A review by staticdisplay
Kinder Than Solitude by Yiyun Li

3.0

it's taken me quite a while to finish this. as others have pointed out, the writing is lovely in many ways, and has lots of beautiful and memorable phrases. at the same time, the characters are so cold, and the text is so dense with existential questions and conversations, it was very difficult for me to "get into" this. I found the characters unrelatable, and so it was also hard for me to care about their lives or questions or the absence of a search for meaning. I really dragged through the first 50% and then finished the second half in about 3 days, I'm not sure why. I'm glad I've made it through this one; glad I read it, but also glad I'm done reading it.