Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

This was an interesting collection of short stories written by a former reporter set in China. Within the 10 stories we get a glimpse into a multitude of different lives within contemporary China.

I thought these were well written that I have no doubt of but alas I struggled to fully engage with this one, the characters felt distant and many stories finished without a satisfactory conclusion.

I enjoyed this book so much more than I ever could have hoped or imagined. I'm notorious for not enjoying short stories but these Vignette style short stories really appealed to me. They were so quirky and I really enjoyed them. So much more than I expected. Great book.

Format of the proof copy meant that I couldn't tell one story form the next, so spent lots of time waiting for the introduction of a new character to see if it was a new story or not. This did mess with my flow of reading. Other than that, some stories were a lot stronger than others - may just be personal preference but I was not interested in the fruit story at all, for example.

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster, Scribner, and the author Te-Ping Chen.
I really enjoyed this selection of short stories focused around the lives of normal citizens in China, "the biggest and most complicated country on earth", each with a dystopian hint. There was an echo of Black Mirror in each one that was very involving and engaging. Would highly recommend.

It doesn't help the reading experience when the arc is formatted in a way that makes reading it a rather unpleasant experience. So this most definitely impacted my experience of the book as it added to the feeling that this is something that could have done with some more purpose. The main purpose seemed to be to show that the author is a journalist and understands the political landscape of China but despite a good writing style, I felt something was missing. The characters in none of the stories ever felt real or even just fully developed. The situations never felt like something to care about, often they felt like the opening chapter to a book, I, the reader, will never get to experience and I will have to puzzle it out myself. So sadly this did not work for me.

An excellent collection of stories set mostly in modern-day China, giving readers a fresh perspective on the people and their lives, and the cultural shifts occurring, mainly grounded in realism, but with some fantasy elements thrown in for good measure. From the siblings, flipping expectations on their heads - he the gamer loser, she the superstar student, who grow up into a successful pro-gamer and an imprisoned dissident, respectively, all the way through to a group of commuters stuck on a station platform for days, each story introduces vividly drawn characters who jump off the page and into your imagination. A hugely impressive debut collection.

4.5. This book was absolutely stunning. This authors writing style was simply gorgeous. This collection tackles the topic of modern China, its culture and history and politics and frames each story in a truly compelling way. Some stories are more surrealist but the collection as a whole is very realistic and grounded. There are dashes of magical realism but it isn’t an experimental collection. Some of the sentences in this collection were so beautiful and I found every single story so strong. This is a knock out of a collection. It deals with Chinese identity in America, communism in China, relationships between parents and children, lovers, friends and so much more. My favourite story was the last one in which a group of Chinese commuters are trapped in a train station for weeks on end due to governmental regulations. One of the strongest short story collections I have ever read. I highly recommend.

Thanks to the author Te-Ping Chen, Mariner Books and Netgalley for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

A collection of short stories mostly revolving around life in China, skirting the line between realism & magical realism. There were beautiful turns of phrase and images in places but ultimately few of the stories really grabbed me and their endings often tailed off. I'd be interested to read Te-Ping Chen in a longer form, but I don't think her short stories were quite for me.

This is an interesting collection of Chinese short stories, authentic in many ways although originally written in English. They are illuminating, firstly, because they are about small domestic events in a country where everything is normally on such a massive scale. And, secondly, they bring out the differences in culture and behaviour between China and the West.

The first story exemplifies this. It’s a narrative about two twins who grow increasingly apart so that one becomes a political activist and is imprisoned while the other becomes successful through playing computer games. There’s very little sense of the value attached to either activities or what either of them ultimately achieve and that’s a continuing theme of the stories, should one be obedient and conformist or follow a separate path?

Another story is about a couple meeting up with a sense of what might have happened but never did. In the end, it was the safe conformist path which worked out but there is still a sense of what might have been.

The same theme is visited in a story about a new fruit which comes on the market in China and which offers hope and excitement to people but which is ultimately dashed. It’s clearly a metaphor.

Several stories explore the divide between American and Chinese culture and the difficulty of sustaining a relationship across this gulf. They’re wistful and insightful which is worth mentioning because such comparisons are often polemical.

Taken as a whole, these easy moving and in some senses undramatic stories are simply a picture of what being Chinese might mean today whether your life is lived in China or the West. It’s unusual to get such an authentic insight and that makes them an interesting read.

Three stars is a bit generous, but some of the stories were quite interesting. Overall the book paints a picture of a very diverse culture, and one which I found really worrying- especially the last story about the train station. On another level though I just couldn’t see a point to the book. Not my cup of tea. #landofbignumbers #netgalley

This is not an Own Voices review, so I can’t comment on the Chinese experience, both in China and abroad, but I will say that it was a truly fascinating read. From the first story Lulu, I was hooked. In Lulu, two twins take very different paths in life, the “perfect”, intelligent twin Lulu goes to university in a city far away and gets into activism while our protagonist dreams of becoming a professional video game player.
One thing that each of the stories had in common, was that Chen managed to create very realistic and in-depth characters which gave us an insight into the lives of people in China and the diaspora. I quickly (and anxiously at times) read each story, needing to know what happened next and was often left wanting more, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Some of my favourite stories were:
Lulu
Hotline Girl- A young woman moves to a new city but is followed there by her abusive ex-boyfriend.
Gubeikuo Spirit- A group of people are trapped in a metro station for months until the train can be fixed to take them to the next station.
All in all, a fantastic look into the diversity of everyday China, the culture and the juxtaposition of the experiences of the older generations compared to the young people in contemporary China.
Thanks to netgalley and simonandschuster for the ARC

Te-Ping Chen is a journalist and Land of Big Numbers is her first published work of fiction.

This is a collection of ten short stories revolving around Chinese characters of all ages and social background, and their lives in China and the US.

A recurring theme is criticism of the Chinese Communist government, along with relationship struggles, mental health and the generational gap.

Chen’s writing flows effortlessly and one can definitely tell she’s a professional writer. However, I did find a few passages a bit forced, aseptic, too journalist-y.
Personally, I don’t mind a short story with an open ending but I struggled a lot with the majority of Chen’s stories as they completely lack a conclusion. It’s like they have been left at a first draft stage (not stylistically), with abrupt ends to them.
The only story I consider an exception is the last one, Gobeikou Spirit, in which I fully recognised a typical Asian eerie style that captured my attention until the very last word.

In every story Chen succeeded in recreating vivid images of China and the Chinese culture and I enjoyed the atmospheres, despite the issues I had with the endings. I could appreciate her writing style nontheless and since it’s a recurring pattern I’m tempted to consider this a stylistic choice – which simply I don’t necessarily like as a reader.

My top three stories in the collection are definitely Gobeikou Spirit, Beautiful Country and Lulu. My lowest rate goes to Flying Machine: I found it very promising at the beginning but it just ended in a very unsatisfactory way, which spoiled my whole reading experience for this short story.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Chen’s work and will probably read more of her work if she publishes new fiction in the future, but I wouldn’t recommend Land of Big Numbers to anyone who is approaching short stories or Asian literature for the first time, as I think it will give the wrong impression of the genre and style. Having said that, for me the collection scored just short on the full three stars and on average the ten stories were enjoyable but not particularly remarkable.

Land of Big Numbers is a collection of ten short stories about characters who live in (or have lived in) China. It is a short story collection that is begging to be re-read. I loved how different all these stories were: some reminded me of George Saunders (New Fruit), others of Mariana Enriquez. I feel like these stories gave me an insight of everyday life in modern China.
My absolute favorite story was Field Notes on Marriage.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the ARC.

I am not a short stories fan, as a rule, but I made an exception because this sounded great, and I'm glad I did. These stories are weird and frustrating and sad and beautiful. I particularly loved the one about the fruit, and the one about the train station (unfortunately I can't find the titles to reference them properly - if they even have titles, as my ebook didn't).

The stories cover a lot of ground. Some are creepy, some funny, some existentially terrifying. Something for everyone! I highly recommend it.

My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC.

Land of Big Numbers is truly a brilliant collection of short stories. It is rather rare to find collections such as this, where each and every story is on my liking. The common theme is China/Chinese people and with each tale, a fascinating portrait of the country and its people emerges: from the constant change in infrastructure, to the pollution, to the oppressive government and the risk of raising against it, to the people who are trying to have a normal life. My favourite story is the last one in the collection: The Gubeikou Spirit, I loved the surrealist outer shell, but I was really touched by the essence of it - the author managed to encompass everything that modern China represents, the apparent wellbeing hiding the oppression that almost cannot be escaped.

A collection of short stories exploring modern China, productivity and work culture cultivated in the rise of a capitalist state, and the ideals harboured by those living in the west who form part of the Chinese diaspora.

Starting off strong, ‘lulu’ shows us a brother and sister coming of age; one falling into a gaming addiction leading him to national success, a state-approved use of time. Whilst, his sister becomes entangled in online blogs that promote collective action, a clear violation of state use of the internet. Who wins out?

The Political cultural commentary throughout was on occasion obvious but in other places much more subtle, a focus on the ‘spirit’ communism produced within Chinese people, the collective responsibility and potential to be blindsided is often referenced in abstract, directing readers to the idea of Chinese people containing multitudes. Of course, it is easier to untangle the allegory if you possess prior knowledge of the history and modern states of China, but even with a remedial sense, it will not all be lost on you.

I felt unsatisfied by the way Te Ping Chen chose to end most of the stories, leaving it very much open for interpretation, in a similar way to Emma Cline did, in her most recent collection, daddy. I would have loved to have seen the ideas pushed further, the speculative elements of the stories often felt restrained, the theme park designer who invented a ride to simulate giving birth? I wanted a whole amusement park dedicated to such inventions!

Some stories have faded, but the final ‘Gubeikou Spirit’ will stay with me for a while. We witness a group of commuters stranded in a train station for months on end, as their protests turn to adaption and they make a life for themselves down there, eventually choosing to watch opportunities pass them by. It left a lot to think about

This is a review of a free ARC.

The Land of Big Numbers is a collection of 10 short stories centered around contemporary China and Chinese citizens (some of them no longer living there).

The stories are very different from each other, and tackle completely different topics. They're very well written and original, and I really enjoyed all of them.

I think the last one, "Gubeikou Spirit", is one of the best stories in this collection. It tells the story of a group of people that remain stuck (for over a month!) in a train station due to rules, and how complacent people can get in this situation. It felt claustrophobic, as if I was living in Gubeikou Station with all the others. It's also a horror story, and one that will remain with me for a while.

I definitely recommend this collection and look forward to reading more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this really enjoyable ARC.

Land of Big Numbers is the debut collection of short stories by Te-Ping Chen. They cover subjects as diverse as a politically radicalised student, a magical fruit with strange powers, and a would-be inventor who builds machines from bits of cast off rubbish. These stories in Land of Big Numbers are sometimes dark, sometimes humourous, sometimes fantastical. They are small cameos of Chinese life and Chinese people, a window into a very different culture.
(The full review is on my website - see link below)

Land of Big Numbers is a diverse collection of short stories about life in modern China. Each story is unique, exploring themes such as class, citizenship and the weight of history. Told with political sensitivity and just the right touch of magic realism, Te-Ping Chen really captures the complexity of contemporary Chinese life in these short snapshot stories. An impressive debut collection.