Sha's Reviews > The Villain and the Cannon Fodder’s Mother

18 Jan 2022

1. Professional chef transmigrates to body of rich divorcee obsessed with ex-husband. She decides she wants none of that shit and starts to get attached to her kids instead. The kids, who were originally supposed to be pitiable antagonists in the story, decide to cozy up to their newly improved mom. Her cooking skills also attract the foodie uncle of the future male lead. Slice of life shenanigans ensue.

2. This is not a plot-heavy story, and what little plot there is gets overshadowed by all the non-plot scenes featuring the characters. This is because the characters are very sitcom-like; deeply chaotic and funny with genuinely interesting connections with each other. This makes the entertainment-circle finance stuff feel both out of place and boring.

3. The romance is really cute. It's a slow burning relationship, made all the more slower by both the ML and FL being really, really inept at both identifying and conveying romantic interest. It's glorious. They are both so smart and yet so deeply dumb. Truly a match made in heaven. I love them.

4. The supporting characters are all wonderful. The FL's mom is a domineering delight and her relationship with her husband is both sweet and funny. The ML and his nephew are a two person comedy act. The FL's kids are both adorable and funny. Meng Yuran's food-mooching friends are great too. It's just- all so sweet a wholesome. Sigh.

5. The prose is really funny too. Often very matter-of-fact and tongue-in-cheek, finding humor in fairly normal character interactions and reactions. I just really love in when the narrative manages to set the stage like a sitcom. Little things like the repeated comments about how "Meng Yuran was not happy but his face was always like that so nobody noticed it", Meng Shanshan's foolishness (Which is mostly her tendency to abandon any common sense the moment food enters into the picture. Same girl, me too.), the repeated comments about who the real head of the family is and how everyone behaves in order to please her, the never-ending rivalry between the boys even to the point where they shoot themselves in the foot to one-up the other, Lu Xun's ongoing distaste for expressionless faces (which he passes on to Meng Shanshan), and the running gag of Lu Xun being just terrible at romance because he's too focused on food. Honestly, him and Meng Shanshan were born to be dad and daughter.

6. All of these tiny character details may not have been very important (or important at ALL) plotwise but they went a long way into making me feel attached to the characters. They are all hilarious messes. I love them all.

7. So anyway, I had fun is what I'm saying. Don't come here if you want plot or drama or emotions. But I had so much fun with the fluff and the comedy.