A review by stephxsu
The Red Chamber by Pauline A. Chen

Did not finish book.

The good thing that has come out of my attempt to read this is that I have been made aware of the existence of this Chinese classic and will now be seeking it out to enjoy the original. Perhaps it's actually a problem with the original story, but the writing of this book just felt passionless and unconvincing; the ancient Chinese setting was underdeveloped (if not for its being touted as a reworking of the Chinese classic, and the Chinese names of the characters, I would have been hard pressed to find convincing "Chinese" elements at all); and the characters spoke with such frustratingly laughable unnaturalness.