This is a book worth reading for its cultural insights into being a young woman in an oppressive regime - however, something about the prose feels flat and rather superficial.

I also didn't appreciate the language feeling so American ('you are such an asshole!') which feels like a disjunction between the setting and the writing.

Worth a read for the Chinese setting.

This was a good book with a lot of emotion. The strong themes of gender, money, power, choice, and loss or so well spoken in this book. The author did a good job at covering these themes for multiple viewpoints. I also loved learning about different cultures in this book.


Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

This is a translated novel, set in a village in China. It is set in the late 90s, which I gathered from Michael Berry’s (translator) note, as the the novel itself does not explicitly reference the time (although there may be cultural/historical cues that I may have missed given my limited understanding of Chinese contemporary history). But in a way, the time it’s set in doesn’t matter because the author, Fang Fang, wrote this over 20 years ago, but the cultural setting is still the same when it comes to patriarchal cultural systems and beliefs! It was surprising that some of the dialogues between the characters could very well have been set in any other country, and they’d still be frustratingly relateable. Hence, the story is timeless, although what that says about human societies is very sad.

This was a short read, and quite fast-paced. I definitely want to read more from this writer, and I’m crossing my fingers that her other novels will also be translated soon!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!