Yan Ge

In the fictional Chinese city of Yong'an, an amateur cryptozoologist is tasked with uncovering the stories of its fabled beasts, which draws her deep within a mystery that threatens her very sense of self.

Strange Beasts of China

ephe

A New York Times Editors' Choice "Luminous and beguiling . . ."—The Washington Post "Magical Realism at its best . . ."—The Wall Street Journal From one of the most exciting voices in contemporary Chinese literature, an uncanny and playful novel that blurs the line between human and beast… In the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness—save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks. Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast, and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self. Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China engages existential questions of identity, humanity, love and morality with whimsy and stylistic verve.

Amanda

This book is incredibly strange and interesting. The storytelling is bold and uncomfortable, but also beautiful and engaging. Told as a sort of anthology of tales about different "beasts", the story is held together by the thread of the main character's life. Certain other characters in her life come and go through different chapters, but she remains to hold the story threads together.

The audio narrator does a very good job conveying the feelings of each unique story and they way that those stories effect the main character. The stories have a sort of horror edge to them and twists endings that you rarely see coming, even after having read 5 similar twists already. 

There is definitely a social commentary about people being made through these individual stories and each one made me happy, and sad, and horrified, and contemplative. I very much recommend this book to others, but think that you really need to be in the right mood for it's wierdness.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publishers for making this ARC available to me

Katie Chua

At first, I had a hard time getting into this. I didn't love the formatting but eventually got used to it. As I continued reading, I thought it was a fascinating premise. Lots of metaphors on human vs bestiality and otherness. Explored themes like science, family, myth, etc. It is probably worth a re-read because I like how the author doesn't spell things out for you. The entire thing felt like a puzzle and you just had to continue learning and reading on to understand and put things together, which I thought was exciting. 

Read a review about how the translation was bad and honestly, I felt that. I really wish I had the ability to read this in Chinese! I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

Mia Kern

This vast city, the beasts that come and go, all of this, is a secret. No one knows why they come or why they go, why they meet or why they leave. These are all enormous, distant mysteries. p. 231 


I...don't know how to feel about this book? Similar to Kafka on the Shore, parts of it felt really profound and others were just...there. At the end, it made for a somewhat dissatisfying reading experience, solely because I wanted a lot more than what it gave me.

The good: I really enjoyed the parts that focused on the beasts, which is good since that's the whole point of the book. Each chapter focused on a single type of beast. They started with a description of the beast, moved to the narrator's current story, then showed how her tale was interwoven with the titular beast. I really liked this narrative format, especially with how the end of each chapter began by recounting the same factoids about the beast as in the beginning of the chapter, but moved on to provide some deeper insight on their experiences or role in society. Super neat.

The 'meh': Everything else? I didn't get very engrossed with the main character's story, in part due to Ge's choppy writing style which I personally didn't love. The dialogue felt incredibly unnatural at times, and the characters were confusing. The underlying plot, too, was also really confusing. I'm still not 100% sure what role all these characters played, and as a result don't think many of them added all that much to the overall plot.

I also just wished that the author had narrowed her scope just a bit. It tried to take on a LOT within 230 pages, to varying degrees of success. As a result, I'm not quite sure what moral I'm meant to be walking away with - although this is due in part to all the aspects named above. At the end of the day, I just wanted more from this book, which had such a neat premise but only scratched the surface. It'd make for a killer TV miniseries, though, if the character stuff could be sorted out.

Also, as warning, the book is rather callous with its mention of suicide and, to a lesser extent, rape. They are meant to be presented similar to how a textbook would, so I don't think the author was negligently tactless, but it could definitely be triggering.

Momo

A gorgeous and innovative blend of magical realism and fantasy telling stories of love and tragedy set in the fictional Chinese town of Yong'An.  
Our narrator is on somewhat of an investigative journey and ends up finding out more than she ever imagined.  One of my favourite reads of the year 

Navya R

Minnie Mazuera

Winner of an English PEN award, Strange Beasts of China is a disquieting bestiary that blurs the line between human and beast told with stylistic verve by one of most exciting voices in contemporary Chinese literature In the fictional Chinese town of Yong'an, monsters and spirits live, almost indistinguisably, alongside humans. Strange Beasts of China follows the narrator, an amateur cryptozoologist, as she attempts to document each type of beast with the help of her former professor and his enigmatic assistant. From the Sacrificial Beasts, who can't stop dying, to the Heartsick Beasts, who are genetically engineered to be as loyal and loving as possible, each chapter introduces a new beast and dives deeper into a mystery that threatens the narrator's very sense of self. In prose that is both whimsical and daring, Yan Ge guides the reader through the underbelly of a chillingly uncanny world and questions what it really means to be human.

Strange Beasts of China

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