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A review by ciska
Kinder Than Solitude by Yiyun Li
4.0
*Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book on Netgalley from the publisher in return for an honest review*
Author
Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing, China and moved to the United States in 1996. She received an MFA from Iowa Writers' Workshop and an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa. She was recently selected as one of Granta's 21 Best of Young American Novelists. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and their two sons, and teaches at University of California, Davis.
Review
If you follow me for a while you know I do not often read books that are set in the East. I am not sure why but they hardly ever catch my attention. The title of this one caught my eye and I could not forget about seeing this one. I became curious about the accident and what exactly happened.
I started the book late one night planning just to read a few pages but that did not really work out well. I was pulled in and could not stop. The atmosphere is great and the writing is very nice. There is one problem with this book and though it did not disturb me as I got the feeling it was done on purpose I can imagine people will not like it. It was not easy to connect to the characters.
I liked the teenager Moran but did not understand the adult Moran. Ruyu is easy to follow and understand but not a very likeable person. Boyang is not really in the picture in the teenager years though he plays a critical part but is more important as an adult. Still I felt I missed crucial parts of the story to understand them and those parts did not come till the end of the book when it finally fell into place.
Author
Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing, China and moved to the United States in 1996. She received an MFA from Iowa Writers' Workshop and an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa. She was recently selected as one of Granta's 21 Best of Young American Novelists. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and their two sons, and teaches at University of California, Davis.
Review
If you follow me for a while you know I do not often read books that are set in the East. I am not sure why but they hardly ever catch my attention. The title of this one caught my eye and I could not forget about seeing this one. I became curious about the accident and what exactly happened.
I started the book late one night planning just to read a few pages but that did not really work out well. I was pulled in and could not stop. The atmosphere is great and the writing is very nice. There is one problem with this book and though it did not disturb me as I got the feeling it was done on purpose I can imagine people will not like it. It was not easy to connect to the characters.
I liked the teenager Moran but did not understand the adult Moran. Ruyu is easy to follow and understand but not a very likeable person. Boyang is not really in the picture in the teenager years though he plays a critical part but is more important as an adult. Still I felt I missed crucial parts of the story to understand them and those parts did not come till the end of the book when it finally fell into place.