A young man goes on a road trip to his childhood hometown to pick up a friend, accompanied by a young woman who turns up at his hotel room to provide sexual services. Interspersed with the narrative of the road trip are scenes from the man's childhood and youth, episodes of his life that led him to his current adventure. While the past and present scenes are not as well interwoven as I would have liked, making it hard at times to know why certain scenes are important and not just filler, the story comes together nicely in the end. The English translation is well done, and reads smoothly, though occasionally there are details I am not sure carried through correctly from Chinese to English (in particular, I find it hard to imagine a school for pre-teen children in China where the pretty girls are all over 5'9"- no Chinese women I know are that tall, let alone an entire school's worth of teenage girls, even in the US, let alone in China). Despite such details, this was a good book, and an interesting glimpse at China from the past few decades. ( )

Road trip!

1988: I Want to Talk with the World is, as one might guess by the previous sentence, is about a road trip. Our narrator is driving across China to pick up his friend from prison. A sex-worker comes along for the ride. He thinks about his childhood. For example, he was an eye-exercise monitor in school and if there was ever any doubt that I know so little about China it is completely encompassed in the fact that their are daily eye-exercises with monitors to ensure they are being done correctly. Also, this quote from 1988: Since leaving home, I've seen all sorts of strange shubbery. I don't even know what to do with that thought.

But road trips are road trips. They stop for snacks. They get in a traffic jam. They sleep at run-down motels. The rhythm of the road trip, the random thoughts and the philosophising-as-the-scenery-rolls-past, it's all there. The universality of the roadtrip. Although, I really wish that our narrator wasn't a john, even if he tries to paint himself as a valiant one (i.e. if he opens the door to a sex-worker, he pays her for her services regardless of whether he thinks her to be attractive or not. Um, yeah, okay.), but then he ends up kind of adorably buffoonish. I mean, it's hard not to root for someone who ends up tossing cremated ashes into the wind and having them blow back all over him, because, basically that's the sort of thing that would happen to me.

The prose and story veers wildly. There are trite sentiments (That nasty thing called time was passing). There are cute and affecting memories, like the story about all the kids playing marbles. There are completely ridiculous and useless coincidences (although I couldn't help thinking of some quote I read somewhere by someone who I don't remember basically saying that what isn't surprising in life is coincidences, it's how few there are given the huge number of possibilities. Maybe it was some physicist or a self-help author?). There are his memories of him trying to find his first love before he even knew her. Still, it's really hard to know what to expect and whether some of the randomness (seriously, shrubbery?) has more to do with cultural divides or translation.

The narrator's a rake, but he's rather endearing. That's the main thing I took away from this.

1988: I Want to Talk with the World by Han Han went on sale January 13, 2015.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Not completely disappointed. Maybe I set my expectation too high.

But the story is a bit too simple, with too few characters yet lack character development.

I like the writer and I so much want to like this book. But it is really not that great.

The ending for the encounter is a bit cliche for my taste. This might as well be new in China. It just feel the book lack substance and plot to make it good. ( )