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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Censoring people's voices was a huge focus on this book and it really opened up my eyes to how China handles people they see as a threat to their political system within their own country. The author, Te-Ping Chen, is a reporter with the Wall Street Journal and had previously been a correspondent for the paper in Beijing and Hong Kong. I love that the main characters in the book are the twins, one boy and one girl so this brought up the discussion on the child number limit in China. Then one twin because the gamer while the other is a social justice warrior. Its unfortunate that they were so close as kids and grew apart to not understanding one another at all.
The additional stories came as a surprise to me because I was so invested in the twin's stories but there should be a trigger warning for women that had a man follow her to another city just in case a reader has had a tragic experience.
The additional stories came as a surprise to me because I was so invested in the twin's stories but there should be a trigger warning for women that had a man follow her to another city just in case a reader has had a tragic experience.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Some stories were so good I wished they were novels instead of stories. I wish Chen had spent more tine on them. Other stories I just couldn't get into and seemed sort of aimless and pointless. All-in-all a pretty average short story collection.
Oooooo, I really enjoyed this collection - I finished the entire audiobook in a single day (excellent cast of narrators)! Chen's stories are humorous while deeply critical, and even though a few of the stories didn't wrap up as tightly as I'd like, there were a few that really stood out to me - "New Fruit", "Land of Big Numbers", "Flying Machine" and "Gubeikou Spirit".
dark
mysterious
relaxing
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I’m still shocked all those stories were written by one author. For some reason I didn’t catch that. This book contains some of my favourite short stories.
I’ve been reading so many short story collections, so here’s an attempt to get a review down of a solid collection that I think more people should read. These stories are set in China or explore the Chinese diaspora.
Te-Ping Chan has a way of writing short stories that makes you feel the immediacy of a moment and time. In each short story we are immersed in the events or histories of characters who are dreamers or who once were. Central to this is the power of the state over the lives of people and how people manage, negotiate, or contest it. On a deeper level, she also examines how we never really know someone, even when we are most closely connected to them. There are barriers or borders that can only be crossed with the imagination and hope.
Some of my favourite stories included Lulu. A story of twins yet one becomes a political activist online to the fears and concern of her family and twin brother. Hotline Girl is about a girl whose failed dreams lead her to work at a call centre, yet her abusive ex-boyfriend doesn’t give up his dream of reconciliation. This story has such a pervasive tension and eeriness to it, with the surveillance state haunting in the background. Field Notes on a Marriage examines a Chinese man’s reclusiveness that extends even to his wife. A tense story of trauma and escape. Gubeikou Spirit is a fascinating story of people being stuck at a train station for months and the lives they eek out as they wait for the train to resume. This was a story I couldn’t stop reading.
Although some stories were a lot less successful for me, like Flying Machine. The stories that worked really worked. This author has a way of making you feel you know these characters inside out within so few pages. She has an incisive view on people that is what really makes a writer.
Te-Ping Chan has a way of writing short stories that makes you feel the immediacy of a moment and time. In each short story we are immersed in the events or histories of characters who are dreamers or who once were. Central to this is the power of the state over the lives of people and how people manage, negotiate, or contest it. On a deeper level, she also examines how we never really know someone, even when we are most closely connected to them. There are barriers or borders that can only be crossed with the imagination and hope.
Some of my favourite stories included Lulu. A story of twins yet one becomes a political activist online to the fears and concern of her family and twin brother. Hotline Girl is about a girl whose failed dreams lead her to work at a call centre, yet her abusive ex-boyfriend doesn’t give up his dream of reconciliation. This story has such a pervasive tension and eeriness to it, with the surveillance state haunting in the background. Field Notes on a Marriage examines a Chinese man’s reclusiveness that extends even to his wife. A tense story of trauma and escape. Gubeikou Spirit is a fascinating story of people being stuck at a train station for months and the lives they eek out as they wait for the train to resume. This was a story I couldn’t stop reading.
Although some stories were a lot less successful for me, like Flying Machine. The stories that worked really worked. This author has a way of making you feel you know these characters inside out within so few pages. She has an incisive view on people that is what really makes a writer.
emotional
funny
slow-paced
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No