A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing

by Alice Evelyn Yang, Carolyn Kang (Narrator)

A dark, magical realist debut family saga that moves through the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the Cultural Revolution, and the present day to explore the effects of intergenerational trauma, the legacy of colonialism, and the inescapability of fate.

Qianze has not seen her father in eleven years, since he walked out of her life the night of her fourteenth birthday and disappeared without a trace. But then she gets a call—there is a man on the porch of her childhood home, and he’s asking for her. This man isn’t the Ba Qianze remembers: he is much older, more fragile, and worst of all, haunted by a half-forgotten prophecy.

While Qianze wrestles with what she owes this near-stranger, Ba begins telling stories of his past. From his bloody days as a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution to his mother’s youth under Japanese occupation, he circles around the prophecy he came to deliver. Qianze has always longed to know more about her family history, but as Ba reveals a past far darker than she could have imagined, she finds herself plagued by strange visions—fox spirits trail her on her evening commute, a terrifying jackalope stalks her nightmares, and the looming prophecy slinks ever closer.

Spanning decades and continents, A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing employs a combination of stunningly rendered folklore and atmospheric prose to examine the legacy of colonialism through the eyes of three generations. Alice Evelyn Yang’s debut novel is a story of family and forgiveness, of folklore and fate, that will leave you unsettled and undone.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Horror, China, Historical

13 pages, Audible Audio

First published January 27, 2026

About the author

Alice Evelyn Yang is a Chinese American writer from Norfolk, Virginia. Her work has been published in MQR, AAWW's The Margins, and The Rumpus, among others. She is the recipient of the 2022–23 Jesmyn Ward Prize from MQR and completed her MFA in Fiction in 2022 at Columbia University, where she was awarded the Felipe De Alba Fellowship and nominated for the Henfield Prize. A BEAST SLINKS TOWARDS BEIJING is her first novel.

Reviews

[Zana · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

Wow! What a beautifully written novel! Graphic and gut-wrenching, Alice Evelyn Yang doesn't hold her punches. And I'm very glad for that.

Usually, historical fiction isn't my genre. But the author managed to capture my attention with her descriptions of humanity's brutality and resourcefulness.

I loved that this novel wasn't a simple case of bad guys vs. good guys. Instead, this novel explored how several generations of one family survived under repressive conditions with the scant resources that were available to them. Different family members utilized different methods of survival. Were they completely ethical or moral? How do you stay true to your beliefs if your life and your family's lives are at stake?

I don't read a lot of fiction or nonfiction about the Cultural Revolution, so this was very eye-opening for me. The historical events that were mentioned (specifically the Red Guards and their brutality) had me on Google and Wikipedia. I'll always stan novels that make me curious about specific parts of history or current events, so this was a huge reason why I really enjoyed this book.

Generational trauma manifested as a monstrous magical creature is one of my favorite niche tropes. So, if you're into that, definitely give this a read.

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for this arc.

[Marcus (Lit_Laugh_Luv)]

i love debut novels!! sue me ok

[T Davidovsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing is a masterpiece, though you might not realize it before you get past the first hundred pages.

Things start off slow and dull for the first few chapters as you follow Qianze and her father, Weihong, getting reacquainted after years of estrangement. Neither are easy to connect to as characters. At first, Qianze's mother ended up being the only person who really snagged my attention. (She goes from being an impoverished Chinese immigrant and a single mother pretending to be widowed to being a stereotypical middle class lady who attends yoga classes, forms book clubs, is curious about Buddhism, tries Mediterranean diets, and gossips about her daughter. I desperately wanted to know more about this flawed figure whose worry over her daughter's unhappiness causes her to think it might somehow be helpful to warn Qianze that being moody means she's going to reincarnate as a worm.)

It's not that Qianze and Weihong don't have depth of their own. They do, but they lack unique perspectives and voices. Their observations, interactions, reactions, and behaviors taught me less about who they are and more about how technically gifted the author is at setting tone and atmosphere. The writing is beautiful, but I wasn't emotionally invested, at least not at first. The one good thing about the early chapters is the way fantastical elements are used to explore how unsettling it is to care for an aging parent who has memory loss.

Fortunately, about a third of the way through, we get a new perspective character named Ming, and she brings everything together. She grows up in rural Manchuria during World War II, and in this setting, the author's enthralling prose gets a chance to shine. I was completely swept off my feet as the story's spellbinding imagery transported me to another time and place. Ming is also a compelling character with a propulsive (if very dark) story, so the plot and pacing pick up here.

Some of Weihong's behaviors also get an explanation around this time, making him a more layered character. His backstory is heartbreaking, and if I wasn't emotionally invested in him as an adult, I certainly got emotional when I learned more about his past. Qianze's story similarly gets going after a hundred pages. Her character grew on me as I got more glimpses into her rage, her fears, and the way she's tried to curate her image. It turns out that her father's return causes that image to shatter, dredging up all sorts of contradictory feelings, which somewhat justifies her painfully stunted reactions in the first few chapters. It would have been nice to have this context earlier. However, even though the recontextualizing comes late, it still helped me to forgive how slow the story is at the start.

By the time the book reaches its powerful and poignant climax, I had chills. As more mysteries are uncovered, the novel reveals itself to be a stunning and devastating depiction of the different relationships people have with each other, themselves, their history, and their homes. It's about the myths we tell ourselves and each other to survive and the things people are capable of doing when survival is on the line. It's about what gets preserved, repressed, distorted, altered, or lost through various collective and personal traumas. I highly recommend it to people who like multiple timelines, Chinese history, messy family sagas, books about immigration, and magical realism that leans towards horror.

~Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a Digital ARC. All opinions are my own.~

[jocelyn • coolgalreading · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was fine! i'm not sure i would've picked this up on my own but i was gifted a copy from the publisher. the execution felt kind of too hollywood for me (idk if that makes sense) and it felt kinda corny towards the end

[Jifu · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this title courtesy of NetGalley)

Alice Evelyn Yang writes with an impressive efficiency - concise, yet always vivid. No matter which specific character was experiencing the plot, what tangle of emotions they were wrestling with, or what location or time the narrative had shifted to, everything always immediately became as alive and as real as anything - including the magical realist elements. Every time I picked up the book to carry on, it was an immediate and engrossing immersion into the thick of it all.

However, that of course meant being always at least neck-deep within the themes that tie through the story from start to finish - the horrors of colonization, war and the atrocities it brings in tow, and of course, trauma. Trauma upon trauma upon trauma, not just affecting the characters in horrendous moments, but trauma that then cycles on down through the next several generations. A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing didn’t just make me uncomfortable at times - it felt like it was trying to actively tear at my very heart as I watched the core characters endure an array of mental, emotional, and at times physical agonies. And it was their resulting anguish that mostly felt the most real of anything else - that, but also thankfully the little moments of joy and relief as well. This book was both soul-wrenching, yet beautiful, and no matter what had just happened in the narrative, it was never long until I came right back to read another chapter or several.

This is not only a fantastic debut for Yang, but I would definitely call this one of my most memorable fiction reads of 2025 so far. I definitely hope to see more titles from her in what I hope to be in the near future. In the meantime, I would love to see her first work gracing our popular reads shelf here at the library once it’s published.

[Denise Ruttan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am starting my reading year off on a strong note because my first read of 2026 was a banger.

This is a slow-paced literary epic full of family secrets, abandonment, trauma and abuse, taking place over three generations of a Chinese family. Infused with a subtle touch of magic realism and Chinese folklore, this novel is brimming with dark weirdness just under the surface.

Qianze is 25, an accountant who hates her ruthless job and longs to paint. She is stalked by cryptic Chinese aunties and a fox spirit, and is haunted still by the trauma of her father abandoning the family when she turned 14. They told everyone he was dead, they were so ashamed of it. But one day her father stumbles back into her life, an alcoholic showing early signs of dementia who keeps muttering about a prophecy he must tell her, but he can never quite remember it. In the meantime she learns about her past as he tells her stories of their family, which her family always hid from her.

The timeline then jumps between points of view, between Qianze's father, growing up in the Cultural Revolution, and his mother, who survived as a comfort woman during the Japanese occupation. It really showed the brutality of trading out one dictator for another, and the fragile lives of the women who were abused and left behind. It was shattering to learn about the cruelty the comfort women faced under the Japanese and how they were then punished as traitors by the Communists. It also showed how hard it was for Chinese immigrants as the family moves to Virginia.

Through all this darkness, the story kept begging the question of how monstrous humans can become and still be merely human; that's why the magic realism wasn't in your face.

I loved the mix of magic realism and the slide between realities and timelines. The characters were also very real, complex and raw. No one was easy to like in this book but I found the characters endearing and I was rooting for them to break the cycle of abandonment and abuse.

This is another book that I cannot say I really enjoyed because it was so dark and emotionally exhausting, but I found the author's prose to be absolutely beautiful. For a debut this was incredible, and this author is one I'll be keeping an eye on.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[b. ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

is there any genre better than a decades long historical fiction family saga that explores intergenerational trauma, migration, survivor’s guilt, and colonization?

no. i do not think so

thank you to libro.fm for this alc!

[A Dreaming Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley, William Morrow (eARC) and HarperAudio Adult (ALC) for providing me with advanced copies.

This was a well written debut novel. I found it to be a good balance between the historical and the fantasy/mythology/folklore elements. Initially I found it a little difficult to keep track of the family tree and the timeline but it all came together midway through. The switch between the story telling and present day was done well. The way generational trauma creeps through when you're unaware, was executed well. There were a lot of dark elements in this story. I felt especially heartbroken knowing that these more or less happened in real life during the war. The ending was quite emotional and was a good payoff to the story. I would definitely recommend this to anyone into historical fantasy.

The narrator did a brilliant job with the book and emotions were expressed perfectly. It significantly improved my reading experience by helping me with the pronunciations especially. It would have been a bit more helpful if it was a two person narration with a guy narrating the flashback story being told by the dad.

[Ebony · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful and heartbreaking story of inter-generational trauma with multiple POVs and a pretty complex timeline. The author weaves together folklore and history in a way that allows you to easily slip between the past and present of this family while not losing the reader. This is an extremely heavy story but so beautifully written you flow through it. An amazing debut novel.

[totesintobooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

God….this is a book that left me shaken to my core. Yang’s writing is lucid and controlled, yet devastating in effect. She paints the atrocities of war with unflinching clarity, refusing to sanitise brutality or soften violence, and in doing so forces the reader to confront how cruelty embeds itself in bodies, memories, and families.

The novel’s structure—moving between past and present—mirrors the nature of trauma itself. Ba’s search for Qianze and their eventual reunion is not just a narrative thread, but an emotional reckoning, one shaped by everything that came before. The past does not stay in the past; it bleeds into the present, shaping relationships, silences, and failures of love. Yang makes clear that trauma is not inherited as a story, but as behaviour, absence, and fear.

One of the most painful themes in the novel is the lasting damage caused by being denied parental love. Children grow up starved of safety and tenderness, and that deprivation echoes across generations. Evil, in this book, is not abstract—it is fear-driven, divisive, and contagious. It causes people to abandon one another in moments of survival, leaving behind scars that no reunion can fully erase.

Ming’s suffering is almost impossible to comprehend. Her experiences as a comfort woman haunt the novel, and I found myself unable to fully grasp the depth of pain she endured. Her turn to opium feels tragically understandable; waking up in a body so violated and altered by violence makes survival itself unbearable. Yang does not romanticise this suffering—she presents it as horrific, consuming, and permanently damaging.

This is a deeply disturbing book, and it is meant to be. It shows how war deforms not only nations, but families, love, and the capacity to care. It is a novel about separation—between parents and children, past and present, self and body—and about how those separations are inflicted by fear and sustained across generations.

Yang shows that harm does not only come from those who commit atrocities, but from those who survive by refusing to see, remember, or acknowledge them. Trauma deepens when it is denied: Ming, Weihong, and Qianze suffer not only because of what happened to them, but because no one names it, mourns it, or takes responsibility for it. Silence allows pain to fossilise.

Generational trauma depends on this silence. When the past is ignored, it resurfaces as neglect, rage, fear, and abandonment, passed down to children who inherit the damage without its history. The novel insists that moral clarity requires witness; to look away is to allow evil to remain diffuse, unaccountable, and ongoing.

[LX · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you so much for the proof Dead Ink Books!!

This doesn't let up from the emotions within it as you get to experience 3 timelines & generations. Each one has a different yet similar haunting within it.

Gotta admit, reading over different timelines isn't of my fave things but I did find myself way more invested and actually enjoying my reading experience this time round.

Once you get settled in each generation, should I say, you get a sense of dread and just horrors of what those characters experience within their time. We have dementia and abandonment (also anythibg to do with father / daughter relationshijust gets to me a lot lately.) experiences of being a Red Guard and what he had to do, and reading about Ming and what she had to go through.

I will say, with the blurb I was expecting more magical realism horror within it but the true horror is the trauma each person experiences and how that is somewhat passed down in a sense of it changes and shapes us for what comes next.

[Mai H.]

ANHPI TBR

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow

[Taylor Penn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Beast Slinks Toward Beijing follows a father and grandmother struggling to survive Japan’s occupation of China during WWII, making brutal choices that leave wounds reaching far beyond their own lifetimes. Decades later, that same father resurfaces in 2017 New York City after abandoning his daughter 11 years prior in a feeble attempt to shield her from their family’s curse. As their stories collide, the novel traces how violence, love, and fear echo across generations.

ABSTB is historical fiction and magical realism in equal measure. What surprised me most was how Yang weaves each thread together with a seemingly effortless sharpness. Her writing is vivid without ever feeling showy or pretentious, and every shift in the timeline drops you straight into that character’s turmoil—whether it’s the moral compromises of wartime or the quieter, modern ache of a daughter trying to understand a father who disappeared.. No matter which character took the lead or which era the story jumped to, I was right there—feeling their fear, their grief and their glimmers of hope. And while the book definitely dives into heavy themes like colonization, war, and generational trauma, it never feels bleak for bleakness’s sake. The first 100 or so pages is a lot of set-up and I won't lie to you—it took me a while to get over the hump, but if you stick it out with Qianze, Weihong, and Ming, they will reward your efforts 100 times over.

A gripping debut from Alice Evelyn Yang, and probably the most memorable read I've picked up in 2025. A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing releases on January 27th. Thank you to Netgalley, the author and William Morrow for the ARC.

[maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing is an absolutely stunning debut spanning three-generations of a family, from the Japanese occupation of Manchuria to the Cultural Revolution, and finally to the present-day in the United States. Alice Evelyn Yang weaves together a heart-wrenching portrait of colonialism, intergenerational trauma, and the confines of fate in this dark magical realism novel.

When Qianze’s father re-appears at the doorstep of her childhood home after disappearing from her life eleven years ago, her whole life becomes upended as she begins to unravel the dark and violent history of familial past that haunts her father’s memories, and the mysterious prophecy at the heart of it all. A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing was such a gut-wrenching read, full of both visceral and beautiful prose, that doesn’t shy away from its explorations of the violence and horror intertwined with the legacies of colonialism and how such histories become embedded (and lost) within the body across generations.

This one will stick with me for a while I think, and it has definitely made itself into one of my favourite reads of the year.

Thank you so much William Morrow for this arc. All opinions in this review are my own.

[Lucas Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel managed to hit so many of my favorite things in fiction: a sweeping multigenerational family saga, mystery, folklore, touches of magical realism, and genuinely beautiful prose.

A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing, the debut novel from Alice Evelyn Yang, moves from the Japanese occupation of Manchuria through the Cultural Revolution and into the present day. It’s a story about intergenerational trauma, the long shadow of colonialism, and the idea that some things in a family can’t ever really be escaped. Qianze hasn’t seen her father in eleven years, not since he walked out on her fourteenth birthday and disappeared. When he suddenly shows up at her childhood home, he’s older, fragile, and carrying a half-forgotten prophecy that refuses to stay buried. As he begins telling stories from his past, from his years as a Red Guard to his mother’s life under Japanese occupation, Qianze finally learns the family history she’s always wanted, though not in the way she imagined.

I really loved this book. I received an ARC from NetGalley, and it completely pulled me in. I especially loved how the magical elements never overwhelm the story. They’re there just enough to give the novel a sense of mystery and unease, while the real heart of the book stays firmly rooted in family, its fractures, and how those relationships echo across generations. This was such a strong debut, and I’ll definitely be picking up whatever Alice Evelyn Yang publishes next.

[Madison Herrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was devastating, beautiful, brutal and incredibly moving. I was worried when we started going through different timelines that I would get lost but everything blended together and the reveals were done perfectly. I can already tell this book is sitting with me and can see it being one of my favorites for the year

[Alexa (Alexa Loves Books)]

DNF @ 6%. I was curious about this one based on the synopsis I'd read, but the execution just isn't holding my attention well at all (despite my initial intrigue at the way this novel opens). I think it's highly possible that I just might not be the reader for this book.

[John Caleb Grenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Stop me if you’ve heard this before” is a line that drops somewhere in chapter 4 of this book. And the temptation was there to do so. Because, well, I had. Heard this before.

[francesca · Rating 4 out of 5]

thank you very much to netgalley for an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

reading this novel was quite haunting as it reminded me of my own immigrated parents and grandparents, and the generational trauma that gaunt’s their lives and in turn also haunts mine. there is an obligation to protect, foster, and provide for our ailing parents/relatives despite the hurt that has been caused, and that obligation runs through the entire narrative of the novel. very well written

[Mollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing is a slow-burn family saga spanning from the Japanese occupation of Manchuria to modern-day NYC. It tells the story of the last three generations of Qianze’s family, exploring generational trauma, fate, and the lengths we will go to in order to survive and to protect those most dear to us. The structure and symbolism of this novel work together to create a moving and intimate portrait of how that trauma can be passed down not only through violence and history, but through the choices people make when they are desperately trying to protect one another.

Yang uses a layered, multi-POV structure that moves across time periods to gradually build out the history of this family. With linear family sagas, I am guilty of losing interest in the younger generations and forgetting how they all fit together by the time I get to the end. I loved the way Yang weaves these different timelines together until everything clicks into place. It feels organic and natural and makes me never want to read a linear family saga again.

For much of the book, while I was enjoying and intrigued by the folklore-inspired magical realism, I wasn’t sure how Yang was going to tie it in with the themes and resolution. The final execution was flawless though. I loved the symbolism of the beast and how Yang used it to explore these ideas of generational trauma and fate.

There are so many little intricacies in this book in how everything finally ties together, and I was ultimately just blown away by it. I’m shocked that this is a debut novel—Yang tried a lot of different things here, and I thought she nailed basically all of them. This is an emotionally heavy novel for readers who love family sagas that grapple with the legacy of our parents’ pasts and ask what, if anything, we owe them.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the gifted eARC. All opinions are my own.

[Jennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while I come across a book that leaves me thinking about it for days after I finish it, and this is one of those books. Alice Evelyn Yang doesn't pull any punches as she explores intergenerational trauma, the legacy of imperialism, and the toll of denying the past. 


Qianze is a second-generation Chinese American woman whose father suddenly materializes 11 years after he disappeared, warning of a prophecy and turning her orderly life upside down. What follows is the beautifully-written but deeply harrowing story of a family unfolding across three generations, from the Japanese occupation of Manchuria through the Cultural Revolution to modern day America. Each point of view offers an intimate, unflinching glimpse into life and survival during these eras. 


This book dealt with a lot of heavy topics, but the thread that stood out to me was Qianze's feelings of loneliness and unbelonging as a result of being cut off from her past, and the way it comes full circle. Her parents refuse to talk about their experiences in China, leaving Qianze unmoored, othered by her American peers but disconnected from her heritage-- "My only homeland is [Ba] and my Ma. I don't belong anywhere, only to them." When her father finally starts to open up about his past, the truth she's always craved turns out to be a kind of monkey's paw. But despite the pain, she and her father are able to begin to recognize the damaging effects of burying the past and imagine a different way forward. I really liked that this book doesn't wrap everything up neatly, but leaves the door open for a hopeful future. 


I don't feel that the the magical realism was necessary for this story, but I'm grateful for it because I may not have found this book otherwise. And thanks to this book, I was compelled to learn more about these events after reading, especially Ming's story. A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing is a powerful debut, and I look forward to reading Yang's future work.


Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for the eARC!

[Elisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story of generational trauma and how our family’s hurt can inform our own. Told in 3 POV’s in different eras, we follow our main character Qianze, her father Weihong, and his mother Ming. Qianze is reeling from the sudden reappearance of her father after he left their family on her fourteenth birthday. Weihong is growing up in the Cultural Revolution under Mao. Ming grows up alongside her betrothed, and her life is irrevocably changed under the Japanese occupation.

WOW. I can write this review now that I have picked my jaw up off of the floor. This is searing historical fiction with magical realism and folklore woven throughout. Yang does not shy away from the gore of the past and this novel is all the better for it. The impacts of colonialism are depicted so vividly at both societal and individual levels, and how it not only bleeds into someone but how it trickles down to your descendants, how intended protection can feel like a betrayal. These characters will be sticking with me for a very long time. I’m obsessed with Yang’s writing style; it is intentional and elegant and hauntingly beautiful at times.

OUT 27 JAN 2026!! go ahead and add it to tbr put it on your radar!

Thank you to William morrow for a copy to read and review in advance!!

[Stephanie Avila · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5-3.75 review to come!!

[Ellie ✧ · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...the past was full of bad memories, but here and there were glimmers of tenderness to be found."

Magical realism, gorgeous writing, and a multi-generational story to unravel? I started A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing prepared for all of my favorite things, and I was not disappointed. Alice Evelyn Yang's debut novel has earned a coveted place on the shelf of books that have brought me to tears.

A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing follows mutliple characters: Qianze, our present-day character, Weihong, & Ming. It starts slowly, drawing you in with mythical nightmares and Qianze's upended life after discovering her father, who left over a decade ago without so much as a note, has returned to her childhood home. There's a message that he needs to give her, but he doesn't yet remember it.

The stories that we follow throughout A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing set up each character with vivid detail. They are heart-wrenching threads weaving through themes of war & colonization, generational trauma, the relationship of parents to their children, how hurt shapes a person, and so much more. Though it moves slowly in the beginning, the time that we spend with each character is vital to the beating heart of the narrative. I promise, it pays off. Specifically, I found Chapter 31 to be especially beautiful, and I was moved to tears throughout the last three chapters.

A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing comes out on January 27th and I would enthusiastically recommend it. I will be thinking about it for a long time and have already added it to my shortlist of books that I'd like to read a second time. Alice Evelyn Yang has written a beautiful debut novel and I know that I will be first in line whenever there's another.

Thanks so much to netgalley & William Morrow for this e-arc!

[Sarah]

Zana rec

[Abi Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this! Thank you to Dead Ink for the advance copy. Subscribe to The Debut Digest for my full review.

[Angela Salmon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC (advanced review copy) for my honest review.

The title, first off, is great. 'A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing' immediately creates a sense of other-worldly foreboding which the writing and story deliver on.


This is a multi-generational story that weaves in and out of an estranged father's cursed and fading memories, desperate to relay an import message to his adult daughter. Many books shift though time lines to link together a family's stories, but this book pulled it off so impressively that I was equally captivated by every generation. The characters feel alive; every life was built with hope and longing only to be burnt to ash. What I felt most was the pain that transformed them and were forced to carry on with. This story was incredibly dense with the horrors of war and survival laced with the feeling that just the right amount of love could undo it all.

The descriptions of Mao's era horrified me as I realized how little I knew of China's history. Alice Evelyn Yang's writing shys away from nothing, pulling you through horrors like you are a bystander, yet has a simplistic, accurate beauty.

The magical realism events gnawed at the corners, shifting between psychological and mythical and I appreciated that the elements that could easily have been overused. A small snag for me were the modern references during her college years which were too specific and actually took me out of the story for a moment. (The author actually lived these years and I did too but it didn't make them feel more real).

Overall I loved this booked. It was more emotionally charged that I expected and I would pass it along with the heartfelt warning of, 'be prepared'.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

In her genre-bending debut novel, author Alice Evelyn Yang weaves a story that blurs the lines between the past, present, and reality in "A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing".

In the summer of 2017, Qianze is just one of many 20-somethings working in soul-crushing job at a Big 4 firm in Manhattan. She returns home to her small apartment in Chinatown after work expecting nothing out of the ordinary, until she receives a call from a resident of her former home in Virginia - there is a man on the porch of her former home looking for her. Immediately, Qianze knows its her father who disappeared from her life eleven years earlier, who simply walked out of the home on her birthday and was never heard from again.

After she brings him back to her apartment, Qianze and her father grapple with the pieces of their relationship, as he deals with the pain of his past and memories with alcohol and oblivion and she doesn't know what to make of the fragments of sentences he says, including one about a prophecy she needs to be warned about. The rest of the novel jumps to the past, taking on the perspective of Weihong when he was a child growing up in Anshan China in the midst of the Communist Revolution, as well as Weihong's mother Ming, as she came of age during the time of World War II. As each character's story unravels, the story of Qianze's family and her own heritage and inheritance come to light.

At the forefront of this novel is an eye-opening reality of life in a rarely written about time period in history. With Ming, we see how she was overlooked in her own family because she was born as a girl, and despite what should have been a happy marriage to her childhood betrothed Fei, just how much of her life was shattered with invasion of the Japanese during World War II and just how inhumanely Chinese civilians, especially women, were treated during that time. As her son Weihong grows, his own life is shaped heavily by the rise of Mao and the Cultural Revolution, as his own legacy and actions shape his and his daughter's future. This is a heavy and at times dark novel that explores the effects of war, political upheavals, and colonization has had on so many - but also calling to light the small joys and remnants of hope that can persist in spite of it.

A stunning, masterful work for a promising new author! I'm so excited for when "A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing" is published in January 2026!

[meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐️ rounded up

"it was so easy for him to uproot her. one question, and he had reincarnated the seething, grieving girl, the one she thought she’d buried but now discovered was simply rotting within her like gangrene."

"leaving was the most monstrous thing i did."

a beautifully written, heartbreaking, brutal, and harrowing read. i absolutely loved the magical realism and chinese history & folklore elements, especially the fragmented structure of the novel timeline in how it switches from past to present day; the reader experiences first-hand how trauma affects narratives and storytelling: ba’s recounting of the family history to qianze, his daughter, is fraught with and shaped by fear, absence, and the weight of his memories and trauma that is passed down by the generation before.

this novel is family saga is told through three generations of a chinese family from the japanese occupation of manchuria, through the cultural revolution, to the present through three POVs: quinze, weihong, and ming. much of this book reminded me of the atrocities of war in r. f. kuang’s POPPY WAR trilogy, and yang does a phenomenal job of weaving a story of the effects of the cycles of intergenerational trauma, colonialism, and grief. every character is complex and their rage, anguish, and moments of joy felt raw and tangible💔

read if, like me, you like dark magical realism; historical fiction; a dash of horror; the inescapability of fate; and exploring the detrimental effects of intergenerational trauma, colonialism, and war, all through chinese folklore and history. what an incredible debut!!🖤🐇 i can’t wait to see yang’s future works!!

thank you to netgalley and william morrow for an eARC of this book!!

⚠️ note: this was a pretty dark read, def check TWs before reading!

[Shirley Baptiste · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow wow wow. this january has been the month of five star debuts. whatever alice evelyn yang chooses to write, i will read, because again, wow. there is so much to unpack in ‘a beast slinks towards beijing’. there’s complex familial relationships, generational trauma, paranormal elements, and the age old theme of fate vs. free will. i really had to slow myself down with this one due to its complex and often graphic nature, but that didn’t make me want to put it down any less. however, there are some extremely dark moments, most often associated with war, so do be aware and check trigger warnings.

i first discovered the author from her instagram @rot.and.read with its stand out graphics and weird girl lit recommendations. i could tell she had something to say, so i jumped at the opportunity to read her arc. it’s sharp and visceral writing pulled me in and the intricate storytelling across three generations kept me glued to its pages. it follows three characters, a mother, her son, and his daughter, across the japanese occupation, the cultural revolution, and ultimately immigration to america. each character is distinct and their choices unfold and cascade into the next generation with the turn of each page. the story is not entirely linear, but i found it easy to follow. the elements of magical realism/the paranormal really added a mystical sheen to the narrative that i found so compelling. my heart just ached and ached for ming and weihong. i know their stories will stick with me for quite some time.

so if you’re in need of a more challenging, diverse, and thought provoking read that centers around heritage and how that shapes the choices we make, this is the perfect book.

thank you endlessly to william morrow for the advanced copy!