my real name and everything

I want to rate this higher because so many of the ideas in this book are interesting, but the translation really brings it down.

I spent so much of this book just being confused. Some of this was clearly purposeful; the magical realism leaves mysteries unsolved and plots open-ended, so at first I assumed my confusion was my fault. I figured I was a little rusty because a lot of my recent reads have been easy ones. But at some point I started to realize I was missing hints and clues and implications about the plot or characters because they had been lost in translation, and that was really frustrating. So much of this book felt really cool and interesting, and I hated that the full experience felt out of reach for me as a foreign reader.

That said, I would still recommend this read to people who like sci-fi and fantasy (and of course people who can read the original in Chinese!). If you go in expecting the confusion there’s a lot of creativity to sink your teeth into here. There are some genuinely haunting concepts in these stories with moments of visceral imagery, and both really enforce what Yan Ge is trying to say about sexism, discrimination, scapegoating, classism, and xenophobia. I’ll keep it vague to avoid spoilers, but as of editing this review 8 months later, I still think about the whole furniture concept. Specifically, the chair and its expression changing and absorbing the tongue. Ah!

I loved this! As usual with modern romances I hate the cover, but the saying is famous for a reason!

This was good and charming and well-written. The leads were likable individually and also made a good match (surprisingly rare in romance!). I read this in a day and it was a lovely Saturday read. I’ve been having such a good time reading books with neurodivergent main characters, and this was great from that perspective as well. I think the characters’ neurodivergence/mental health got just the right amount of attention - it wasn’t their whole identity, but it wasn’t something Ruiz ignored except when convenient, either.

I didn’t even realize this book was part of a series until a cameo appearance was so obvious that I looked up if she was the main character of another book. She was. I mostly find that sort of thing annoying, but I was charmed enough by the rest of the book that I’m still adding Ruiz’s other romances to my TBR.