The rating just came in, so don’t let it put you off 😭
In 1972, Li Xiangyang was born in a twenty-square-meter apartment in an industrial city somewhere in Northeast China.
The child’s cries were unusual. He wasn’t hungry, and he hadn’t wet himself. It was because the patch on the window was crooked, a corner was missing from the reed mat on the kang, and the row of coins on the table wasn’t lined up properly.
His father, Li Jianguo, a Grade Six fitter, squatted beside the kang and watched him for three days before finally understanding: the little rascal had a ruler in his eyes.
So, in the hope of getting their son to settle down, the Li family embarked on a long campaign of “rectification.”
The patch on the window had to be perfectly square, the newspaper on the walls had to be pasted down without a single gap, and even the bowls on the stove had to face the same direction.
Three years later, Li Jianguo’s tool cabinet had gone from a “mass grave” to a “model of standardization,” and the time it took to find a wrench had dropped from five minutes to ten seconds. Five years later, Wang Xiulan, a temporary worker at the neighborhood garment factory, had been “trained” by her son into doing meticulous work and became head of the quality team. Six years later, the entire residential compound had become a “Sanitation Model” for the neighborhood, all under Li Xiangyang’s direction.
Then, on the day he started school, Li Xiangyang suddenly discovered…
It seemed another person’s memories had taken up residence in his mind. That person was a mechanical engineer from 2023 who had died of a heart attack.
A six-year-old body, knowledge from a thirty-five-year-old. A born obsession with order, and the thinking of someone who had lived two lives.
What would he “put in order” in this 1970s world?
A very loving family and harmonious neighbors. The story mainly unfolds from the perspective of a baby with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Everyone tolerates his "weird problems" and feedbacks that they themselves are getting better, so they become more tolerant, forming positive feedback. It makes people feel warm when they see it
The writing is really good. It provides a comprehensive description of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder. The expressions are clear and three-dimensional, and the characterization is very successful. This is the first time I 'understand' obsessive-compulsive disorder in depth. The more I see it, the more terrifying it becomes. It is a disaster for myself and the family members who live together. It is a long-lasting torture. Only love and tolerance can we live together, right? I already feel "uncomfortable" just by reading the text. It's okay for a day or two, but it will go crazy in the long run. So such an ideal family can't exist in real life, right? At least I haven't seen it. Everyone is centered on self-feeling, and everything they do is more to serve themselves. Giving a little to others stingily feels like a lot of effort, and it is rare to be able to orientate your efforts based on the needs of the other party... So a super obsessive-compulsive disorder patient like the male protagonist can only be happy if he lives in a novel, right? I sincerely hope that people with obsessive-compulsive disorder can find a harmonious, self-consistent, and own rhythm of life in this world, with less pain and worry.
The author writes very well. He is a strange child, but his family and neighbors are very kind. He did not alienate him because of his lack of use. He chose to be tolerant and caring. The author's writing style is also very good. There are some clips that made me want to cry. The love of the family makes the protagonist slowly change and improve his understanding of the world bit by bit. The recovery of memory at the age of six also changes the novel. Up to now, the novel has no obvious highlights. I hope the author will stick to this high quality. It will be the best to read more every day.
This book is set in the 1970s. The protagonist has an obsessive-compulsive disorder, and then because of his obsessive-compulsive disorder, it affects the people around him. From time travel to becoming a baby with no memory, to be honest, this kind of subject matter is relatively difficult to write. It can also be seen that the author may have an obsessive-compulsive disorder in reality. Secondly, if this kind of subject matter is not grasped well, it may be distorted, but the author has grasped this degree very well. , Originally set in the 1970s, everyone was seeking food and clothing, but the family and era background set by the author made up for this very well. The protagonist's father pursues orderliness in his work, and society pursues observance of rules. Secondly, his mother who loves him, his warm family, and his sister who understands him well all work well to keep this theme from being distorted. Moreover, the author's writing style is very good, and the subject matter is also very novel, which is very interesting to read. I have a slight case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. After reading the book, I felt that the protagonist's obsessive-compulsive disorder was too serious. He couldn't tolerate disorder at all. This was quite tiring, both for myself and my family. And when I read it, I felt a little depressed or tired, like the protagonist. In fact, in modern times, it is actually very tiring for parents to meet such a child, not to mention that in that era, and the baby cannot speak or express his thoughts, and can only express through crying, so adults may feel very broken. I may have to deduct one star.
A good book. The author's writing skills exceed 99.9% Of online writers and reach the level of a writer. The subject matter of the work is novel and fascinating. It ranks among the top three in my tomato reading history.
It's really beautiful and very heart-warming, and every two chapters has a short story about people growing up at home and abroad. It's really beautiful. I recommend everyone to take a look. I think this rating may have just been published and is relatively low, but this article really has a score of 9. It has not been updated yet. I look forward to updating it soon.
The subject matter is very new. In terms of writing, after reading a few chapters I felt that this was the kind of book that could be published. This kind of family atmosphere is very good, and I like the author's narrative rhythm very much. Come on, author! Very optimistic about you!
The writing is very good and flows smoothly without making people feel like it is a running account. But I feel there are still some small problems, some conflicts or lack of explanation? For example, it is said that the protagonist had obsessive-compulsive disorder in his previous life, and in this life, his grandma or grandma's house is also tidy and obsessive-compulsive. Then it is said that the family tradition is passed down, but in fact the parents of the host family live a pretty good life. The protagonist's style of emphasizing order is not formed by being exposed. I don't quite understand how the plot of this family tradition inheritance came about. Later, the protagonist Xueying Computer writing feels like I have never been exposed to it before, and I don't quite understand it. The profession of the protagonist in his previous life should be very closely related to foreign language computers. How can he be reincarnated and feel like a new one? Computers can also be considered to be the difference of the times, and foreign languages are not so bad... But overall it is quite good, and it feels like a prose novel. Alas, later on, the storyline doesn't work too well. Starting from the age of 16, each time point is a brief mention of important things for each family member, and then jumps to the next time point. The protagonist makes a major invention or has a new advancement, and starts to play riddles with the family to say the meaning of this matter. You know, I know (?) As a reader, I don't understand!!! What is the meaning, where is the importance, what does it represent? Mention it. It's still a character issue. The protagonist is obsessive-compulsive, but when Xia Zhu teaches writing, the protagonist doesn't understand why it needs to be neat? This is really inconsistent with the protagonist's obsessive-compulsive disorder personality. Moreover, the plot of teaching writing appears in two consecutive chapters. The content, writing angle, and meaning are the same. Were these two chapters written with a long gap between them?
Was it written or polished by AI? There are a lot of articles in this style on Tomato recently.
I just saw this novel today. After reading more than 80 chapters, I repeated many times that the protagonist's obsessive-compulsive disorder caused the family to get better, etc., And there were also some small details that were flawed. However, I read more than 80 chapters and suddenly jumped to the end. I didn't expect that the protagonist's grandchildren would be so old at the end. It's been a long time since I've seen a novel in which the protagonist's experience was written so long ago. And I really didn't expect this novel. I read more than 80 chapters earlier and the protagonist is only 7 years old. The pace is quite slow. It seems that there are only more than 200 chapters in total 🤦. However, overall this novel has flaws and is still worth reading.