Fried Eggs with Chopsticks

I tried to finish it, I really did, but I just couldn't. To me it seemed the author put a great deal of effort into writing a book to say how much she disliked being in China and how unpleasant the experience was. If she didn't like it there, why should I like reading about it?

This is not to say that all travel books should be nothing but positive - negative with a sense of humour works really well (Bill Bryson has moments like this). Negative with the author having learned something is also good. But to me, this was like reading a series of well written (but very negative) reviews at Tripadvisor.com.

Evans travels across China by mule, plane, boat, bike, train, and car. She eats things she never realized were in the food category and she meets people living lives she never realized were in the lives-lived category. I liked this book much more than Evans' other book, It's Not About the Tapas.

Pet peeve: The subtitle says the book will be “hilarious”. C'mon. You are just setting yourself up for disappointment if you go into the book expecting hilarious. Amusing, yes. Humorous, yes. But hilarious?