China's No. 1 best-selling novel is about four university graduates in a cold-blooded, dog-eat-dog world of luxury brands and spiritual emptiness. Yao Minji looks at reading trends.

The No. 1 best-selling fiction in the first six months of the year is a young adult novel, "Lin Jie, Jue Ji" ("Critical"), by 29-year-old Shanghai-based writer Guo Jingming. It is the third installment of the trilogy that made him famous. He is controversial because of his ruthless, superficial and "empty" characters.