The thirteenth book: #13 (Monkey) Journey to the West
I'm not sure whether I read the officially listed version of this, but if anything, it's because I read the unabridged version of the book known as 'Monkey' in its abridged version.
It might be the translation helping here, but this feels like the most modern novel so far. There's a lot of good banter, especially once the main characters are in place and progresses. They tease each other, help and become three dimensional character. Monkey, the real protagonist of the story, is a flawed character trying to do his best - the typical prankster personality. The others are basic archetypes too, but they certainly grow a bit during the 100 chapters. The original bits - the initial chapters after Monkey's origin story and last few chapters of the book set in India - feel like they're written earlier, with a more formal style and less interesting characters. After that more stories seem to have added in between to pad the story, which also seems to include the first chapters of Monkey's origin. The characters are looser here, developed more and they are more fun to read.
The main downside is that the adventures on the journey tend to be fairly predictable. It is often a case of the group arrive somewhere to rest - part of the group gets kidnapped (at least the monk) - monkey needs to bail them out. Often he gets outside help (making him feel a bit weaker than he should) but also relying on his transformations and cudgel. You rarely see him win a battle outright, even if he's the strongest warrior, against the 'big' enemies.
Sometimes Monkey is chased away for not being the good guy, forcing the others to do more until they ask him back while they're also showing their strengths. There are some other variants as well (and Monkey relies noticeably less on deities and buddhas in later stories) but we could see it all coming often enough.
Still, while the 1400 pages of this book were off putting at first, it was a lot of fun to read. I'm glad I did - one of the first there was.