A review by sucreslibrary
Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge

2.5

the men in this are so awful it distracts from the interesting stories of the beasts. having to read the female main character be constantly berated and harassed (and read her also be in love with these men that treat her like absolute shit) really wore on me by the end, and the repetitive nature of each story/chapter didn't help with that. there's also just a lot of weirdness with how the male vs female beasts are written and characterized. idk! there were elements in this i thought were interesting, but as more and more of the story leaned into the personal relationships with the main character i became more and more bored and then increasingly upset as i realized we were supposed to find these awful men charming.