Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is notable for its size. Publishers Weekly stated that Balzac was a "slim first novel",[9] and Brooke Allen at The New York Times Book Review called the narrative "streamlined".[10]
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is written in a characteristic style. The novel focuses and "accents on a soft center rather than ... hard edges", according to Josh Greenfield of Time Europe. A vast majority of the characters in the narrative have "epithets rather than names",[7] adding to the relaxed writing style of the novel.
