Young people in China get a bad rap. Conventional wisdom says the boys are spoilt and fat, the girls flighty gold diggers — and the whole lot of them lazy, selfish and greedy. I have lived in China for seven years, and have met precious few mainland youths who fit those descriptions (except for maybe the plump part).

But don’t take it from me: I’m old enough to be their granny. Jemimah Steinfeld, on the other hand, has studied the Chinese twenty to thirtysomething in its own habitat: the bars, sex shops, online dating sites and matchmaking corners where the country’s complex, controversial and confusing youth culture is being made.

Little Emperors and Material Girls: Sex and Youth in Modern China is based on extensive field research on the male and female of the species by Steinfeld, a London-based journalist and “self-confessed sinophile, feminist and history junkie” who has lived and worked in Shanghai and Beijing.