Picked it up in the Copenhagen airport to read when back home and could not put it down. An insightful and beautifully written love story that mostly follows the time spent of a Chinese girl in England to better learn English. As funny as anything I've read in a long time and pretty accurate from my point of view having had a Chinese gf and friends of that nationality. One of the best books I've read this year. Finished 09.09.19. ( )

Intriguing book about cultural differences and communication written in a very clever way. My hesitation is that it seemed to me the strong focus on sex was not integral to the story. ( )

Interesting story. The reader feels a part of the journey as the protagnist discovers the way the English way of life. ( )

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers has to be one of the quirkiest novels I have read this year. I have read other books Xiaolu Guo, namely Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth, and the Village of Stone, and enjoyed both immensely. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (phew, could not the publishers come up with a shorter title, please?!) is Zhuang's coming-of-age tale in England. ( )

while interesting and beautifully written/insightful at times, this is a bit of an odd book. a young chinese woman experiences her own awakening while away at school in london to study the english language. her naïveté felt frustrating at moments, along with how easily she trusted strangers, putting herself into what could have been potentially dangerous situations. i found myself going 'yeah, but...!?!' throughout this book. but, london provides a huge contrast/shock for the character ("Z"), coming from a sheltered life with limited exposures in her communist country. the style of the writing was something i spent a lot of time considering, as it was supposed to be reflecting Z's improving fluency with english. sentences were not grammatically correct and broken (like: “Maybe I not need feeling lonely, because I can talk to other "me." Is like seeing my two pieces of lips speaking in two languages at same time. Yes, I not lonely, because I with another me. Like Austin Powers with his Mini Me” . though sometimes it could be humourous: “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 crepe. Pain and poison and crap. That's what they have every day.”) but i did question it - was this authentic feeling to chinese readers who have learned english? was this a reflection of the author's own experience? reviews are mixed on this point. and i am left feeling mixed about this read. ( )