laraamaee 's review for:

Tiananmen Square by Lai Wen

2.5

dark reflective slow-paced

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With the title and the author writing under a pseudonym, I was extremely excited to read this novel that is both coming-of-age and political. And while I did end up being interested in the narrator’s life, growing up in a tiny apartment in Beijing in the 1970s, I don’t know if I was really invested or just desperate to finally hear about the protests, which only came right at the end of the book. I think the book could’ve been a lot shorter, because it feels like 90% coming of age and 10% student protests. And while the writing is objectively beautiful, it almost feels too polished.