Such a beautiful book. I can only echo Amy Tan here and say how original this book is. Some oddly dark humour and a lot to be learned from this.
Such a beautiful book. I can only echo Amy Tan here and say how original this book is. Some oddly dark humour and a lot to be learned from this.
Found this book in little a free library 🎏📚 I‘m already intrigued 😎
One of my favorite books and writers!
For some reason, this is just not happening for me. I find the stuff about language/ thinking in different languages quite fascinating, and there are some beautiful ideas in here. But as a novel, I'm just not loving it enough to continue 😕
Maybe bailing faster is the 'thing' for 2018.
Closer to praying as an alien than #prayingtothealiens. This will probably be my #unconventionalromance for #Booked2018.
Told in the language of a Chinese English-language-learner, and through dictionary terms, this is the story of a young student's first visit to the UK, where she falls for an older man. I'm looking forward to getting started on this one.
#nuyear @Cinfhen @TrishB
Quite an affecting coming-of-age story, funny in parts. A young Chinese woman who has moved to London from China to learn English, struggles with language and identity. Prosed in a dictionary format and convincingly written in broken English that improves over time, it tells of her developing romance with a bisexual British man and her journey of self exploration. Very readable, I was saddened by the story but felt disconnected with it. #litsyatoz
#allthebooksof2017
I have no clue what my #lastreadoftheyear would be, but I had better read one of these for #LitsyAtoZ because only then I would complete my challenge. With so many other books distracting me, I can only 🤞🙏 .
Part love story part coming of age. A young woman from China is sent to study English in England for one year. The narration is in the voice of someone learning English ie the 'Loyal family' in the UK. My favourite part was thinking about English from the perspective of someone learning my language and how confusing it must be. For instance 'I'm going to go to the beach' why do we have to say 'go' twice?. It's a fun look at ourselves. 🌟🌟🌟/5
Not a review, really, just a thought: A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers had nothing wrong with it that I could see, it just was a little too earnest for me, coming after the youthful cynicism in Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth. It just wasn't what I was expecting, so that disappointment colored a probably good book, for me.
"I thought English is a strange language. Now I think French is even more strange. In France, their fish is poisson, their bread is pain and their pancake is crêpe. Pain and poison and crap. That's what they have every day."
The rest of my BetterWorldBooks order is here! Next in the queue for me is A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers.
#junebookbugs #multiethnic
I seem to spend a lot of my evenings after work going over my gr read list to see what fits these photo challenges, they are becoming a bit like a few years ago an obsession i had with sudoku!
Anyway i really liked this book when i did an a-z challenge with a Chinese students experience of love and life in multi ethnic London as she struggles to express her thoughts through language..
#rockinmay #londoncalling Some books set in London.
@Cinfhen more books to add to your TBR, if you have not read them. 😊
Some of my #booksbyAsianwriters on my shelves.
#readjanuary @RealLifeReading
Surprisingly readable despite its intentionally shaky language, which improved as it went along. Interesting comparison between cultures. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I legit lost this book. I have no idea where I left it. FML
For some reason, I felt like coming here today, a decision that I instantly regretted. I have t been to Starbucks years, perhaps because I prefer supporting local coffee bars. Anyway, taking a break from walking to get a few pages in.
☆☆☆☆☆
I adored this book. The language is just as much a character here as everyone else.
The writing is out of this world. As Z learns English, her language becomes more complex, her ideas are expressed more poetically.
Definitely recommended.