The Semiotics of Girlblogging

FANTASY CANNIBALIZES REALITY in Olivia Kan-Sperling’s first full-length novel, Little Pink Book, a delirious, dream-addled sojourn through the Orientalist daydreams of Limei, an introverted barista at a café in Shanghai. Limei spends her days at the counter making latte art and her nights divulging her increasing desperation for passionate romance on her blog. As her fan fiction–fueled desires seep into the banality of her everyday existence, Limei’s own solipsistic nature is called into question by a narrator of dubious authority. A novel of surprising semiotic intelligence and expression, Little Pink Book provides a Chinese translation of the text alongside the English to interrogate the nature and limits of language.