Praise
The Guardian:
“The novel, though, is also more than a love story; its psychology is politically acute, and things noted lightly in it linger in the mind. It succeeds in luring the western reader into an alien way of thinking.” ― Review by Ursula Le Guin
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San Fransisco Chronicle:
“While “Dictionary” initially seems a fast, breezy read, don’t be so easily entertained as to miss the many nuances. Just like the single-word entry markers, beyond the most obvious definitions are deeper, more satisfying meanings.” ― Review by Terry Hong
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Entertainment Weekly:
“(S)martly Absorbing” ― Review by Hannah Tucker
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South China Morning Post:
“This is a sad but enthralling story that reverberates long after the final February section and the Afterwards adds a poignant conclusion.” ― Review by Sue Green
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Criticism
The Observer:
“The conceit of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is that it’s a textbook or a primer and that is its greatest problem, too. There’s too much tell and not enough show… There’s a poignant and moving novel here, perhaps; I just didn’t quite get it.”
— Review by Carole Cadwalladrread the full review here.
The Spectator:
“Slight. A slight story, slightly poignant, slightly drawn characters, occasionally slightly funny. It also has a grating aspect that is not slight: its language.” ― Review by Jonathan Mirsky
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Financial Times:
“In the end, however, this book does not convince. All novels reflect the disjunction between what we do, what we say and what we think; the idea that no two people can tell the same story. Stranger-in-a-strange land is not a new theme in fiction. But The Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers relies too much on this single idea; there is little subtlety and nuance. The pidgin English isn’t hard to read, but it does keep the writing excessively simple.” ― Review by Rosie Blau
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The Guardian:
“Still, I found it a little hard to believe that our narrator was quite so up on the subtleties of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. For readers like myself who barely remember the movie, it doesn’t function well to reinforce or explain an emotional crisis. That’s the danger of leaning on a work of art to do the work of your work of art: we don’t share references as we did when the world was smaller.” ― Review by Ursula K. Le Guin
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A Concise Chine English Dictionary for Lovers’ Homepage
John Quigley ’19