Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise was a great read. I really appreciated the author's compassion towards such a difficult topic.

This book was a joy to read. I enjoyed the way the story flowed and I had a few moments that kind of made me question a few things. The characters were very interesting and I had smile quite a few times. This author really knows how to tell a story that will captivate you from the very beginning. I highly recommend this book and this author.

Where to start with Lin Yi-Han’s Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise? How can one trust that their words will hold water in the face of the terrible tragedy that is this novel? It was only when I was about halfway through this book that I learned that the novel may be at least semi-autobiographical, detailing the abuses that author Lin Yi-Han suffered at the hands of a trusted teacher before taking her own life shortly after its publication.

Because this storyline may be based upon Lin Yi-Han’s own experiences, I won’t comment on the plot or how I feel about it beyond proclaiming that it is shocking and vile what happened to Fang Si-Chi in this book. If there is even a thread of truth to this story, it is an outrage, and I am terribly sorry that Fang Si-Chi/Lin Yi-Han was failed by the adults in her life. Potential readers should note that there are graphic depictions of abuse upon a child in this story which are incredibly uncomfortable to read. The entire tone of this book is unsavory, and one should not pick it up for entertainment, but rather educational purposes.

As for the translation of this novel, I did struggle with it, as the story flows from one point of view to another and seems to skip around in time without any clear delineators. I had difficulty keeping the facts of the story straight and deciphering time, place, and character setting. This did take me out of the reading experience, making me really work at following the storyline of this book.

If you are going to read Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise, read it not because you want to, but because these are the last words Lin Yi-Han chose to put out into the world before taking her own life. Let her story speak for itself.

This is an incredibly difficult, necessary novel. It has been instrumental in Taiwan's #MeToo movement, as it deals with a 13 year old and a sexual predator who nobody would ever suspect. As the mother of two daughters, it is hard to read at times, but that is exactly why it is so important. These exact kind of things are happening all over the world, and we need to keep our eyes open and to protect our fellow girls and women. What a brave book this is.

"Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise" by Lin Yi-Han is an incredibly powerful and heart-wrenching novel that has become one of the most influential books of Taiwan's #MeToo movement. This book turns the traditional Lolita narrative upside down, exploring themes of sexual violence, trauma, and survival through the story of thirteen-year-old Fang Si-Chi. Living in an upscale apartment complex in Taiwan, Si-Chi and her neighbor Liu Yi-Ting bond over their love of learning and classic literature. However, their lack of real-world education makes them vulnerable, especially to Lee Guo-hua, a revered cram literature teacher and serial predator who lives in their building.

Si-Chi’s innocence attracts Lee, who offers to tutor her for free. Her parents, unaware of Lee’s true nature, accept his offer. While Yi-Ting's tutoring is straightforward, Si-Chi is subjected to "lessons" about sex and love that change her life forever. Confused and traumatized, she turns to her beloved books for guidance, but literature offers her no solace or answers. To cope, she starts to think of her personal hell as her “first love paradise,” finding a twisted strength in the distorted idea of love.

This novel is not just a chilling tale of grooming and lingering trauma but also a profound critique of the power structures that allow such abuse to flourish. The characters are intricately developed, and the story is painfully honest, offering an emotionally raw narrative that is both insightful and unsettling. Despite the dark and challenging content, Lin Yi-Han's writing is captivating, making this a staggering work of literature that reverberates across cultures and forces readers to confront difficult truths about vulnerability and strength.

The book's ability to detail the protagonist's feelings after being raped and abused by a trusted adult is particularly powerful. Si-Chi’s transformation of her trauma into a version she can tolerate is heartbreaking, yet it speaks volumes about the coping mechanisms of abuse victims. The graphic nature of the abuse scenes can be challenging to read, but they are crucial to understanding the depth of Si-Chi’s trauma.

"Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise" is a compelling and important read. It is a testament to the resilience of victims and a call to action against the societal structures that enable such horrors. The book is beautifully written, with metaphorical language that adds depth to the narrative.

Lin Vi-Hans first and only book, Fang Di-Chi's Love Paridise is an emotional gut punch. The story of the grooming, and sexual assault of Taiwanese girls by Teacher Lee is a very hard but necessary read. The author's deep and disturbing story is based on her own experiences and she sadly and tragically took her own life after publication of her book. Lin Vi-Hans first person narratives from the voices of the victims was authentic and harrowing. Taiwan's failure to protect girls and women screams out of the pages in an almost silent but clear presence throughout, as the victim's lose their trust, family and friends, goals, futures and mental health. I will never forget this necessary and brave book and hope that it ignites dialog and better understanding of the importance of protecting women and children from criminals like Teacher Lee. Thank You Netgalley for the opportunity to read this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

In a Nutshell: A darkly tragic story based on true events in Taiwan. TRIGGERS GALORE! Not for everyone, but if you can handle details of graphic sexual abuse and a slightly meandering writing style, do give this compelling story a try. This is the first time ever I have hated and loved a book at the same time.


Plot Preview:
Liu Yi-Ting and Fang Si-Chi are thirteen-year-old best friends, coming from well-to-do families, living in the same apartment complex, studying in the same school, and fond of the Russian classics. The first difference is that Yi-Ting is somewhat plain while Si-Chi is stunning. The second difference comes out only some years later, when Yi-Ting learns that Si-Chi has gone through something earth-shattering in the last five years, a fact that is revealed by Si-Chi’s journals only after she loses her mental stability. What happened to her in the interim?
The story comes to us in the third person perspective of various characters.


I am not comfortable reading books about sexual abuse, especially when children are involved. But when I saw the blurb calling this “the most influential book of Taiwan’s #MeToo movement”, I knew I would give it a go. It has not been comfortable reading at all! I have had to force myself to pick this book up after keeping it aside readily when the going became tough. The only external force that ensured my completion was the fact that this book is based on a true story, and I wanted to extend my solidarity to the writer, though she’ll never know about this.

Author Lin Yi-Han died by suicide a few months after the publication of her first and only novel. Only after her death came the news that she had based this book on her own experiences of sexual assault by a cram school teacher many decades her senior. Yi-Han was only 26 when she died, and had been suffering from depression since many years. Perhaps she had penned this novel as some kind of cathartic endeavour, but it wasn’t enough. Such a tragic end to a young life!

Initially, I thought that this book would be like a Taiwanese version of the famous Korean feminist work, “Kim Ji-Young, Born 1982”, but it turned out to be much, much darker. The only commonality between the two books is that they were huge hits in their home countries and led to major discussions about gender discrimination and abuse. But compared to the ghastliness of this book, Kim Ji-Young feels like a YA work.

Goodreads suggests ratings based on our enjoyment of a book, with 1 star indicating “I did not like it” and 5 stars for “It was amazing!” In that sense, this book deserves 1 star because I did not *like* this book at all. A majority of the characters and the situations are frustrating. The sexual abuse scenes are terribly graphic. In fact, these sequences make us feel like we are right there witnessing the assault, probably even living it, because the words ring so authentic! There’s no smoothening of feelings or brushing aside of violations. Every single part of the abuse is detailed out without censorship. This obviously means that the book is not for the fainthearted. I jumped over the more graphic scenes after a while because I couldn’t handle the content. It has taken all within me to push myself to the finish line.

At the same time, the book also earns the full rating. The intricate characterisation, the stark honesty in the writing, the metaphorical approach to the mundane, and the painful plot - all promise a literary experience beyond measure. An interesting feature of the novel lies in its choice of characters. Unlike usual stories of abuse, the victims (yes, plural) in this book aren’t from poor families or from relatively ignorant or illiterate backgrounds. Rather, Si-Chi belongs to a wealthy family, and lives a privileged life with quality education. Her fascination for classical literature is painfully misused by the perpetrator, who twists words to suit his own narrative.

What makes this book tougher to handle is the complex exploration of the young girl's feelings after she is raped and abused by a trusted adult. The clue to her coping mechanism lies in that strangely happy title: “first love paradise.” She turns the unpalatable truth into a version she can tolerate. One feels helpless seeing her handle the abuse this way. Anyone who picks this up merely by title or cover is bound to have a shock as the plot isn’t a “paradise” at all, with themes such as gaslighting, gender discrimination, rape, child abuse, sexual violence, trauma, mental health issues, grooming, victim shaming, miscarriage, and domestic abuse.

Some chapters are written from the assailant’s point of view, and needless to say, these are the most infuriating as his disgusting thinking reveals itself without guilt. Then again, it wouldn’t be right to say that this man is the main villain of the story. The crime belongs almost as much to those who knew of such shenanigans and chose either to turn a blind eye or to slut-shame the victim.

The content itself isn’t a smooth ride, but there are a few further hurdles my way. There were too many characters at the start, and it took some time to get acquainted with them, though the going got easier once the character identities were settled. Moreover, the language was a bit awkward at times. This book was originally written in Mandarin in 2017, so I am not sure if the odd metaphors were straight from the original writing or a translation issue. But the back-and-forth jump across timelines and the slight stream-of-consciousness style added to the complicatedness of the reading.

This is my first Taiwanese novel, and it has been an odd experience combining enlightenment with exasperation. Despite the somewhat dissatisfactory and highly uncomfortable reading experience, there’s no way I will not recommend the book. It is not easy to read, but it still tells a story that must be heard. Not all victim stories go the same way, and this book spotlights this hidden bitter truth.

Recommended to lit fic fans and readers of gut-wrenching true-life narratives who can tolerate graphic paedophilic scenes. If you want a story that has hope in any measure, stay away from this work. This is disturbing almost all the way.

3.75 stars.

My thanks to HarperVia and NetGalley for the DRC of “Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Fang Si-Chi’s life is forever thrown off course when she falls victim to a serial predator living in her building. What seemed like an innocent offer to help with her schoolwork capitulated 5 years of sexual abuse in this influential novel from Taiwan’s #MeToo movement.

Congratulations to Lin Yi-Han (and translator Jenna Tang), this is the first time I’ve ever had to take a shower because a book was so deeply uncomfortable. Yet, I couldn’t stop reading it, despite my ever-growing disgust and rage. As a teacher in Taiwan, I couldn’t help but think of my former junior high school students, all the brilliant, self-possessed young girls that are so easily taken advantage of in a culture of silence and shame. AUGH! This is a brilliant, disconcerting work, beautifully rendered into English by Jenna Tang, who managed to capture the arcane literary references for an audience not steeped in the tradition of classical Chinese literature. Read this book, even if you think it’ll be hard for you to handle. ESPECIALLY if you think it’ll be hard for you to handle. 5 out of 5 pink diamond necklaces.

This is not an easy book to read, but once you start reading it, you won't be able to look away. This horrifying story about abused and traumatized women is beautifully written. The beauty of the words make the events they are describing that much more devastating.

The quick changes in perspectives were jarring at times and added to the sense of imbalance and uncertainty that the character's themselves were experiencing. The teacher's POV was absolutely disgusting. I hated every minute spent inside that man's head.

TWs: sexual violence, sexual grooming of minors, rape, victim blaming, misogyny, domestic violence, miscarriage, suicide

I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

FANG SI-CHI’S FIRST LOVE PARADISE is an important, sensational, but harrowing semi-autobiographical account of sexual violence and contemporary Taiwan’s failure to protect its girls and women. Its message is SO important, but the writing style might not make it as approachable to everyone as it could be.

It is absolutely essential that you check for trigger warnings before reading. Lin’s descriptions of the sexual violence that her female characters experience are graphic to the point of being grotesque, and can be very difficult to bear. However, it is all the more important to not look away during these moments: the intimate and heart-breaking way in which Lin writes these scenes could only be the result of personal experience. In reading these scenes without turning away, we pay homage to Lin’s memory, as well as empathize with the suffering that other victims of sexual violence have faced.

Contrary to what the title suggests, FSCFLP doesn’t just cover the titular character’s grooming and rape over five years. It also gives us the perspectives of other girls or women who are the victims of sexual violence or are affected secondhand by being inadvertent witnesses or enablers of sexual violence. There’s Iwen, a beautiful, well-read women who suffers beatings at the hands of her older husband; Liu Yi-Ting, Fang Si-Chi’s best friend, who unwittingly minimizes Si-Chi’s ordeal; and Guo Hsiao-Chi, another victim of Teacher Lee. We even go inside Teacher Lee’s depraved mind to hear, with horror, how he justifies his actions towards his many, many female students over the decades. In doing so, FSCFLP sacrifices a more traditional narrative to ambitiously provide a stream-of-conscious, panoramic, yet still intimate, view of the results of a society that enables men like Teacher Lee to continue to pray on girls and women.

Lin’s astute observations lay bare the uncomfortable truths about sexual violence in a way that I’ve never before encountered in literature. Lin even manages to crawl inside Lee Guo-hua’s depraved mind and write from his perspective. A truly evil yet so normally misogynistic and patriarchal, contemporary man emerges from the difficult-to-read passages.

There are countless moments where both sexual predators and society gaslight victims into thinking that what happened to them is their fault. In doing so, FSCFLP reveals that this is not just the doings of one man to one girl, but a whole society’s culpability in perpetuating a culture of sexual violence and victim-blaming. Inevitably, heart-breakingly, surrounded by people who don’t believe them, who don’t let them speak, who are quick to cast blame without asking for the whole story, the victims’ only survival mechanism, the only way they can endure without going crazy, is to “love” their abuser.

Unfortunately, the actual writing style of FSCFLP may make the story even less welcoming to readers than the subject matter already is. The book tells us that making metaphors is how Si-Chi attempts to distracts herself and make sense of her ordeal, but the sheer amount and absurdity of the figurative language, and how awkwardly it reads in translation (and maybe in the original Mandarin as well? I don’t know) had me laughing at times when I know I should be taking everything seriously. One does not know whether they are actual thoughts (i.e. the coping mechanisms) of the characters, or the result of the author’s wordplay or the translation. That, combined with the subject matter, as well as the everchanging narrative perspective and the lack of a traditional storyline progression, can make FSCFLP quite a challenge to get through.

While I would not call FANG SI-CHI’S FIRST LOVE PARADISE a favorite read, it’s one that is definitely lingering in my mind. In the afterword, Lin Yi-Han writes:

“Literature is the most useless thing and the funniest kind of uselessness. I’ve written so much, and yet I can’t save anyone. I can’t even save myself.”

While writing may not have saved her—Lin tragically died by suicide after the original Taiwanese version was published—reading FSCFLP may save others. And that will need to be enough. Believe women. Believe victims.

Referred to as “the most influential book of Taiwan’s #MeToo movement,” this is the heartbreaking yet powerful story of a girl sexually abused by her teacher, based on the author’s own tragic experiences. In raw and unsettling prose, Yi-Han Lin condemns Taiwanese sexism and taboos surrounding sexuality that allow neither the proper sexual education for children nor the social permission for adults to speak up when they know violence is occurring. For Yi-Han Lin, society at large is the real perpetrator of violence in this, her only published work. Readers should be aware of explicit content including minors.

Bleak, powerful, incredibly hard to read. STRONG trigger warnings for any readers who have survived child sexual assault. Exercise extreme caution when reading or recommending to others.

Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise by Lin Yi-Han is a captivating and tender exploration of first love, friendship, and the complexities of youth. Through the lens of Fang Si-Chi's coming-of-age journey, Lin Yi-Han masterfully captures the nuances of adolescence with both sensitivity and depth. The characters leap off the page with their authenticity, and readers will find themselves easily swept away by their trials and triumphs. Lin Yi-Han's prose is evocative and poignant, painting a vivid portrait of Taiwan in the 1980s while simultaneously tapping into the universal experiences of growing up and falling in love. The novel's rich emotional landscape and heartfelt storytelling make it a truly unforgettable read. Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise is a poignant reminder of the power of young love and the enduring bonds that shape our lives.

In this painful to read novel, a bright young girl is sexually assaulted by her neighbor/tutor. In order to make sense of the trauma and as a means of surviving, she must contort her experience into that of love. The manipulation of her tutor is graphically depicted; as is the general culture and attitude amongst the cram school tutors who regularly abuse their power. Some of the nuances may have been lost to me in translation and I don't claim to have a deep or personal understanding of Taiwanese culture, but I certainly could pick up on the devastation and the effects of trauma.

Dark and harrowinf. I definitely got the comparisons to Lolita and the vibe was… utterly utterly twisted. Thanks so much for the arc

A story about a young Taiwanese girl, groomed and molested by a teacher in her building, when she was only 14 years old. Fang Si-Chi and her best friend admire and look up to the teacher. He preys upon their vulnerabilities and tells them he would review their essays for them and gives them a topic to write about. When Fang Si-Chi goes to visit him to have him review her essay, he preys upon her and rapes her. She is too scared to tell her parents and even her best friend about her abuser. The teacher and his colleagues are all complicit in taking advantage of young girls in their schools. They laugh and joke about it. Even though Fang Si-Chi is mentally disturbed by the abuse, the teacher keeps telling her she is the only one he loves and cares for, even though he is married and has a young daughter. Fang Si-Chi cannot stop herself from meeting him. She was a brilliant student and now is reduced to self loathing and depression. Si-Chi experiences the rape and molestation until she goes to college and it becomes the ruin of her. The story is well writtten,but the material is hard to read and extremely disturbing.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me the ARC to read.

This was a dark harrowing novel ,a book that is not easy to read. but I was so caught up in the story the sadness of this young girl the abuse she suffered.A very well written heart wrenching read.#netgalley #harpervia

These types of stories, ugh, I don’t know why I put myself through them over and over… but I do! These stories are important, the subject matter, while hard to digest… IMO should not be left in the dark. I appreciate these hard to swallow, reminders of the real world & in this case that it’s a world wide issue… a people problem. You’ll know if this is a book you can handle early on. Thank you for the chance to read this early translation.

By all definitions a difficult read; the bleakness of the subject matter, however, does little to dull the impact of the themes presented here. Rather, it highlights them, making them all the more resonant. While <i>Fang Si-Chi</i> is no doubt a monumental and important work, the plot often wanders in seemingly meaningless ways, with many characters feeling rather underdeveloped as well. Despite its flaws, <i>Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise</i> stands as a shocking and stirring testimony to the hidden power structures that are still so prevalent in our modern society.

🌟🌟🌟
The description of this book was what drew me toward it: a seminal work in Taiwan’s #MeToo movement, with themes reminiscent of “My Dark Vanessa” and “Lolita.” The story that unfolds throughout “Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise” lives up to the promise of its description, but—like the other two books—it’s not one that lends itself to recommendations without severe content warnings.

This is the story of Fang Si-Chi, an adolescent girl growing up in Taiwan, and how an older man abuses his position of trust and authority. One of the hardest elements to reconcile with while reading is how Si-Chi (and other girls who are targeted in this way) are either blamed or abandoned when they try to get help. Even Si-Chi’s childhood best friend initially reacts with anger upon being told. It’s only a recently married woman—in her own abusive relationship—who tries to help, albeit without the resources to do so.

One of the most important caveats with this book is that it’s told from different points of view, one of which is the man who abuses Si-Chi throughout her teenage years. It can be upsetting and difficult to read through these sections, especially when combined with the multitude of chapters where Si-Chi tries to convince herself that he loves her.

These stories are so important to be told, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy to digest. If you are in a space to read this book, it will be published (in newly translated English) on June 11. Otherwise, I’d recommend giving this one a skip.