Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo | Rating: ★★★★☆
“I wanted to hide away and write. I wanted to meet characters who would climb up my pen. I wanted to create a completely new world, inventing everyone and everything.”
I’ve owned this novel for some time now and was always skeptical about reading it, since it was very short. That’s a pretty dumb reason, isn’t it? Anyways, afters a bit of procrastinating I finally picked up the novel and found that despite the shortness of the novel, it wasn’t lacking in much. It was quite good, in fact. You may have to read through it a second time to fully slip into the narrators mind, but it is definitely worth the read.
Our story opens with a very catching statement: My youth began when I was twenty-one. It then goes on to tell us of the narrators plans and a little bit of a backstory. Truthfully, I would have loved to hear more of her life before having moved out, but hey — in spite of this wish, the novel really did hold my attention.
As I said earlier, the story itself is short. It is only just under 200 pages long, which means it’s the perfect novel to bring with you to various places to have a quick read handy. So if you’ve got a ride on a train or a plane or find yourself needing something to do while waiting around for something: this is a recommended novel.
