[5 Stars]

Wow, this blew me away. All the conversations that took place in this book were so incredibly powerful. Combine that with the amazing plot and world, I absolutely loved it. Highly recommend.

~Audiobook provided by NetGalley and Dreamscape Media in exchange for an honest review~

I can honestly say that I had no idea what to expect when starting this book, but quickly found myself lost in this whimsical and dark world Yan Ge has created. Ge’s writing is thought-provoking, lyrical, and spun like a fairytale, leaving readers like myself feeling vulnerable and enticed from start to finish.

I knew at around the half-way point that this would be a 5-star read, so I’ll share a few of my reasons behind such a high rating…

First, and not to be forgotten, is the impact the narrator has on the story. Emily Woo Zeller, who also narrated one of my favorite books of all time This is How You Lose the Time War, is by far the best narrator I’ve listened to. If you’re a fan of audio books such as VE Schwab’s The Near Witch or even Kiersten White’s The Guinevere Deception, I think you’ll love the style of this one as well.

I also found the set-up of this book to be wonderful for my ADHD brain!! Each chapter focuses on a different beast in this city in China. It’s such a simple but effective way to keep the reader engaged and following along through a story that at times can be a bit confusing. The chapters aren’t short, but at least help to remind you where you are.

Finally, Ge’s novel is based largely around the question of who the real monsters are in this world, as well as the underlying parallels to our own world. I think it’s done in such an engaging and clever way, weaving real human experiences in with these mysterious beasts and their own experiences.

I’d recommend this book to anyone, but especially readers who enjoy to challenge themselves as well as their view on the world. Will be reading this again in the future!

4.5 Stars

Tragic, mysterious, beautiful

I am grateful to Dreamscape Media for sending me a copy of this book for review.

I loved this from beginning to end. The bestiary format of this book (I read this via audiobook so I am unsure what it looks like on-page) was such a great idea for this type of story. The author told us a tale of her imagined world, where beasts of different kinds live among humans and have inhabited our world for thousands of years. The Main character is cryptozoologist and a journalist who is cataloguing the different types of beasts academically, but also publishing stories about them for the general public. Interspersed throughout the book we also follow the character's journey to uncovering the mysteries of her own origins, and the stories of the people in her life.

This novel is filled with tragic scenes that mirror some of the crimes against humanity that have occurred in our real history. We see what happens when people get their humanity stripped away from them because of differences, and how society can accept their mistreatment and look on with apathy. The main character does offer an interesting perspective in this story, as we see her socially conditioned academic side battle with her empathetic side as she collects the stories of these beasts. She also has very complicated relationships with everyone in her life, which added tension to the mystery that surrounds her throughout the story.

I enjoyed everything about this. From the writing, to the characters, the setting, and format. I would recommend this to fans of cultural stories and sci-fi fantasy.

To put it simply I LOVED this book from beginning to end, so much that I want to read it again, because of how many stories are being told at the same time in this book.

I did not expect to enjoy this book even half as much as I did. The summary for this book does not do it justice. What you need to use to determine your interest is this line of the summary "Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China engages existential questions of identity, humanity, love, and morality"
The rest of what is described in the summary is so watered down that looking back on it makes it feel like a summary of a summary.

I loved this book, because the writing format kept it interesting, I had expected something more like a scientific journal and that is not what you find.
The relationships throughout this book are incredibly interesting.
And finally Emily Woo Zeller, is one of my favorite narrators in the world and she did a fantastic job with this.

Different than anything I’ve ever read/listened to before. I listened to the audio version of this book via NetGalley. This book is interesting and at times confusing. There were parts I did not understand. The narration is good and the audio quality is fantastic. The story itself doesn’t hook you which I usually need from a book but it did keep me interested somewhat because I was trying to figure out what was going on. The “beasts” and humans having relationships was too strange a concept for me to grasp fully which slightly repulsed me at times during the book. If you can get past that and the descriptions of the beasts you’ll be okay.

I was given a copy of the audio book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is trippy in a good way. Often when media is trippy, it's just a code word for difficult to follow that's not the case here. The book is easy to follow but impossible to predict, new elements of the world unfold in front of the reader, never out of blue but always unexpected. The world feels real and like ours but completely foreign at the same time. It's the kind of compelling mystery where you don't know what the next question is but at the same time you can't put it down. I legitimately didn't realize I didn't know the protagonist's name until I was 80% of the way through the book. I highly recommend this book to fans of The Magnus Archives.

The performance in the audiobook is well done. The narrator voices the different characters so well that I would forget that there was only one narrator.

Like most Chinese-to-English translations, this feels more like poetry than prose. I love that style.

The story follows a woman as she summarizes "Beasts", animals that mostly look human but aren't. Like if fairytale creatures had evolved from humans. Her personal story contributes to the stories of the Beasts, as more and more of this woman's life if revealed.

The "big reveal" at the end didn't work for me, but it may be the perfect ending for someone else.

Some things stand out as possible cultural differences... early in the book, whenever characters smoke they make it a big deal to offer a smoke to someone else. Is this a Chinese culture habit, or just something the author added? It doesn't matter to the story, just something I noticed. Things like this show up a few times, just roll with it.

**I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Strange Beasts of China reads a lot like a compilation of short stories, but they all intertwine beautifully. Each 'story' focuses on a different type of beast inhabiting the fictional city of Yong'an. I was most struck by the sorrowful beasts, the sacrifical beasts, and the heartsick beasts. Definitely rereadable and one I will think about for a while, but not for everyone

strange, whimsical, and oddly intriguing. i went into this book knowing absolutely nothing about it. all i knew is that it was about fantastical beasts in a fictional town in china. this book was pretty okay, i’d recommend it to anyone who likes fantastical book in a contemporary setting.

Ethereal and esoteric. Cosmic, strange, woeful and weird. I really enjoyed listening to this book. I digested it one chapter at a time in separate bed time story doses. Each short story takes place in the same world and can be enjoyed read all the way through, or in little dystopian chunks.

In Strange Beasts of China, humans live alongside mystical beasts in the fictional Chinese town of Yong’an. The unnamed narrator is a writer working on a collection of stories about these beasts and the meaning they have to her world and her lived experience.

It is a translation so perhaps that's why some of the language felt a bit repetitive or unintentional but I didn't mind that. Overall it was a wonderful read full of interesting mental pictures and moments of deep thought about what it means to be human.

Audiobook provided by NetGalley and Dreamscape Media in exchange for an honest review.

What a strange little book. Set in the fictional Chinese town of Yong’an full of humans, monsters, and spirits. The narrator is an almost cryptozoologist (never graduated) turned novelist that winds up trying to track down each breed of beast to write about them. Though she ends up finding out more than she bargained for.

Organized as a bestiary, each chapter focuses on a different breed of beast, though there is an overall narrative that flows throughout each chapter that ties events together. Each chapter feels somewhat like a short story in a larger collection.

I think something might have been lost in the translation though, I couldn't get over how choppy the dialogue was. And it especially bothered me how every male character spoke to the female protagonist (oftentimes calling her stupid and belittling her).

This is an interesting read, and I appreciated the ending. But after finishing STRANGE BEASTS OF CHINA, I still am not quite sure what to make of it.

Emily Woo Zeller does a good job with the audiobook narration.

I requested this one because it might be a 2021 title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one rather than push myself to finish it only to give it a poor review.

I was lucky enough to get the audiobook for this, narrated by Emily Woo Zeller who, by the way, is absolutely insane. I swear they've got that woman on speed-dial when they want a good book narrated.

Anyway, I love this book. Seriously, genuinely love it. It's so damn simple in every way. I mean, it's literally a short story collection about beasts in a fictional Chinese city. But there's something so charming about it, and this re-read really proved it. My only problem with it is that the narrator never gives her name, so I am forever stuck referring to her as...her. I can excuse that, though, because Zhong Liang is the man of my dreams and everything right in this world.

I'm not a hundred percent sure what this book is, but I know it's kind of amazing. Each chapter reads like a short story, and they evolve into a much larger story about the woman gathering the stories about the beasts. It's interesting how so many of the beasts (all?) are described as "otherwise looking completely human," despite how they're treated and used by the non-beast residents. The book takes place in an amazing world that doesn't feel built, it feels like it's always been around and this is just a handbook to navigating it. I'll definitely be re-reading this in the future.