A review by margaretefg
Kinder Than Solitude by Yiyun Li

3.0

This book starts with the death of Shaoi (sp?) and then runs the parallel stories of 3 characters leading up to her poisoning, 20 years before, and what those characters are doing around the time of her death, and after. Boyang and Moran grew up in the same quadrangle in Beijing as Shaoi, and Ruyu arrived to stay with Shaoi and her family while they are in high school. All 3, although technically friends, seem very isolated (with the possible exception of Moran who wants connection, or at least her younger self does.) Their adult selves are if anything more isolated than their teenage selves, maybe shaped by the poisoning of Shaoi, but they seem very solitary and not very kind. There's sort of a mystery about Shaoi's poisoning, but the focus is more the lonely trajectories of their lives. It's a beautiful book in some ways but hard to read, very bleak and spare.