A review by freddie
Song of the Silk Road by Mingmei Yip

1.0

The story lacks a core vision - what is its goal? What are the themes? The protagonist's raison d'être is unclear - she is all over the place. At the beginning, she is introduced as a struggling writer who is also a married professor's mistress. Somewhere in the story, she is inexplicably revealed to have the supernatural ability to detect spirits - an ability that doesn't impact the plot meaningfully. For some reason, nearly all men she encounters fall in love with her (ugh). The writing is clunky, similes are bizarre (people stuck in a tumbling bus are apparently likened to pork chops slapping the grill). Don't get me started on the romanticization of the lives of people living in rural areas.