Cărtărescu groups it with his earlier books The Encyclopedia of Dragons and Why We Love Women as a trilogy of prose with lower literary ambition.

[1] Beautiful Strangers was the ninth best-selling book overall in Romania in 2010.

[2] The book consists of texts written for the free-of-charge leisure magazine Seven Nights and Cărtărescu has called it "a little book which I could say wrote itself", since the contract with the magazine meant that "even if you've run out of ideas and inspiration, every week you need to have a topic you've got to write about".

[1] The topics for the episodes were inspired by current affairs and a trip to Paris.

Cărtărescu aimed to stay within the conventions of the magazine, adopting a literary style less ambitious than in his novels, while avoiding being vulgar.