What a gorgeous and captivating book about the men and the women whose lives are forever changed by how they interacted inside the cinema. While the cinema showed films, it was really a place for men to come and connect with each other in a sexual and sometimes romantic way. Tang's prose is so luscious and inviting, and I never wanted the book to end. The book brings to mind the films, Goodbye Dragon Inn & La chatte à deux têtes and how the cinema could be a way for people to connect in places where those connections are fraught with danger and possible violence.

Liang's novel is in a way a type of ghost story. It's about a literal ghost, but also ghosts of the cinema, ghosts of the workers and the men who who want to the cinema, and ghosts of what could have been. This is an exciting debut by Jiaming Tang, and it's one of the best debut novels I've read recently. A definite recommendation.

This has a lovely theme, the beginning was intriguing, but sadly I kinda lost interest around 40%, the pace is slightly too slow for me.

Thank you netgalley for the advance copy.

This is a title I highlighted at the start of the year. It was certainly a debut novel which grabbed my attention from its pre-publication description.
The first thing that really impresses is the quality of the writing. The author describes himself as a queer immigrant who lives in New York and the cross-cultural elements and LGBTQ+ sensibility is evident. Central to the novel is a location- The Workers’ Cinema in Mawei City in post-Socialist China at some point in the 1980s. This is a down at heel venue frequented by (often married) men in order to pick up other men whilst a small selection of (often war) films play continuously which nobody (with the exception of the Projectionist) is interested in. The novel features characters who frequented the cinema, worked at it or were affected by the behaviour of the men searching for love in the darkness.
This shadowy world is beautifully conjured up by the author who would surely have been too young to recall such venues (I did keep having the image of the Scala in King’s Cross from around the same time period creeping into my mind).
Some of the key characters from this section move to New York and struggle to adapt with poverty amongst apparent plenty, unemployment and exploitation, racism and green card marriages to deal with but over the decades the Workers’ Cinema still maintains a hold over these characters as guilt, ghosts, lust and loss permeate their daily lives.
Things do shift around a bit time-wise and there was the odd moment when I wasn’t sure when things were happening but we very clearly move towards a section set during the Pandemic and afterwards. There’s a short piece of first-person narrative but it’s predominantly third-person and increasingly features two women, Yan Hua and Bao Mei who briefly encountered one another at the cinema.
Writing is strong, plot-wise I felt it tailed off just slightly towards the end when I wasn’t sure about some of the older character’s motivations and it felt we were slightly being taken around in the same circles but this is an impressive debut with the author thoroughly impressing on this occasion and showing much potential for the future.
Cinema Love will be published in the UK by John Murray Press on 9th May 2024. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

A slow burner but a beautifully written book about love finding its way to flourish when it is not. allowed or accepted
It’s atmospheric and emotive and genuine and a book to make you think and feel gratitude
A good read

Thank you to the publishers and to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book ahead of its release.

Cinema Love is a gorgeous LGBTQ+ literary novel that will take your breath away with its stunning prose and beautiful imagery. The emotion in this book jumped off the pages and really hit me full force in the gut. I adored and devoured each sentence and I know that this book will stick with me for a long long time to come.

I really enjoyed the love story we are witnessing in this book, it feels real, poignant and heartwarming, definitely recommend it.

Cinema Love was a really beautiful, tender portrait of LGBT relationships in a widely unaccepted time/culture, and the kind of relationships which stemmed from this - wives, siblings, friends. It created believable characters and really built a world you could immerse yourself in (Chinatown, the workers cinema etc). I think some of the characters in the latter half of the book based in America were introduced quite quickly and sporadically, and I might've liked some more back story. I also would've found myself more interested, and dare I say slightly more convinced, if the portion set in China had some more socio-political backstory and I understood the atmosphere slightly better. I did find it to be quite a slow paced book, and with it being very story-heavy this made it take a while to read, but on the whole it was very meaningful and I think could easily be a favourite with many readers.

This book covers a big chunk of time and follows a group of characters. They start out at the cinema of the title and end up in the USA.
It was a really interesting story which covered a range of experiences.
I did find that the story didn't quite hit the spot for me. I seemed a little unclear sometimes
However, I think the author shows a lot of promise.

Cinema Love is a novel like no other. Completely different to anything I’ve ever read before, and one that I very much enjoyed. I am constantly on the look out for books which offer brand new perspectives and stories, and this one certainly ticked that box!
This book itself is very ambitious, depicting both the queer-immigrant experience and the complexities of love and relationships in just a mere 300 pages. It is narrated by numerous characters (Old Second, Bao Mei, Yan Hua), all of whom you come to empathise with, and all the stories become intertwined and connected by the end which I really loved - (I will say however that this can get a little confusing at times).

There is no doubt that Jiaming Tang is a brilliant writer. The style of this novel is certainly beautiful and poetic, and I loved it for the most part, although there were a few times where I felt that the writing kind of took away from the storytelling, and so certain chapters almost felt they were lacking in something - I’m not entirely sure what exactly, maybe depth or explanation of certain events.

However, as whole, Cinema Love is an exquisite novel, and I’m so glad I discovered it. Highly recommend keeping an eye out for this one in 2024!

Cinema Love is a novel spanning decades that explores the relationships of gay men, and their wives in China and in Chinatown in New York. Old Second and Bao Mei live in New York City, in an ever changing Chinatown, but they first met in China, at the Workers' Cinema that had become a cruising spot for gay men and where Bao Mei worked selling the tickets. After tragedy there, they married and came to America, but the ghosts of the past followed, and in modern day New York during the pandemic, they must face it all.

This is a sweeping, epic novel that captures the everyday sadnesses and intimacy of human relationships, particular those born out of forbidden circumstances. It is told from multiple perspectives, weaving together a range of central characters with entangled relationships and showing the choices that can have great impact on each other. Particularly intriguing is the way that the book explores both gay men and the women they marry, and the complexities of love and human emotion that can occur in different circumstances. The cinema, though central to the plot, doesn't actually feature that much, making it almost feel like a lost ideal, despite being run down, and throughout the book there's a constant yearning for things, people and places.

This kind of decades-spanning epic novel can be confusing or meandering, but in Cinema Love Tang uses vividly-drawn characters to hold the heart of the novel together and tells an unseen story of both gay and immigrant experience.

This book is amazing and captivating. The characters linger in your thoughts even after you've put it down. It tells a story about men concealing their identities to survive. The novel explores themes like forbidden love. The setting shifts between contemporary New York, late 1980s Chinatown, and post-socialist China. The language is beautiful, making it a touching read that resonates with many hearts.