"Did you know? Like in those Pu Songling stories, you become either a ghost or a fox."

Sally Wen Mao weaves a masterful fairytale across a broad canvas, with the Ninetails fox appearing whenever she wishes.

But here there are monsters. Faint of heart, be wary. The author writes with a feminist urgency that is apparent in each story, whether ghostly-faint or angrily in your face.

"The silence between them was a landmine filled with poetry."

Each story is clever and unique, unconventional, and genre-bending.

"...smiling against the desperate poems of women long departed..."

Oh, and read Dickinson sometime.

Thank you for the publisher and Netgalley for a free e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was looking forward to this book. I liked the first story about an interpretor going to work at Angel Island. However, the second story about a sex doll in Hong Kong was quite a jarring departure in tone. I pushed through, but after that, the stories just didn't keep my interest. I think I was expecting more fantasy-like stories about the fox legends. This wasn't for me, but it could be for others.