The fat years cover

The fat years

by Guanzhong Chen

From inside front cover: Beijing, sometime in the near future: a month has gone missing from official records. No one has any memory of it, and no once could care less -- except for a small circle of friends who will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the sinister cheerfulness and amnesia that have possessed the Chinese nation. ... A kind of Brave New World reflecting the China of our times, [this] is a complex novel that reveals ... the machinations of the postmodern totalitarian state, and sets in sharp relief the importance of remembering the past to protect the future.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?