Author Yan Ge is a wonder.

STRANGE BEASTS OF CHINA is high on my top ten books of 2021 List.

This fabulously imagined reality takes place in China in the city of Yong'an. This city is the home of several different types of beasts who live alongsidehumans.

Each "type" can be distinguished by specific body characteristics and/or by where and how they live. However, the powers that be want to know more. So, our Narrator, a cryptozoologist, is hired to dig deeper than anyone ever has before, and to learn the stories of these enigmatic creatures.

As she begins to learn more about them, she finds herself becoming deeper and deeper enmeshed into the world of beasts and away from that of humans.

This is a MUST READ story that you will want to read over and over again. I have both read the book, and listened to the audiobook and both experiences were sensational.

Author Yan Ge writes in Chinese and fortunately for those of us who cannot read Chinese, this book has been translated into English. I sincerely hope that more of this author's work is translated and published here in North America.

I rate STRANGE BEASTS OF CHINA as 6 out of 5 Stars ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

DNF at 50%.

The concept seemed quite interesting, but turned out rather disappointing. Even though the stories are tragic and designed to provoke an emotional response, the writing is so emotionless, almost clinical, that none of the stories resonated with me.

I'm not sure if something was lost in translation, or if it was written like that originally, but it almost feels like reading a manual. Even though the stories are written in first person, there is no personality to the narrator. Heck, up until the second story, I couldn't even guess if they were male or female. We don't know what they look like, we don't know what they want...

Same goes for the few other mentioned side characters, like the professor or Charley. They are just names with no substance.

There is also no overarching plot that I could see. It's just a collection of stories about sad and tragic beasts and their slow annihilation by mankind or each other. That's it. No silver lining or light at the end of the tunnel. It becomes boring and repetitive after about the third story, not to mention depressing.

PS: I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very strange but intriguing novel (?) which is more like a set of short stories. It was an interesting read but I wonder if I'm losing a lot through lack of cultural knowledge of China.

This was fairly short read, but it was definitely not a fast read for me. It wasn't the best of book or the worst of books, I think others may enjoy it more.

Original and highly compelling. Essentially connected short stories, exploring the teacher/student relationship and the people/monster relationship.

I am a member of the American Library Association Reading List Award Committee. This title was suggested for the 2022 list. It was not nominated for the award. The complete list of winners and shortlisted titles is at <a href="https://rusaupdate.org/2022/01/readers-advisory-announce-2022-reading-list-years-best-in-genre-fiction-for-adult-readers/">

This was one of my favorite reads of 2021. I don't think I've read anything like it or ever will again but I'm glad I found it.

This was a great fantasy world with unique creatures that I wanted to keep learning more about. I think it was also an interesting commentary on society, about how many of the beasts are looked down upon, or used, or admired but their lives mean nothing. The narrator is never named because she doesn’t need a name. She is a conduit for telling the stories of the creatures who depend on her to share more about them with the world in hopes of being better understood. I was enchanted and horrified and the more I think about this book, the more I like it.

Strange Beasts of China is a whimsical novel filled with short stories about different creatures, or 'beasts', who live along side humans in the fictional city of Yong'an. We are following the narrative of a young author and cryptozoologist who studied these beasts at university and is now writing an anthology of the different species.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this novel when I first picked it up but it was a great read, full of interesting creatures that I loved learning about and the underlying story of the author's life and interactions with her family, friends and the other people around her. The whimsical nature of this novel was cool as well as I was never quite certain what was happening or what was going to happen. It made for a really fun read.

4/5 stars. Thank you to Netgalley and the author for sending me this book to review.

What at first seems a weird and fantastic compendium of various beasts from the fictional city of Yang’an, China quickly morphs into a tale that asks of its readers one of literature’s favorite queries, “What defines humanity?” Echoes abound from Shelley’s Frankenstein to Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go as the characters edge along the cosmic loneliness of merely existing, but Yan Ge crafts a wholly original novel that is self-aware without being gimmicky, and touching without being precious about it.

It will appeal to those looking for a wild ride into the strange, anyone interested in an off-kilter mystery, as well as those who like a multilayered story to contemplate long after reading.

Published in China in 2006; published in translation by Melville House on July 13, 2021

Strange Beasts of China was written and published while Yan Ge was living in China, which might explain why the book reads as if she used metaphors drawn from fantasy to avoid censorship. Her criticism of authoritarian rule is indirect but unmistakable. In one chapter, for example, the government operates a fantastic scheme that coerces the loyalty of the middle class, creating “an unquestioning devotion” to their rulers “that would never be overturned.” The scheme comes at a price, as the ruler “wins over his people, but only when they have lost their minds. . . . Is this gaining or losing? No one can say.” An authoritarian mind might accuse Yan of being subversive if she made her criticism any plainer. An American reader might think about how authoritarian rulers in the United States encourage reality denial, a form of lunacy that assures the unquestioning loyalty of their voters. Notwithstanding that theme, the book is not primarily concerned with political governance.

Each chapter in Strange Beasts of China introduces a new beast. Yan makes a point of telling us that each type of beast is very like a human despite their distinguishing characteristics. One type of beast has gills behind the ears. One type has coarse and “mottled black” skin. One is grown like a sapling that eventually takes on human form. One lives underground where bodies are buried. They tend to be male and female but they don’t always reproduce in conventional ways. Some types are violent and other are passive. The beasts are a diverse group, a fact the fictional city of Yong’an should (and sometimes does) celebrate, but the differences that distinguish beasts from humans also cause discomfort among the city’s homogenous human population. The beasts tend to be tribal, sticking to their own, although some types are admired by humans. Some of those are prized as possessions. Others are feared and, thanks to human efforts, are bordering on extinction.

The novel’s narrator is a writer whose stories about beasts (as well as food columns and trashy romance stories) are published in a local newspaper. While each chapter incorporates a different kind of beast into the narrative, the book reads as a novel because of the larger story that runs through the chapters. That story belongs to the narrator. She is a lonely woman, “truly scared. In all the vastness of the city, I don’t have a single blood relative, no family at all.” Her friends die or leave or enter asylums or turn against her. She is depressed. "For many years now," she writes, "I hadn’t felt anything like joy.” As the chapters unfold, she learns truths (or potential truths, as objective truth is never quite clear) about her own identity. Her parents, friends, and former lovers have all deceived her at some point. She is frightened of how easily she believed them, how she imagined she was loved. But maybe she was loved by others, people whose love she failed to recognize.

When she isn’t chasing after strange beasts, the narrator spends much of her time drinking and feeling sorry for herself at the Dolphin Bar. A recurring story line involves the narrator’s complex and evolving relationship with the zoology professor who took a special interest in her for reasons that are initially obscure, and maintained that interest — or perhaps maintained an interest in emotionally abusing her — after she dropped out of college and became a writer. A later story line adds a younger man, also a favored student of the professor, who maintains an ambiguous relationship with the narrator — a relationship that, like all relationships, the narrator finds confusing.

Yan seems to have a dual purpose, illustrating how distant individuals are from each other (“You don’t know my story, and I don’t know yours. We poured our hearts into our own stories, but never shared them with each other.”) while illuminating the close connections between people who seem to have nothing in common. Perhaps the narrator is a strange beast. Perhaps everyone is. When the narrator asks whether love is possible between humans and beast, she is really asking whether love is possible between two humans who can never really know each other.

A wry humor infects the novel, evident (for example) in Yan’s descriptions of the varying preferences of the different types of beasts (Joyous Beasts “enjoy fantasy novels, and hate Maths”; Heartsick Beasts enjoy steamed buns and char siu pork while Impasse Beasts survive on a diet of human despair). Yet the novel’s themes, including depression and loneliness, death (by suicide, by murder, by fate), oppression, prejudice, and the apparent impossibility of understanding ourselves, much less another person, are far from light. Yan achieves a fine balance of comedy and tragedy.

At times, Yan states the obvious, or perhaps the meaningless, as if she is stating something profound. At other times, she expresses deep thoughts that, if not entirely original, are provocative because of the original way in which they are showcased. The last chapter, an attempt to reimagine the entire novel, falls flat. The novel as a whole, however, is creative, surprising, and enjoyable.

RECOMMENDED

This is a strange, almost meditative book that slowly moves in circles until its themes emerge. Lovely, but might not appeal to most casual readers. Recommended for fans of literature in translation, magical realism and somewhat experimental literary fiction.

Absolutely loved this book! I wasn't sure exactly what to expect with Strange Beasts of China but was not disappointed by the book at all. I thoroughly enjoyed how each chapter of the book was written. Having the story told to us through short stories via each chapter felt fresh and was the perfect container for the reader to not only learn about the beasts in Yong'an, but also to slowly bring back the curtain on the city and our narrator. I loved that nestled within the superficial layer of telling us about these beasts and telling the beasts' stories, we get to watch the narrator find herself and find more happiness in her life than she did at the beginning. And it almost felt like a mystery while you go through the chapters. As things begin to unravel, the book draws you in deeper. I loved how the author was able to involve so many themes in the book in a natural and subtle way. The language was descriptive and beautiful. The translation work wasn't perfect but was well done. As a reader of Chinese descent, I also just loved to be able to read something from my culture that felt natural and baked in rather than showcasing another culture as foreign and exotic even if it is fiction. This is one that I am certainly recommending to other adventurous readers and will definitely be writing more about it to share with others!

This book was certainly strange and not what I expected, but it was still an incredible journey. I loved how each chapter followed a similar format, starting with what is known about each type of beast and ending with new discoveries. It read simultaneously like a textbook or field research entry, coupled with a very personal diary of the unnamed narrator's experience with the beast. I'm not sure what I expected of this story, but I loved how mystical it was and how in many ways, there was a mystery that needed to be untangled. Each chapter felt like its own story to some degree, but by the end of the book, I could see how each beast was related to one another. This book really made me think about bigotry and prejudice in the ways that these beasts are viewed by the humans around them -- at best, the humans view them as exotic and interesting, but at worst, humans exploit the beasts for their own benefit, pleasure, etc. This book is an excellent example of how sci-fi/fantasy can be an excellent vessel to mirror reality and all of its faults.

I think my only complaint is that at times, the chapter format felt a little redundant and with the narrator and a few other characters lacking names, it could be confusing at times. But overall, this story was unique, well-written, and incredibly thought-provoking.

I DNFed this. I tried really hard to read it, but just could not get into it. I mean, it wasn’t horrible, it just wasn’t what I want to be reading right now.

3.5 stars.
(cw: grief, death, wanting to die)

This is one of those books that's short but takes a while to read. At least for me. It's filled with such a spirit of melancholy and existential crises that I found I had to put it down frequently. But at the same time, there's a seed of joy within the pages wanting to burst out. As much as I had to put it down, I also had to pick it back up.

It has a rhythm to it. Each chapter introduces a beast, then we follow a woman who is writing a story about said beasts. We follow her life, her miseries and joys. Then we learn a bit more about that particular chapter's beasts. There's a line in the book about how when one wave subsides, another one begins. That's how reading this was like. The rhythm felt like conscious deep breathing. And I enjoyed the result, but the actual process did get a bit monotonous. Honestly, though, this is something I'll probably flip back and forth on — loving it and being irked by it.

We jump forward in time a bit throughout the book, and what feels like are important moments are pushed to the wayside. All of a sudden, the woman has stitches on her arm from something that happened while we were turning the pages. Part of me understands why these scenes were done like that, but part of me wishes we could have actually seen them instead of being told about them in 2-3 sentences.

This was a difficult book that touches on pain, loss, and grief. There are moments where the woman contemplates wanting to die. I would not say she has suicidal ideologies, though. But as I said before, there is also joy burgeoning within. There is hope and companionship. Yes, I was bothered by the somewhat monotonous nature of the chapters and how seemingly important things happened off-screen. But at the same time, this is a book I would recommend anyone to check out. Just be warned that it's not a light read. It's incredibly fulfilling, though.

Yan Ge’s Strange Beasts of China (translated by Jeremy Tiang) is a strange trip. A writer in the city of Yong’an writes stories for a local newspaper that feature different varieties of “beast,” humanoid creatures with distinctive features and mysterious customs. These beasts live alongside the humans of Yong’an, usually in little enclaves where they can be left in peace. The ones who are unlucky enough to be desirable to humans—for their beauty, biddableness, ability to work hard—become commodities. And yet, our narrator writes love stories that feature beasts and humans falling in love with each other.

The chapters in this book cover what seems to be a few months in the narrator’s life as she struggles with the loss of a good friend, lingering questions about her deceased mother, the death of a hugely influential but troubling professor, and much more. Each chapter begins with a short outline of a new kind of beast. And, in each chapter, our narrator meets a representative of this kind of beast—sorrowful beasts, flourishing beasts, heartsick beasts, etc.—these meetings, our narrator’s interactions with her friends and family and others, and all the other things going on in her life lead her to start wondering about her lost, mysterious father and what makes us human and them beasts. Are we really so different because of a few physical features and varying lifespans? It also leads her to ask who (and what) she really is.

The structure of Strange Beasts of China was as interesting to me as the developing plot. This book blurs the boundaries between linked short stories and novels. It’s more coherent than a series of linked stories, but more episodic than a novel. It’s the kind of book where readers need to pay close attention to the details, because they’re clues about what’s going on behind the scenes. The details bring us to those big questions about what makes us human, about what we owe to the other creatures we share the planet with, and whether love is stronger than greed. This book is absolutely brilliant.

Thank you Netgalley and Melville House for the digital ARC.

Part modern-day bestiary, part mystery novel, part short story collection, part morality play; this matter-of-fact modern fantasy didn't really click until I read that this novel was a collection of short stories written by Yan Ge and published in student magazines over years. Even now, it is a hard book to recommend as its perfunctory and matter-of-fact style will not gel with every person. I consider it a tragic, poetic paean to different and coexistence and the inability for us to accept or explore cultural clashes because of our own racism and the meddling of war-hungry, money obsessed isolationist corporations and governments.

Strange Beasts of China takes place in the fictional city of Yong’an where Beasts live alongside humans: a variety of creatures who possess certain instinctual, aesthetic, ethical, and/or magical powers different from humans. Centring the story is the nameless protagonist, a former zoology student, now living the life of a bohemian degenerate author, writing quick romances for the city's newspaper publisher.

My favourite of these stories are late into the book: Heartsick Beasts and Prime Beasts. Heartsick Beasts are synthetic beasts, costing 88000 yuan that you can make look like anyone by feeding them very specific diets in their early weeks; great for socializing your child and helping them become successful in academic and social spheres; after five years, they are repossessed and disposed of. In this, the protagonist is faced with the way the government and corporations are able to start war and induce fear in its citizenry of an Enemy; and it bookends a set of stories that show the overreach of mobs to force the genocide of other species of Beasts.

Prime Beasts, on the other hand, deals with a much more personal phenomena: race mixing and the fear and reprisal of community. I enjoyed this a lot more because, whether intended or not, there is a parallel in this story to American and Canadians who are lied to and told about some far flung Native ancestry and the rightful shame and danger that puts them and Native communities in to revel in these lies, and the isolation and stereotypes it perpetuates.

All the stories deal with some kind of social or economic disparity, one tangentially touches slightly on China's one-child-policy. As I do not know more about Chinese politics (a product of American/Canadian propaganda and the limits of publishing history and sociology from modern China in English), many of the stories' depth were a bit lost on me, and I was forced to enjoy just a nice, twisty story on its own. Which wasn't the end of the world, because the beasts are creative and disparate and beautiful.

In the end, I enjoyed my time with Strange Beasts of China, and I will be seeking more work from Yan Ge, as her writing style meshed with my interests once I understood the more holistic circumstances of her writing. Do I recommend it? Hard to say. Melville House has a sample of the first chapter on their website, and while I normally do not find samples enlightening, in this case, I really do recommend it if you are interested in the bizarre half-fantasy magical realist mode and don't mind feeling a little bit ephemeral.

Strange Beasts of China is a strange beast of its own: part bestiary, part folklore, part dystopian fiction, part narrative fiction – all woven together in an artfully artless way which leaves the reader feeling at once melancholy and hopeful.

I’ve never read something quite like this book. The premise was alluring, but even so, I didn’t know quite what to expect going in. The story centres around a nameless protagonist, a zoologist turned writer, and each chapter is dedicated to a different type of beast. All the beasts have different qualities, except for one uniting similarity – they are all almost human, excepting their myriad of physical differences. Each chapter begins with the beasts being described one way, and ends with them being written about differently, following the protagonist’s research and run-ins.

There were parts of this story that I never really understood, which I am taking as a stylistic choice by the writer. The story is told from the point of view of the protagonist, but the reader is never granted full access to all her thought processes. There are some dots which we are meant to connect ourselves. The story twists and turns and is confusing in parts, which I feel adds to the richness of the story.

Even beyond the story itself, each of the beasts detailed within are a breath-taking feat of complexity and fantasy. They are at once human and grotesque, beautiful and frightening, and I devoured new information about each of them like I myself was the zoologist, researching some new species.

Strange Beasts of China is a marvellous book, fantastical and introspective. It’s one I’m sure I will read again and again, gleaning new information and a new way of looking at things until the very last page.

Thank you to Melville House Publishing and to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book.

I don’t quite know what to make of this book….except that I liked it.

Strange beasts of China is a story-in-a-story. The protagonist of the novel is writing a novel about the beasts in her city at the same time that she discusses the events occurring around her.

I found the writing style interesting- kind of like found footage in a developing prose method. The story evolves as you read it, revealing many different parts.