A beautiful collection, not only exploring the folklore but exploring being removed from your culture. Fantastically put together and a great place to start learning about folklore so rarely considered in the West.

Contained in this book are twenty-two essays written by Asian women from the world of literary horror. Authors and poets, these women write the realities of their own lives as beautifully as any fiction.

While the essays tend to relate back in some way to the ghosts, spirits, and monsters of Asian folklore (which are fascinating enough to read about on their own), the heart of these writings, the truly relatable horrors held within, are those of searching for identity, of struggling against both familial expectations and a society which scores those ideals. Here are women weighted down with the task of honoring centuries-old traditions while living in a modern world. Here are women caught between two cultures, trying desperately to hold themselves together while being pulled in opposite directions.

I cannot relate, personally, to being a child of two opposing cultures. However, I can, and did, while reading, relate to the hardships faced just by being a woman in a world which tells women they should be one thing or another, or all things to everyone, without ever considering or honoring who that woman is as herself and not as a daughter, sister, wife, mother.

These essays are both fascinating and heartbreaking. I think all women will find them achingly relatable, and men might just catch a glimpse into what it is to grow up female.

I was a me thing not the book. I tried many times to read this book I liked what i read but its not for me right now. Perhaps when when the book is available for purchase I'll definitely buy it and try again. I'm sorry.

Thank you for the ARC Netgalley!

I really tried with this one, I dnf'd and restarted 3 times, but I have to say I found this extremely tough to read and can't see how a general fantasy reader could easily enjoy this book.
It's mainly the constant references in parenthesis that really broke the flow of the stories and made it a bit too tedious to read.
I'm gonna give it another go in a bit, see if my perspective changes, but for now I'll leave this at 2 stars.

I'm going to blame this DNF entirely on myself. For some reason, I believed this to be a horror collection by Asian women. The word "essays" in the title didn't click. This is a collection of non-fiction essays by horror writers and its very academic.

While I'm sure this is important and would be a wonderful resource for students its just not what I was expecting (again, entirely my own fault).

Rating it 3 stars because I can't not give it a rating..

I received a digital advance copy of Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror (Lee Murray and Angela Yuriko Smith, editors) via NetGalley. Unquiet Spirits is scheduled for release on February 14, 2023.

Unquiet Spirits is a collection of 21 essays that explore identity, duty, loss, and empowerment through the lens of Asian women and their association with the supernatural and story. Based on the title, I was expecting all of the essays to focus on Asian women in horror stories. While some of the essays did have this focus, the unifying thread was that the women writing the essays are also writers of horror. Many of the essays in this collection barely brush against horror, instead focusing on other elements of their lives as Asian women. Despite not being quite what I expected, this collection offered insight on being a woman, being Asian, and putting your personal fears into your fiction.

Overall, Unquiet Spirits is an exploration of myth and story from the point of view of Asian women. I recommend it to readers who enjoy horror or seeing behind the scenes of what feeds into our stories.

Unquiet Spirits is a wonderful collection of essays. We read from various Asian women authors and the relation/spirit of each writers horror story to that of their life.

📖The stories symbolism range from tradition, trauma to womanhood. Providing a glimpse to their inner workings and development of the stories.

If you enjoy reading about Asian folklore and ghost/horror stories, this one is for you.

Thank you Black Spot Books Nonfiction for the opportunity to read an ARC of Unquiet Spirits in exchange for my honest review. All the opinions that follow are my own.

A delightful surprise! This book was not what I expected, it was so much more! Each story was so beautifully told. I do not normally read non fiction, but I really enjoyed trying something new (call me a convert).

A beautiful mix of myths - I can't wait to get my own hard copy. The Substitute was a clear favourite for me as it was a beautiful literary analysis.

This was actually really interesting book. I have been moving more towards mythology and Chinese culture so when this book popped up I was absolutely invested in reading it. I actually really enjoyed this book. I think. Somethings I didn’t understand and I was a little bit confused on, but it pulled me in and the word flowed so well together. It felt like harmony and lyrics, but in a book, it was frightening and adventurous, and there was ups and downs and pulled at your heart strings. Would highly recommend.

Unquiet Spirits is an important book for broadening and diversifying discussions about gender and race in today's politics. Exploration of local supernatural and ghost stories to describe the history of women's oppression and the current status of women's rights and liberation in Asia is not only an interesting choice, but also an effective tool in emphasizing the importance of personal narratives in enriching our understanding of the experiences of Asian women in the diaspora. Although some essays veered away from ghost stories and instead focused on folklore, myth, and religion, the collection remained true to its goal of painting a clear picture of what it means to be a woman of Asian descent, including their suffering, obligations, frustrations, motivations, and longings.

The best essays in this collection are those that perfectly balance history, trivia, memoir, and literary analysis. Some of my favorites are Yi Izzy Yu's The Substitute, Ai Jiang's The Unvoiced, The Unheard, The Unknown, The Unquiet, Benebell Wen's Ghost Month in Taiwan, and Vanessa Fogg's Hungry Ghosts in America. Those that didn't stand out to me were those that lacked cohesion or failed to meet the definition of a messay.

I also appreciated how the essays were organized and how that choice connected each essay with the goal of demonstrating that Asian horror stories share common themes and are frequently cautionary tales about discrimination and violence against women. Thus, despite having few unremarkable essays, Lisa Kröger, who wrote the foreword, was completely right that each and every essay in this book is important—no word is wasted.

In Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women, edited by Lee Murray and Angela Yuriko Smith, twenty-one Asian writers (all women as one might have guessed from the title) offer up a single personal essay each that both explore their heritage of ghost stories/folklore and chart their own experiences navigating the in-between world of shared cultures. Like many collections, it’s a mixed bag. For me, the collection as a whole didn’t wholly succeed, though it contains several strong essays. My guess, however, is that one’s personal identity and experiences will make this very much a your-mileage-may-vary type of book.

The stories cover a wide geographic and cultural range, including but not limited to Thailand, China, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and with most of the writers evoking a mixed heritage, so that their experiences are even more richly diverse. The same holds true for the various spirits of the title: hungry ghosts, substitute ghosts (tsigui), fox demons, kwee kia (a “creature made from the spirit of a deceased human fetus … usually the size of a toddler, with a large head, red or black clouded eyes, pointed ears, fanged teeth, long nails, and green or grey skin”) and others.

Many of the ghosts in the stories are women. Women who, as Rena Mason writes, “had been good girls, good women, good sisters, wives and mothers who had done everything right in life. Then a random tragedy would befall them, causing them to become angry, vengeful, frightening — turn evil.” They’re meant, therefore, often as cautionary tales for those women who might be tempted to stray from their traditional roles or to break their expected silence. One of my favorite elements of the collection, though, is how several of the essay turn this reading on its head, do not encode the “hungry female” as evil or the man who “got rid of it” as the hero.

Along with a feminist reading of the traditional tales, approached not through the lens of critical theory but personal musing (the tone in these essays is much more conversational than academic), many of the writers make connections as well between the wandering, liminal nature of ghosts, and their own experiences inhabiting a space between two cultures as well as how “immigrants understand the deep truth of reincarnation better than anyone, understand the sheer number of lives we can live within the span of a single one,” as Yi Izzy Yu puts it. Several as well note how any haunting serves as a metaphor for the long reach of trauma.

In terms of the big picture for why the collection as a whole didn’t feel a complete success to me, for one, I thought the collection suffered from too many essays in that it began to feel somewhat repetitive in nature, which is why I strongly recommend reading the anthology over time rather than in one to three sittings. In addition, some of the essay felt they weren’t saying anything new about the experience of being an other, an immigrant, a woman in a patriarchal world, a person of several cultures, etc. It’s not that there is nothing of value in these; it’s just that they didn’t feel fresh or particularly insightful. Finally, the language often felt a bit flat, as if the writers had sanded off their fictional flairs of style and vocabular and structure to “better fit” the non-fiction expectations.

That said, as noted in the intro, I did find several of the essays to be standouts in the collection. Yvette Tan’s “Fallen Leaves, New Soil” was one, along with Gabriela Lee’s “Sightings.” My favorite by far though was Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito’s “Belonging to Fear”, which I’d say was the most vivid and also the most individualistic of all the essays. It ranges wide in topic, has the most stylistic “oomph”, brings to life the “character” of her Popo, offers the strongest sense of unique voice in the collection, and its concluding paragraphs at the end pack an emotional wallop. Even if you find yourself reluctant to finish the book, I highly recommend skipping to this essay and giving it a read.

As mentioned, I confess to being disappointed in the book as a whole, but it’s a “soft” disappointment in that also as noted, there’s always something of value in each of the essays even if I found myself wishing for stronger writing and more individuality. But also as I noted at the outset, while I can relate to some elements more personally, and also learn something from all of them, one’s own identity and experience might create an entirely different response, more so than is the case with fiction. So if the topic is of interest, I’d say give the book a shot, maybe starting with the ones I highlighted and then an essay or two at a time, working your way through at your leisure.

Not sure what I was expecting from this, but it wasn't quite what I got. Nonetheless, this was an interesting collection of essays about the experiences of Asian women from a variety of different cultures and diasporas, and about the ghost stories they related to. It felt a little like it was trying to be several things at once - I would happily have read a book of ghost stories, or a book about the experiences of Asian women, or a book about the different kinds of ghosts in different cultures, but this was too short a book to be all of those at the same time. I found it very interesting, regardless!

Unquiet Spirits is a fascinating collection of essays from Asian women, looking at identity and the Asian Diaspora, and how it ties into horror and myth. The essays are a mix of styles, with some feeling casual and some more academic. Unfortunately I only got to start this one, not realizing the archive date was several months before the publication date, but I really enjoyed what I read. I'll likely buy a copy when it releases so I can finish it.

3.5
Like another reviewer, I think I misunderstood the blurb of this one. I'd expected a collection of essays discussing how the female spirits have changed in Asian horror. Instead this is a collection detailing how the impacts of spirits in horror have shaped these women's lives.

Stepping away from my initial expectations, this is a thought provoking collection that covers areas of multiple identities that many readers may not have considered before. The standout essays for me effortlessly wove the historical horror with their own family's decisions and their beliefs now in a way that made me contemplate how our earliest beliefs shape our thought processes as adults.

Curiously enough, I was reading Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao alongside this and the two paired remarkably well - highlighting the cultural impacts of these legends, while also showing the modern day interpretations.

As the legends covered in this collection are so wide spanning, I feel like we could have benefited from a glossary of what to research for context to really get the most out of this book before reading it and I'd be interested to see how my thoughts on the book might develop once I understand more of the ghosts mentioned.

I went into Unquiet Spirits blind and with no idea what to expect. Is this an anthology of horror stories? A series of interviews with authors? Literary criticism, or a mix of all of these? But after reading, I found that it is *all* these things, which made the collection more haunting and beautiful. I enjoyed it, but found myself especially drawn to the essay by Ai Jiang.

To be published in Interzone #294 - January 2023

Over the past few years, there have been two significant anthologies featuring Asian women in horror: the fiction of Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women and poetry of Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken. These books have been spearheaded by an unofficial collective of authors, including Lee Murray, Geneve Flynn, Angela Yuriko Smith, and Christina Sng.
Unquiet Spirits is the third offering in this series, and offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what inspires these authors to write horror. Angela Yuriko Smith’s final essay on the Nukekubi offers a more brutal overview: “This collection is our invitation to partake of the meal we have served of ourselves.”
These personal essays skirt the academic and the emotional, tying together family history with mythology, ghost stories, and experiences of the diasporic, cross-continental moves from Asia to the rest of the world. Each author has taken an aspect of spiritual or ghostly mythology from their culture, deconstructed the feminist symbolism, and used it as a metaphor for their experiences. It’s a broad remit, but it works here because of the skill of the authors.
Many of these stories of haunted spirits are cautionary tales for women. Several of the essays talk of a sensation of otherness; what it is to choose differently to family expectations, or to be marginalised as an immigrant in another culture, caught between two worlds. Rena Mason writes, “everyone, somewhere is the other but … some of us are othered no matter where we go.”
While these essays might offer familiarity and reassurance to readers with Asian heritage, there’s a universality to many of the experiences documented here. The authors narrate raw family histories of suicide, domestic abuse, and tragic car accidents, which struck a deep chord with my own personal history of generational trauma. Notable is Yi Izzy Yu’s essay ‘The Substitute’ on her great-aunt’s suicide, and the haunting substitute ghost. As Geneve Flynn writes, ‘What is a haunting but an echo from the past?’ Flynn sees telling stories as a way of exorcising the ghosts that linger, especially those all-consuming hungry ghosts.
So too, the deeply personal. As a childless woman approaching middle-age, I was greatly moved by Kiyomi Appleton Gaines’ essay ‘Plant a cherry tree over my grave’. This work grapples with the expectation of motherhood and the fears that overcome us when we don’t live up to these expectations, cutting so deftly to the heart of the matter, I will be haunted by her conclusion for months to come.
If there’s any criticism of these essays, it’s that some attempt too broad a scope. The ones which work best focus deeply on a narrow topic, while retaining a tight view on the symbolism of the monstrous feminine. Those going in looking for dense academic analysis ought to look elsewhere, but the highlight of this book is its accessibility and readability. In some ways, it reminds me of the oral histories passed down from generation to generation; as a reader, count yourself lucky to partake in listening.

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect from this collection: Modern horror? Literary criticism? Traditional tales of terror? It intrigued me regardless.

What Unquiet Spirits delivers is a combination of all of the above. It is memoir, criticism, history, and ethnography in balanced fusion. Each chapter is written by an Asian female author and in it she discusses both her own writing, the cultural and historical inspiration for her characters, the origins of some feminine demon, ghost, or creepy -- a unquiet spirit -- which haunts her and the pages she has produced. In some chapters the author draws on a deeper well of literature of the past and ponders the future of the female spirit archetype that is the focus of their chapter.

The books is divided by and devotes its pages equally to feminine spirits across the Asian continent, from East to Southeast to South Asia. I was pleasantly surprised to see such attention given to Southeast Asian spirits and archetypes (my favorite was always the pontianak, the evil spirit of a woman who lurks in the dark under the protection of a banana tree. In my recollection, she can be "pinned" to the tree with a needle or a pin and made to do the pin-holder's bidding. But, beware to that horrid individual if the offending metal is ever removed!)

While the collection examines different demons and feminine archetypes from across a swath of very diverse cultures, it ultimately makes a singular, united appeal to the reader. Their call to action is unmistakable: Asian women, as a whole, alive or dead, demonic or angelic, monstrous or victimized, are powerful beings. Asian women have been too long overlooked in the literary world and deserve more than the whispered, submissive voice they have been too long assigned by Orientalists; hear them shout, scream, screech!

For that reason alone, Unquiet Spirits is worth reading. But there is more.

The authors reveal facets of the Asian feminine that have rarely been visible, that is to Western audiences. To Asian women, we have always known they were there, even when our patriarchal societies told us to ignore them, to castigate them, to revile these demonic women as ill-influences on ourselves and our communities, yet still, Unquiet Spirits is sure to deliver novelties and new knowledge to Asian/Asian American readers.

Stars: 5 out of 5 (Extra extra star for the gorgeous cover)

I don't often read non-fiction unless I need it for work, so I was a bit skeptical when I picked up this book. But that cover drew me in like a magnet, so I decided to give it a try. And I must admit that I didn't regret my choice.

This is a collection of essays by Asian women about their experiences having to reconcile two often different cultures or trying to integrate into a culture that is different then the one they were born into. It's also about the role of women in Asian culture and how powerless they often are. And each essay also talks about some monsters traditional to various Asian cultures and how those monsters are often females.

Yes, summarized like that this book doesn't sound particularly interesting, but trust me, it is. Maybe because being an immigrant myself, I can relate to the struggle of reconciling different cultures within oneself. I had to move and integrate into a different society several times in my life, and each time I had to decide which parts of myself I wanted to leave behind and what was the "core" of my being that I wouldn't compromise on, no matter how strange and "foreign" that made me in my new country. 

And while my culture doesn't have such a radical and repressive stance against women, I still can relate to their struggles. My mother also sacrificed her career to follow my father into a foreign country and dedicated her life to raising a family. She also never bothered to learn the language. She surrounded herself with friends that spoke the same language instead. So you might say that she never fully integrated, even after living there for 20 years.

So a lot of these stories resonated with me, and as a bonus, I got to learn about folklore of other countries, which I am always fascinated with.

PS: I received a free copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Memoir, not horror. A beautiful exploration of self, nonetheless.

Based on the title and description, I had disillusioned myself into believing that Unquiet Spirits was going to be a collection of short Asian horror stories. As a fan of Eastern folklore, I was deeply intrigued. However, what I found was vastly different. Unquiet spirits is a collection of 21 short stories written by Asian women of horror in exploration of their often-disjointed heritage.

A common theme throughout is a sense of cultural loss and disconnect. Often the authors cited this collaboration as a reason to put the difficult work into researching and defining their ancestry and what it means to them in a modern world. In that regard, this is still a beautifully poignant read filled with equal parts research and memoir.

As such I have decided to rate this book 4/5 not because there is anything inherently wrong with the stories or the format, rather that it was not what I had been expecting. If I had gone in with clearer expectations, I am sure I would have been more emotionally receptive overall.

[Thank you to NetGalley and Black Spot Books for a free early copy of this read in exchange for an honest review.]