Strange Beasts of China

An amateur cryptozoologist is drawn into the lives of the mysterious beasts that share her city.

In a fictional Chinese city, an author (and former amateur cryptozoologist) is asked to write a story of one of the sorrowful beasts that lives in her city. From there, she is pulled into the lives of many others, including joyous beasts, impasse beasts, heartsick beasts, and more. As she learns more about each of these groups, her own history with the beasts is slowly revealed. 
The structure of this book was fascinating - I loved the repetitive, almost cyclical way each chapter opens and closes, but even with that circular structure, the story continues to deepen as you move forward. This is a deceptively quiet book and requires some close reading, but its a beautiful, dreamy look at what it means to be ‘human’ or ‘other’.