so i listened to it on audiobook and i found the performer/narrator to be Annoying. can’t speak to her mandarin/chinese pronunciations/accents, but i found her british accents to be extremely jarring/grating.

maybe it was bc i was listening to it on audiobook, but there were looooonnnnngggg passages about a) what characters bought or wore, b) the history of china or singapore

and depending on my mood these passages came off either clumsy (generous: better for this information to be revealed and told slowly throughout the novel especially when it comes the Extravagance of characters) or condescending like the author doesn’t think that white audiences are either going to know or care to learn on their own a single thing about the history of china. if u a white person with no background knowledge feel alienated u either just gotta google it or put the book down.

in general i think this wouldn’t have been such a problem for me if i read it since i would have just skimmed those sections.

one last point: the ONLY character i care about is astrid thank you and goodnight