Identity & Belonging — The Book Roads

Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise

Yi-Han Lin

Thirteen-year-old Fang Si-Chi loves literature and believes that beautiful words can help her understand the world. When a respected literature teacher offers to tutor her, her parents see an opportunity for their gifted daughter. Instead, their trust exposes her to a devastating betrayal that will transform her understanding of love, desire, and herself. As Si-Chi struggles to make sense of her experience, she turns to the books she once believed held all the answers. Inspired by the author’s own experiences, this haunting novel examines sexual abuse, the manipulation of innocence, and the social structures that protect perpetrators while silencing victims. With lyrical prose and unflinching psychological insight, Lin Yi-Han exposes the terrifying distance between the romantic ideals we inherit from literature and the realities of human cruelty.

Taiwan 2017