Reviews with content warning for Suicide - 天官赐福 [Tiān Guān Cì Fú]

Just putting this for record keeping.
- 10/10 Worldbuilding
- 10/10 Main Characters
- 9/10 Side Characters
- 8/10 Pacing... vol 1 was a hurdle but once you get into the world and realize there's a conspiracy that literally ties everything together, you literally can't stop reading the other volumes.

In depth review will be added when I re-read this novel with the 7seas editions.

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pariah735's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

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karin_goodreads's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Oh my god!!!
So, MXTX might be my favourite author currently and maybe even of all time, because both MDZS and TGCF have taken over my life. I think TGCF is even longer than the Bible (fact?) and I just read through it like my life depended on it. Currently I'm reading the manhua and let me tell you - STARember's style and designs are SO PRETTY!! The story just feels even more grand. I'm just really into this stuff :)

There are many characters in this story too and they have usually just one name and some of them have a special title or a nickname. Like, one thing that I really liked was that Hua Cheng, who was the Supreme Ghost King was called Crimson Rain Sought Flower - if you know the story then you also know the meaning and I really like how it adds to the character. For some reason Qi Rong, who I hated AND loved because of his antics, swearing, dramatics and his unhinged and chaotic behaviour, had such a cute appearance in my head, even though he shouldn't. Like he was called Green Ghost Qi Rong or Night-Touring Green Lantern - that sounds cute to me but he is *definitely* not.

The characters were again written really well and the world building was great too! This time the characters pulled me in even more, because the humor and chaoticness was just so good. The story had the action and adventure we needed, we got our romance that Hua Cheng waited 800 years for (no big deal.. *pfft*) and some ✨spice✨ too. We got literal gods, cultivators, ghosts and all kinds of monsters and beings. Oh, Hua Cheng's scimitar E-Ming even had it's own spirit and Xie Lian's Ruoye too. Both of their "birth" story's are heartbreaking. And also, Hua Cheng's little Wraith Butterflies!!!! They are so pretty and cute BUT incredibly deadly too😍

So basically.. 800 years ago, Xie Lian, who was The Crown Prince of Xianle, ascended and became a god with tens of thousands of worshippers, but soon everything went downhill. He was sent back to the mortal realm, where he quietly suffered for 800 years. Seriously, it was so distressing and painful. The things that happened to him were truly just horrible. Hua Cheng who also suffered, tried to become powerful and unstoppable just because he wanted to protect Xie Lian, who didn't even know that he still had his most devoted worshipper fighting for him. Seriously, Hua Cheng was DEDICATED. I don't know where he got that kind of willpower. Well probably from his intense love and need to protect Xie Lian but still, his dedication was unrivaled.

This novel had a lot of quotes and moments that just spoke volumes. I think one of the quotes that can be understood and felt even without reading the novel is this one (to this day this quote is precious to me):

The one standing in infinite glory is you; the one fallen from grace is also you. What matters is ‘you’ and not the state of you.

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ssyx's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

my review is not going to do justice to how much these novels mean to me. i finished tgcf over a year ago and it’s still my favorite read ever. i’ve reread all of the books twice, read the manhua, and have watched s1 of the donghua an embarrassing amount of times. tgcf means so much to me i can barely put it to words.

xie lian is my favorite main character ever. period. in anything i’ve watched or read i can say with confidence xie lian is my favorite. he’s smart, funny, competent, and compassionate. he understands the ugliness of the world and how evil and cruel it can be

sigh book 4 sigh

but he still remains true to himself and sticks with what he believes in. he’s definitely a “looks like a cinnamon roll, could kill you” type of character and i love that for him.

hua cheng is a cool mf. everything about him is cool af. i would say i’m xie lians #1 fan but i couldn’t take hua cheng in a fight. i love him. he literally invented love. he’s one of the coolest characters i’ve ever read about

(which to be fair he had 800 years where he solely practiced not being a loser so he could rizz up xie lian)

he’s smart, he’s funny, it’s powerful af, and he’s be through everything with xie lian and will continue to go through everything with xie lian.

there are so many thematic and character parallels in tgcf and it’s so cool to go through the book and notice all of them

most prominent one to me is hua cheng’s obsession with xie lian compared to jun wu(fuck u jun wu i hope ur suffering)

something about tgcf that is different from other books i’ve read is i actually give a shit about the side characters storylines. i loved reading about the backstories of all of the gods and the ghosts.

beefleaf you will always be iconic and they can have a happy ending ur delusional enough

i’ve written so much and i haven’t even gotten to how good the plot is yet. but i’ll spare the details because to no one’s surprise i loved it as well. it’s 750k words and it still felt too short because i loved it so much. also some also bangers quotes.

edgar allan poe has been real quiet since “what matters is ‘you’ not the state of you” dropped

anyways i love tgcf and i want all of the books tattooed into my brain.

tldr: god is gay and is married to the devil

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eauderat's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny inspiring lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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some_random_person_hi's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

This book is literally everything. The beginning 60-70% reads in the style of a weekly mystery that gets investigated by the main character but starting from the last arc in the third book (by the web novel 3rd out of 5 books way) the previous arcs start to coalesce into a plot really quickly and intensely.
I adore the way the themes of fate and love as well as the sheer number of character foils and ship(?) foils this book is so analysable as a lit student I am in love with it. But unlike other books that read like it's written for analysis (cough to kill a mockingbird, babel cough) and thus vaguely boring, this one is so fast paced. I read a couple of paragraphs and something new has already happened -> I finally managed to voluntarily finish a full length chinese book that isn't explicitly written for kids
Mm I'm never going to forget this book it singlehandedly dragged my chinese grades up, made me stop hating my mother tongue, hard carried my will to live for a semester all because I finally found a fast-paced fantasy book that I could understand.

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