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etoiletaureau 's review for:
Strange Beasts of China
by Yan Ge
The start of the book was great and kept me wanting more, and throughout the book I was kept satisfied, but not satiated. I would recommend it for light reading but possibly not something to take too seriously, which is unfortunate because I started to love this book.
As I read more, I found myself questioning what was happening and why. The idea of each chapter focusing on a different beast was great in theory, but in my opinion poorly executed as after the third chapter I found myself hoping that the next one would be better. This will be a book I find myself returning to in the future in the original Chinese, as I’m hoping the translation didn’t do it justice, although the plot just felt very empty as it felt like a series of short stories trying to be a coherent story/novel. If it had kept solely to short stories that were linked, I feel I could’ve been left with less of a bad taste in my mouth.
As I read more, I found myself questioning what was happening and why. The idea of each chapter focusing on a different beast was great in theory, but in my opinion poorly executed as after the third chapter I found myself hoping that the next one would be better. This will be a book I find myself returning to in the future in the original Chinese, as I’m hoping the translation didn’t do it justice, although the plot just felt very empty as it felt like a series of short stories trying to be a coherent story/novel. If it had kept solely to short stories that were linked, I feel I could’ve been left with less of a bad taste in my mouth.