King Arthur Movie Tristan

title: Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth (ARC)


author: Xiaolu Guo




genre: fiction


published: 2008


pages: 167


first line: My youth began when I was twenty-one.



rated: 4 out of 5








Twenty-one year old Fenfang Wang moves to urban Beijing to work and live on her own. She gets a job as a film extra, rents a room for herself and goes to school.
She swears she'll never go back home.

'I had always wanted to leave my village, a nothing place that won't be found on any map of China. I had been planning my escape ever since I was very little. It was the river behind our house that started it. Its constant gurgling sound pulled at me. But I couldn't see its end or its beginning. It just flowed endlessly on. Where did it go?'

Fenfang is tired of playing film extras, and wants to write a script and make some money. She also has two main relationships. One with a man named Xiaolin and one with Ben.

'People always say its harder to heal a wounded heart than a wounded body. Bullshit. It's exactly the opposite-a wounded body takes much longer to heal. A wounded heart is nothing but ashes of memories. But the body is everything. The body is blood and veins and cells and nerves. A wounded body is when, after leaving a man you've lived with for three years, you curl up on your side of the bed as if there's still somebody beside you.'

My favorite thing about receiving books for review online is that I get to read books I probably otherwise wouldn't read. When my ARC copy of Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth

arrived in the mail, the cover quickly grabbed my interest. Isn't it pretty?




I know, I know...never judge a book by it's cover...but inside this book, there's also small snapshots that relate to the chapters.


I liked this idea. It gives the book a little 'something extra'.


I liked Fenfang's character. The writing was easy and smooth. It felt like Fenfang was just telling you her story plain and simple. I read this book quickly and enjoyed it very much.














about the author:

Xiaolu Guo was born in a fishing village in southern China. After graduating from the Beijing Film Academy, she wrote several books published in China before she moved to London in 2002. She was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 International Women’s Film Festival for her first feature “How Is Your Fish Today?,” and is the recipient of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival Cinefondation Residency grant based in Paris. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, her first novel published in the U.S., was shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. She divides her time between London and Beijing, and is at work on a new novel.

visit the author's website: http://www.guoxiaolu.com/