The Border of Paradise by Esmé Weijun Wang

Published 2018 · 290 pages · 72,500 words · about 8 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction

How hard is The Border of Paradise to read?

The Border of Paradise scores 53 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 52 out of 100
Contemporary American.
Sentence structure: 52 out of 100
Ying's clear prose.
Abstraction: 55 out of 100
Family, isolation, faith.
Information density: 52 out of 100
California, Taiwan.
Narrative indirection: 55 out of 100
Multiple perspectives.
Symbolic density: 55 out of 100
Border, paradise.
Ironic distance: 52 out of 100
Family tragedy.
Resolution withholding: 55 out of 100
Tragedy unfolds.
Structural complexity: 52 out of 100
Family saga.

How The Border of Paradise is regarded

The Border of Paradise holds a literary regard score of 51 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

About the author

Esmé Weijun Wang