Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth

The latest novel from Orange Prize finalist Xiaolu Guo is the enchantingly comic story of a young Chinese woman's life as a film extra in hyper-modern, tumultuous Beijing. Though twenty-one-year-old Fenfang Wang has traveled 1,800 miles to seek her fortune in urban Beijing, she is ill-prepared for what greets her: a Communist regime that has outworn its welcome, a city in slap-dash development, and a sexist attitude more in keeping with her peasant upbringing than the country's progressive capital. But after mastering the fever and tumult of the city, Fenfang ultimately finds her true independence in the one place she never expected.