Jia Jia's searches for the source of the mysterious sketch she interprets as a 'fish-man.' The drawing that she found next to the dead body of her husband Chen Hang, will launch her from her apartment in Beijing to Tibet. Her travels are a journey of self discovery that reach into her past in order to release her into a new future.
I was not drawn to Jia Jia's story in the way I expected to be. That includes the dream world she flows through, and the character of Ren Qi, whom she met in Tibet, both features that amongst others become somewhat confusing. Not to mention the Fish-man / sculpture discovery in the Tibetan village and its uncanny aspects.
Jai Jai's story transcends the barriers between reality and myth with a very magical / mystical vibe. Yet despite these fascinating aspects, I just wasn't grounded in my reading.

A Grove Atlantic ARC via NetGalley Thanks

Title: Braised Pork
Author: An Yu
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3.0 out of 5

One morning in autumn, just after breakfast, Jia Jia finds her husband dead in the bathtub of their Beijing apartment. Next to him is a piece of folded paper, a sketch of a strange creature from his dream. He has left her no other sign.

Young, alone, and with many unanswered questions, Jia Jia sets out on a journey. Starting at her neighborhood bar, fueled by anger, bewilderment, curiosity and love, she travels from nocturnal Beijing to the high plains of Tibet, deep into her past in order to arrive at her future.

So…I am not entirely sure why I even finished reading this. Because it was a quick read? That’s probably it. I enjoyed reading about the village culture in Tibet, but Jia Jia’s life was depressing, her lack of options was sad, and her obsession with finding this creature was absurd. There was a hint of magical realism in this, but it also seemed like the hallucinations of a troubled mind, so who’s to say what the truth was?
Excellent writing, but I found the story dark, sad, and virtually pointless, so this is clearly a case of the book not being a good fit for me.

An Yu is from Beijing. Braised Pork is her debut novel.

(Galley courtesy of Grove Atlantic in exchange for an honest review.)

Jia Jia's marriage to Chen Hang is a loveless one, but they knew that going in. Theirs was supposed to be a partnership. In exchange for a comfortable life there were few question asked about Chen Hang's life outside the home and fewer questions answered. So, when Chen Hang decides to travel to Tibet in the wake of a bizarre dream, Jia Jia packed his bag and didn't ask for the details. A month later when Jia Jia comes upon her husband dead in the bathtub of their Beijing apartment with no note but a drawing of his mysterious dream she is all too aware of everything she doesn't know about her husband.

This wasn't exactly what I expected. "Surreal" and "dreamlike" being two of the descriptors I've seen thrown around. Other than the literal dreams included in the story, I didn't find it to be either of those things. I actually found it to be quite clear and concise. To be clear: I wasn't disappointed by the style at all, I really appreciated the directness. I also expected more of a travelogue of sorts. A "in wake of her husband's death, woman goes on search to find herself" kind of thing. This also wasn't very accurate, most of the book being set in her home city of Beijing. Again, I really preferred it this way. My biggest issue with the book being the time that she traveled away.

The story starts as a bit of a mystery; What was her husband's dream and how did he die? That thread vanishes for more or less the majority of the book only to appear again when she begins her travels to Tibet. At that point I had lost interest in the mystery and instead found myself fully invested in her new life and developing relationship in Beijing. I was a bit scrambled by the shift in focus. I would have been happy had the story pursued the mystery from the beginning. I would have been even happier had the mystery been relegated to the subplot it appeared to be at the halfway mark and continued on its course as a story of life after marriage. Even when discovering the answers she had been searching for, I found myself wishing she'd just hurry up and get back to Beijing.

I will say that the story really did pull together in the end with surprising clarity and all loose ends tied up in a bow. More importantly for me it came full circle back to the parts I cared most about, which I loved. Despite losing me a bit in the middle there really is a lot to like about this story and its style.

Honestly I'm not entirely sure how to process this book. I did enjoy the overall theme of Jia Jia's self discovery journey, but the fishman and the water world magical realism aspect was a bit out of my grasp. The characters and overall settings felt flat, like they were only bare sketches. However technically and stylistically, I really enjoyed Yu's writing. Her words flowed like water and she had some nice turns of phrase. Overall this book was not exactly for me, but I appreciate it artistically and I would be interested to try out another one of her stories.

Although well-written. An Yu’s Braised Pork is one of the most puzzling books I have read. It opens with a modern-day Beijing couple living in a high-rise and on the verge of taking a motorcycle trip to Tibet. For some reason, the husband, Chen Hang, who normally takes only showers, announces that he is going to take a bath. Jia Jia, the wife, begins packing. When she discovers Chen Hang drowned on hands and knees in the tub, she notices a mysterious drawing of a fish with a man’s head lying nearby. Knowing that Chen Hang had recently returned from Tibet, she determines to make the trip without him and arranges for the same guide Chen Hang had hired.

Without giving too much away, Braised Pork is the story of Jia Jia’s search for the fishman and, I believe, for love and internal peace. It is her story of acquaintances with Leo, the Beijing bar owner; Ren Qi, a writer in search of his missing wife; an old Tibetan man known only as “Grandpa,” who plants tulip bulbs that never grow and then vanishes; and the father whom she had never really known. It is the story of mysterious fishman carvings, of trying to find the fishman in black water, of a mysterious old photo, of contemporary Beijng’s encounter with Tibetan mysticism, and of braised pork belly, which appears to be the ultimate Chinese comfort food.

If you enjoy international fiction and challenging symbolism that lies beyond the normal Westerner’s easy understanding, Braised Pork could be a fascinating read. With a bit of online research, I feel that I understand it better. While reading, I must admit to being confused, yet oddly fascinated.
Author An Yu grew up in Beijing but studied creative writing in New York. She writes in English and divides her time between Hong Kong and Paris. This is her debut novel.

Thanks to Grove Press, the author, and NetGalley for an Advance Reader Copy.

This is a strange, intermittently charming but ultimately not quite successful tale, perhaps too remote culturally to offer full satisfaction. It’s the story of an unhappily married woman’s next chapter, as a widow, survivor, artist and lover, tinged by a magical fable, but that surreal dimension doesn’t quite cohere. Nevertheless, there’s plenty of distraction to be found in Jia Jia’s story/quest, and the glimpses of Chinese life and the occasional lyrical sentences offer an originality that transcends the format. Likeable.

An unusual and interesting read that's worthy for being the debut of a writer to watch. The death of Jia Jia's husband sets her off on a journey to understand the meaning of the fish/man drawing she found next to the bathtub where he died. She has a relationship with a bartender, travels around, and well, experiences a lot. There is a theme of water which is the key to this (more than the landscape of Beijing.). Thanks to Nergallry for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction with a dash of magical realism.

“The worst days give us the best memories.”

3.5⭐️ Braised Pork by An Yu is a compelling story of a woman who, in the face of tragedy sets out on a journey to find the truth about her late husband’s obsession.

With magical realism mixed in with an otherwise straightforward narrative, the novel explores the roles of a woman in modern society and how she is shaped by the people around her. By pushing the boundaries between madness and reality, she ultimately rediscovers herself and what she needs to do (and stop doing) in order to find real happiness and self-fulfillment. I love how the main character Jia Jia is so quiet yet so brave, and it’s inspiring how she took back the control of her own life.

Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this wonderful book in exchange for an honest review.

I simply could not get into this book so will not be offering a review. It seemed wordy and just not interesting to me. Thank you anyway for the opportunity to give it a shot..

I don’t even know if I could explain what this is about or what happens, but I really liked it. It was a sort of dreamy story, with great writing and managed to pull me in and connect with me even if I wasn’t sure I totally understood everything in the end.

For me, this is going to be an easy book to recommend for people who are interested in reading Chinese literature without diving straight in to harder hitting novels that deal with things like the Cultural Revolution. It's contemporary in subject matter and tone. It's beautifully written and an interesting exploration into how women tend to give up so much of themselves to a marriage or a family that they often lose themselves. And once the husband or the family is gone? Well, you can either disappear completely or go in search of yourself like Jia Jia. I know that this book isn't going to be for everyone. It has some strange things going on in it and it feels like a waking dream, but I quite enjoyed it.

Thank you to both Grove Atlantic and Netgalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

An interesting debut. The story begins with a straight forward narrative that gets more convoluted as the book progresses. The clutter derails the story for me.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Jai Jai loses her husband to drowning and is left with little resources. She returns to her art, both for a career and to cope with her circumstances, and attempts to paint a drawing that her husband left behind. When she is unsuccessful, she journeys in his footsteps and finds both peace and answers to her questions.

Set in modern-day Beijing, doting housewife Jia Jia finds her husband floating face down in their tub one morning, dead. Next to him - a bizarre drawing of a fish man (Abe Sapien?!). What does it all mean? She sets out to find answers.

… and finds none. Because An Yu’s debut novel Braised Pork is awful! I’ve wanted to read a contemporary Chinese novel for a while and that intriguing premise sounded right up my street. Well, alls I can say is that I can see why Chinese literature isn’t taking the world by storm (unlike its diseases) if this trash is anything to go by.

The story is a meandering zero. Jia Jia starts a relationship with a bartender called Leo which goes nowhere and means nothing. She goes to Tibet to find out about the Fish Man and meets a man looking for his wife - like she’s kinda looking for her husband through the drawing. She used to be an artist who’s now taken up painting again, her first commission being a painting of the Buddha for a couple whose marriage is over - also like her former loveless marriage.

Uh huh…? I can see Yu trying to seem deep and literary in drawing these parallels, but I don’t get any idea what she’s trying to actually say, if anything, because I suspect there’s nothing substantive being said anyway. We spend our whole time with Jia Jia but I don’t feel like I know her at all. She used to be an artist before her husband made her stop but now he’s gone she’s started again. Yay? I mean, was it her dream to paint Buddhas on people’s walls?

Did she really love her husband? He seemed to be only mean and distant to her so why would she care so much to find out what this enigmatic scribbling meant? And on that, couldn’t it just be some random drawing her husband drew? It’s such a cliched literary conceit that it leads to this quest. Not that that leads anywhere interesting either - just more smoke and mirrors.

Like Jia Jia, Yu’s portrayal of Beijing is bland and unimpressive - I got no sense of place or what it’s like to live there; it could be any major metropolitan city. Other things happen - she’s trying to sell her apartment, she reconnects with her estranged father, her aunt’s husband gets in trouble with the authorities - but none of it matters. It’s just padding to beef up a thin storyline.

I would’ve been more forgiving of the book if the story had been better handled - like if we got an idea of why her husband killed himself and the meaning of the Fish Man - but instead Yu abandons her attempts at telling a semi-coherent narrative in favour of murky impressionism that was deeply unsatisfying to read. A vague, confusing, disappointing and very boring novel, don’t believe any hype you might hear about An Yu’s Braised Pork - it is rancid.

I can see why people would rave and love this book but it wasn't really for me. I'm afraid that this was both a little too weird and too mundane for my personal taste. There are simply too many dead ends and emotional flatness to feel like I could invest in this book. The overall message felt too simple or mundane to have had to wade through all the symbolism.

I will recommend this book, even though it wasn't exactly the right fit for me. There were some mysteries that you needed to solve, but clues were riddled throughout the text and I felt that maybe it just wan't the right time for me to read it. I will try and read it again at a later time as I feel I might like it more.

This book is difficult to describe or review, as it is very different from books I otherwise read (which isn't a bad thing). This book centers around Jia Jia, who struggles to find her sense of identity after the somewhat mysterious death of her husband, and her search for the fishman and the world of water. The book's theme centers heavily on the imagery of water and the human connection. In fact, I interpreted "braised pork," the novel's title, as a symbolism of human connection and family. I would be interested in hearing how others interpreted the fishman and the theme of water.

Although I overall enjoyed the book, it did feel disjointed. At times, I felt connected to Jia Jia, and other times she felt very distant and very one-note. That being said, that could have been intention given the book's themes.

A widower thrown into chaos following the untimely death of her husband, Jia Jia is a bizarre character that often feels like the Fishman she tries so desperately to paint. A person exists but one that never feels fully realised, the face is missing.

The exploration of the world of water is an interesting take on depression, its suffocating emptiness elicits that oppressive L'Appel du vide especially in the descriptions surrounding her mother.

The backdrops of a smoggy Beijing and a fresh rural Tibet themselves seem to offer up that bipolar dichotomy of freedom and oppression. Jia Jia's marriage of convenience contrasted by the 'simple love' of Leo explores this further. Many reviewed this book offering up comparisons to a fever dream and whilst that is the case in many ways that its meandering exploration does feel somewhat disorienting the fact of the matter is that this doesn't go quite far enough down that particular rabbit hole.

All in all this is a good debut however and I would continue to to follow the author for whatever they have coming next!


Thank you to NetGalley for providing this book to me in exchange for an honest review.

An Yu, who lives in Beijing, was educated in New York and writes in English. Apparently, this is the reason for her receiving a large advance from her publisher, as her perspective as a Chinese national but writing for a different audience will lend clarity for the English reader of a story set in China without the burden of being translated. The result, a truly immersive novel, hypnotic in tone, with a view of Chinese life more coherent than most. Jia Jia discovers her husband's body dead in the bathtub with a provocative sketch nearby of a fish with a man's face. Despite his enormous wealth, her husband has left her barely taken care of, not a surprise since there didn't seem to be much of a marriage there to begin with, both having married for each other's own convenience. As she pursues her life as an artist, she ultimately takes a trip to Nepal, seeking the reason behind the mysterious drawing, and thus discovers her own path.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Braised Pork.

I finished Braised Pork a few days ago and I'm still contemplating on how to review this.

I wasn't sure what to expect, more of a murder mystery that the protagonist, Jia Jia, has to solve, since my favorite genre is murder mysteries, but this was different, not bad different, just not what I expected.

The basic premise sounds straightforward, Jia Jia finds her husband dead in their bathtub in their fancy Beijing apartment. Beside him, a strange drawing of a fish man.

A former artist who abandoned her dreams when she married, Jia Jia is drawn to this photograph. As she tries to duplicate it, at the same time, grappling with her widowhood, her own personal issues as a daughter of a troubled marriage, an aloof and distant father and her own ties to the fish man.

The author writes beautifully, her prose both literary and flowery, dream-like, with a touch of Guillermo del Toro-ish magical realism.

There are many themes touched upon in Braised Pork; the stages of grief and sorrow, the regrets of an unfulfilled marriage, the reasons why we marry or not, the unresolved issues parents and children will never resolve among each other, no matter how old we are; sadness, depression, and how it draws some people in, and never lets go.

This is not a straight forward mystery; it's not a mystery at all. It's vague and troubling; its not black or white, but murky, like life sometimes is.

it's a story about grief and loss, starting anew and coming to terms with loss.

It's about people dealing with the strangeness of everyday life; losing people, meeting strangers, looking for answers (and not finding any or the truth is more painful than you expect), discovering yourself and taking the next step to living your own life.

Braised Pork is thoughtful, a bit rambling, and yes, odd, but it's an interesting read. It's not for everyone, but if you want to try something different, I'd recommend it.