it actually details Gu Yaoxi's process, and explains in some detail how she manages to elevate even quite ordinary dishes (as opposed to certain Asian-set, Western-published novels that are advertised as 'OMG THE FOOD', but which turn out to contain only laundry lists of dishes without much in the way of detail or description).
In the last section of the novel, however, all of this comes to a crashing halt. The author makes the incomprehensible decision to have Bai Manqiu confess her feelings to Gu Yaoxi (even though Gu Yaoxi is not, at this point, anywhere near the same emotional page as her), shoves them into bed in a very half-hearted sex scene, and then has them behave in increasingly out-of-character ways in order to wrap up the novel in a hasty fashion. I was extremely let down by this, because I had been enjoying the novel for what it was up until then. I'm normally the last person to demand that a webnovel be longer, but I think this one would have been better served if the author had wrapped it up in 120 chapters instead of 86.
I read the Chinese original of the novel on Changpei. There is also, as mentioned previously, an ongoing manhua adaptation, which I hope will wrap up in a more satisfying fashion.
In terms of the genre as a whole, I don't get the impression that this novel is a particularly notable one. I only noticed it because it was recently licensed for a manhua adaptation. On looking further into the author, however, I did realise that she's extremely prolific (having written almost 50 baihe novels) and well-known among longtime baihe readers (though perhaps less so to casual or new baihe readers) particularly for her sex scenes. Fun(?) fact: she was previously under contract for JJWXC, then terminated her contract with JJWXC (over, I suspect, censorship) and re-acquired the rights to all her novels previously published on JJWXC. These are now offered for sale as ebooks on her own Taobao shopfront, though due presumably around Chinese licensing regulations for the publication and retail of books, the listings are disguised as listings for digital fonts.
The protagonist of this novel is Gu Yaoxi, who is transmigrated into a parallel universe where same-sex marriage is legal. In this parallel universe, not only is she in a contract marriage in a movie star named Bai Manqiu, but at the moment of transmigration, she's actually sitting in front of Bai Manqiu's lawyer, poised to sign divorce papers terminating the marriage. The system, that omnipresent entity in transmigration novels, suddenly appears in her head to warn her that signing those papers will mean DEATH. She manages to fob off Bai Manqiu's lawyer without signing the papers. Through the system, Gu Yaoxi - and we - learn that in this parallel universe, Bai Manqiu only married Gu Yaoxi in order to please her late grandfather, who was friends with Gu Yaoxi's own late grandfather. The arrangement was that the marriage would be on paper only and would last for five years, after which they would consensually divorce. We also learn that the parallel universe version of Gu Yaoxi was a fame-hungry wannabe beauty vlogger, whom Bai Manqiu very much disliked (not helped by the fact that parallel universe Gu Yaoxi had tried very unsuccessfully and not very subtly to seduce Bai Manqiu on one occasion). The system informs Gu Yaoxi that her mission is to stay married to Bai Manqiu for another five years, after which she'll be returned to her own universe. Gu Yaoxi deals with this the only way she can think of: treating Bai Manqiu with respect, and cooking her delicious, lavishly described meals (we learn later that Gu Yaoxi is not only a highly-trained chef in her own universe, but also the head of a fine dining business empire that her family has run for generations).
The stage is thus set for Bai Manqiu to be gradually won over by Gu Yaoxi's inexplicably changed demeanour and culinary skills, and for Gu Yaoxi to come to the slow realisation that she's interested in Bai Manqiu as a romantic prospect, not just as her ticket home. The first 55 chapters of this novel is devoted to developing the relationship between them, through a series of enjoyably rendered, trope-laden arcs and many lavish descriptions of Gu Yaoxi's cooking. The food writing in this is excellent: it actually details Gu Yaoxi's process, and explains in some detail how she manages to elevate even quite ordinary dishes (as opposed to certain Asian-set, Western-published novels that are advertised as 'OMG THE FOOD', but which turn out to contain only laundry lists of dishes without much in the way of detail or description).
In the last section of the novel, however, all of this comes to a crashing halt. The author makes the incomprehensible decision to have Bai Manqiu confess her feelings to Gu Yaoxi (even though Gu Yaoxi is not, at this point, anywhere near the same emotional page as her), shoves them into bed in a very half-hearted sex scene, and then has them behave in increasingly out-of-character ways in order to wrap up the novel in a hasty fashion. I was extremely let down by this, because I had been enjoying the novel for what it was up until then. I'm normally the last person to demand that a webnovel be longer, but I think this one would have been better served if the author had wrapped it up in 120 chapters instead of 86.
I read the Chinese original of the novel on Changpei. There is also, as mentioned previously, an ongoing manhua adaptation, which I hope will wrap up in a more satisfying fashion.