Sadly not one for me, the super rich, a 2 dimensionally flat couple, their children and staff, lacked plot and meandered backwards in time. Didn't match the marketing hype.

Epic and grand, this novel felt hugely ambitious and fresh in its approach. It had a great premise and was written brilliantly, albeit there were times when I wasn’t truly convinced.

Shanghailanders explores the complexities of a wealthy Asian family—comprising a Chinese father, a Japanese-French mother, and their three cosmopolitan daughters. The narrative uniquely unfolds in reverse, beginning in 2040 and working its way back to 2014. While the contemporary and futuristic aspects of the Yang family's story were engaging, I found the backward progression less compelling. The focus on the daughters' present and future needs was captivating, but the shifts to peripheral characters from the family's past diluted my interest.

The novel might have benefitted from a forward-moving structure, incorporating flashbacks to illuminate key past events. The future setting feels minimally distinct from the present, lacking significant environmental changes that could reflect current concerns like climate change. Additionally, reverse storytelling typically reveals secrets that contextualize the current or future narrative, but this aspect felt underexplored in Shanghailanders.

This is a creative masterpiece! Quite futuristic too! The story starts in 2040 and shows us the Yang Family ( An Asian dad, Japanese-French wife and their 3 daughters) in different cities of the world. Then the writer begins to tell us the story of their past, unraveling the daughters ' dark secrets and how they got to be the way that they are in 2040.

The story is told backwards which left me quite curious and really wanting to know what happened. This is one of those books where you either enjoy it or you don't. I quite enjoyed reading about this cosmopolitan family and their lives.

Gorgeous writing, unique concept and just enthralling!! More like a 3.5 but only because the book just wasn’t really for me. Can’t fault the author or writing etc

Shanghailanders is an ambitious, innovative debut which tells the story of one upper class Chinese family over almost thirty years - in reverse.

We first meet the Yang family through the eyes of patriarch Leo, a wealthy real estate investor who has overcome humble roots to build a beautiful life for his family - his wife Eko and their three daughters, Yumi, Yoko and Kiko. It is 2040 and he is feeling bereft at the thought of his daughters growing up and of the increasing distance between him and Eko.
From here, we meander back through the family's history, set against the backdrop of gentrification in Shanghai, China's largest city and its financial capital.

Each subsequent chapter - told from the perspectives of the family members and various others in their orbit - untangles a little more of the web of the family's complicated, often antagonist dynamics, and each character's sense of self and motivation, with the novel culminating with Leo and Eko's wedding in 2014. I found this format eminently readable, and I was fascinated to follow the various threads - such as the hostility between elder daughters Yumi and Yoko - back through time. The downside of this, as with any episodic narrative, is that each chapter is left frustratingly unresolved, with interesting questions left unanswered.

Min's prose is moody and reflective, and she ably crafts a distinct voice for each of her characters; not all are likeable, but I found each one intriguing. The choice to include chapters narrated by 'outsiders', such as a chauffeur and a nanny adds another dimension; it was intriguing to see how the Yangs were perceived by others on the fringes of the family unit. Overall, I was impressed by this poignant debut and I look forward to seeing what Juli Min will produce in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dialogue Books for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

Moving backwards through time, Shanghailanders spans 40 years and several perspectives of a family living between Shanghai, Paris, and Japan.

A fascinating look at Asian family dynamics both in the West and East, with beautiful writing and compelling characters. Min expertly weaves these stories together, unravelling the Yang's past, present and future as you make your way through the novel.

A fantastic debut!

I almost always love books that go backwards, that understand the potential of pointing time's arrow in the opposite direction: Sarah Waters' The Night Watch, Samantha Harvey's The Western Wind, Evie Wyld's All The Birds, Singing. And then there are the books set in the near-future, which have to invent new, plausible things while sticking close to what is real. Juli Min's debut, Shanghailanders, is billed as doing both but in fact does neither. Moving backwards in time from 2040, most of this novel focuses on one tiresome, cliched, incredibly wealthy family in nothing-special prose. The near-future sections might as well be set in the present day apart from a couple mentions of new technology; there's also no real sense of the Shanghai setting, despite the title. And because these kind of family saga type books often jump around in time anyway, it's easy to forget this even runs backwards, as Min does nothing else with that structure. What's especially frustrating is that the only two sections of the book that are not from the point of view of one of the family members work as great stand-alone short stories: the family's driver tells us about racing cars through the city for money, while the family's nanny remembers the previous little girl she looked after and loved. Unfortunately, these interludes also remind us how interesting everything else in the world is when we aren't stuck with our spoilt protagonists. 3.5 stars.

This was perhaps my perfect read. Family dynamics spanning over 40 years and expertly done. This was nuanced and such a clever way of plotting which I initially was unsure about. Brilliant!

This book revolves around a Leo and Eko, their three daughters, the chauffeur and their nanny.

The story is odd. It feels like there isn't a story as it flits from one person to another, one time to another always going backwards in time. The book finally just ends and I was left feeling completely disappointed that it had no story or purpose.

I received this book from netgalley in return for a honest review.

This was a Netgalley ARC. I would say that overall I enjoyed reading the book. Why time tracked backward I do not know. I guess the author just thought it would be something different. For me, it read as a collection of short stories rather than a novel, albeit the stories were more or less connected by the same family. Each jump in time seemed to create a disconnect so there was no real sense of flow or a driving narrative. Individually the stories served as interesting interludes into the characters' lives.

Shanghailanders was a book with no plot, just vibes and the vibes were comforting, maddening and gut-wrenching, all at the same time.

This book explores the lives of the Yang family (a very rich family) and the day-to-day ups and downs they face living in Shanghai. However, instead of showing its readers how a once happy, picture-perfect family can slowly become fragmented and distant, this book shows us the exact opposite. Chapter one starts in the year 2040 and the book takes you all the way back to 2014, and I think this is such an interesting way to tell a story. Somehow going from the future to the past makes the story so much more sadder than it would’ve been otherwise — I may have disliked a character at the start but I felt so sad for them later (yes, even for Leo).

The character that had the biggest impact on me was the mother, Eko. I think we often don’t think of the lives our moms must’ve had before they decided to start a family; what were their dreams? their beliefs? their personalities? etc. etc. when they were not bound by such big responsibilities. Through the course of this book we see Eko go from being a mom of three daughters, wife of Leo, owner of an embroidery business to a woman who likes listening to The Strokes, who coloured her hair blue on a whim, and who slept with a guy because he had beautiful eyes. The juxtaposition of it all just made me sad.

While Leo and Eko grew up seeing financial difficulties, their daughters grew up in an extremely comfortable farmhouse with their own rooms, their ponies in a stable and unlimited access to a nearby hotel. Consequently, the book shows us how the daughters’ childhoods, where they had everything they wanted, impacted their lives as teenagers and soon-to-be young adults. Yumi, Yoko and Kiko all sought different experiences as they slowly grew up and grew apart. These three girls and their bond with each other and their parents makes you so nostalgic but at the same time, the flaws in their lives back then become extremely evident and I was left with mixed feelings in the end.

Overall, Shanghailanders felt like a big character study into seemingly unassuming yet big roles within families. It was a story about two people in love who slowly grew out of love and yet they started a family; it was about sacrifices we make or are expected to make throughout our lives. But mostly, it was a story about belonging.

I loved reading Shanghailanders and 10/10 would recommend to everyone!!!

Really cool book concept. The idea of following one families story, and seeing how they’ve grown or changed is fascinating enough. But to see it in reverse is super interesting. We see where they end up and work our way back, with snapshots and piecing together what shaped their present day and futures.

At some points the narrative felt a little disjointed for my personal taste, and I found on occasions I’d get a little confused and reread bits to ensure I understood the story.

Moving back through time, we follow a wealthy family based across Shanghai, Paris, and Japan. Beginning in 2040, each short chapter moves us back to 2014 with the focus revolving around Leo, Eko, and their three daughters. Other characters who revolve around the family are also brought in briefly, to help build a wider understanding of this privileged family and weave together their narratives so we can understand them as a unit.

The characters were complex and well formed. Shanghailanders is well written, and I enjoyed the fresh structure of moving back rather than forward within a story, however, it did mean some of the earlier chapters introduced stories or perspectives which were left feeling unfinished as we jumped back in time.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an ARC of this book.

I received this ARC from NetGalley and Dialogue Books in exchange for a free and honest review.

I really like this book. The book has multiple POVs following a family and close acquaintances living in Shanghai. The story was narrated backwards so that the reader can see where they ended and how it all begun, this method allows you to see the reasons for certain actions knowing the outcome. In addition, I liked the discussion of relationships between; siblings, romantic partners and caretaker to child, as they are were complex and well fleshed out. Overall, a very enjoyable read and would recommend.

I found this book interesting for the way it was written when I had the option of having access to this ARC my main trouble was that I couldn’t keep the pace of the book since the non-linear timeline was too difficult to keep up. And become very tedious because the characters where interesting but felt like a hard job to read the book.

it's the story of a family, told backwards in time. i don't know why it was told backwards in time, there were no plot points you were trying to find the origin of. instead, it just made the book feel like a short story collection. even told forwards, the plot is disjointed enough to also probably make it sound like a short story collection (most probably why it was told backwards).

as a short story collection, it's a mixed bag. a handful of stories were great, a handful were inane, the majority were fine.

Fascinating style but unfortunately the non-linear (reverse) timeline was too detaching from the main story and the characters were not sufficiently engaging.

Brilliant and compelling. The writing is beautiful. The structure of time unspooling backwards all the while illuminating the inevitability of the family's future felt fresh and somehow more intimate. Stripping away the futuristic, cosmopolitan veneer of Shanghailanders leaves the universal struggles inherent when unique individuals are bound together as family. This is a very human story captivatingly written. Special thank you to Dialogue Books and NetGalley for a no obligation advance review copy.

2.5* rounded up. i don't know about everyone else but i have been hearing about this book left, right and centre. i saw it a while back and wasn't moved to add it to my reading list - it looked like it had an interesting concept, with the story of a family being told in reverse (no time travel involved!), and it had a pretty cover. still, something about it felt like it would just be exceptionally mid. i'm not sure what changed my mind - probably coming across it so frequently - but in the end, i did add it to my list, and shortly after was offered an ARC. well, i sped through it in two days, and it seems shanghailanders entirely lived up to my initial expectations.

as i mentioned, i liked the idea of the story being told in reverse, but i don't think that it really served the narrative. by the end i wasn't entirely sure of the story trying to be told. i didn't feel i had gained much additional context on what happens at the beginning of the novel. the story also feels a little choppy; each chapter is a snapshot of a period in a different character's life, selected without much rhyme or reason. for example, the family's chauffeur has his own chapter, which was pretty cool but also out of place and i don't think he's mentioned anywhere else in the book? another is kiko's chapter, which was odd and i'm just not sure what we were meant to glean about her.

the characters, in general, are not that interesting. there were some really good moments of character dynamic exploration - i liked seeing yumi and yuko (i wish more had come from that, some further resolution or exploration), and eko and neo. but things felt a bit half-baked. i wasn't that drawn to any of the characters, and a book like this relies almost entirely on the strength of its characters. i will say ayi and her chapter was a standout for me, and i was emotionally invested in the short time we spent with her.

overall, this book wasn't objectively bad, but it had the potential to be far stronger than it was. i was mostly apathetic by the last page, but maybe this just wasn't the book for me. massive thanks to Dialogue Books and Netgalley for providing me with an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review!