I quit trusting anything that anyone told me.

My life was skidding into darkness at high speed, and I couldn't stop it.

I didn't think that there was a man anywhere in the world who could love me.

I was 22 years old and dead on the vine.

I want to see a thousand lonely strangers dancing happily at my party.

An international literary phenomenon - now available for the first time in English translation—Candy is a blast of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll that opens up to us a modern China we've never seen before. Hong, who narrates the novel, and whose life in many ways parallels the author's own, drops out of high school and runs away at age 17 to the frontier city of Shenzen. As Hong navigates the temptations of the city, she quickly falls in love with a young musician and together they dive into a cruel netherworld of alcohol, drugs, and excess, a life that fails to satisfy Hong's craving for an authentic self, and for a love that will define her.