This wasn't exactly what I expected, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless. I enjoyed some essays and the way they explored what it means to be a woman across different times and cultures. Some of these made me annoyed as they felt like somewhat weak attempts to appropriate the experience of other women and somehow make it about the author. Most contributors had something personal to share though, and I found their writing poetic and moving. Overall it's a good collection of essays that makes you think back and inwards, which is always a sign of a worthy read.

Thank you net galley for sending me a free copy of unquiet spirits in exchange for a honest review.


Beautifully written, this book manager to captivate the readers interest from page one. Entertaining while remaining loyal to its horror themes this book was a page turner and just what I needed to get rid of my reading slump.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC of Unquiet Spirits in exchange for my honest review!

This was an amazing and enlightening read. Unquiet Spirits is a series of anthology stories following 21 Asian women and their connection to folklore, culture and feminism. I am so thankful to these writers for sharing their unique and personal stories. I would definitely recommend this for someone who likes folklore, ghosts, and short stories.

Overall, I give Unquiet Spirits a 3.5 stars!

This was a wonderful collection of essays that feature so many interesting and rich tales of Asian women and the many roles they have played in folklore, myth, and Asian society.

If you are looking for an anthology on Asian mythology, this is not the book for you.

If, however, you are interested in a book that explores the experience of women of the Asian diaspora that is framed through Korean, Chinese, Thai, Philippine, Japanese, and other Asian folklore, this is definitely a book you should pick up.

And if this collection teaches you anything, it should be that unquiet spirits are real, just not in the ways we might expect.

I personally want everyone to read Unquiet Spirits. The topics discussed are incredibly timely—the pandemic, women's rights and power, depression, racism—makes this a powerful and moving collection of essays from women across the Asian diaspora grappling with ghosts, both those in fiction and the metaphorical kind. These women who write horror fiction draw connections between the ghosts and spirits of folklore—fox demons, substitute-seekers, the ever hungry ghosts—and demonstrates just how real these creatures are in their day to day life and in their past.

"Otherness transforms us into scapegoats, witches, dolls, and monsters. For many of us, monster is the label of choice." –Angela Yuiko Smith

As a white woman, there are without a doubt ideas in this book that are inaccessible to me. The racism that these women experienced or watched their parents suffer is not a reality I will know. However, there are other parts of this story that couldn't feel more real to my life and situation that if I'd written it myself (which wouldn't happen because I don't have the talent of these authors). The hunger for dreams you've had to let go of, the anxiety and depression that can hang onto us like a weight, conflicted feelings as we cannibalize some of the best parts of our lives for "progress", the difficulties of navigating a world hostile to the female body and our "sexual vulnerability".

"In her eyes, I see a fox, a spirit that now lives in me. And we're angry. Feral. We want retribution." –Celine Murray

I expected essays more on the subject of how these different authors interpret different kinds of spirits in their fiction, but instead they delivered heartfelt explorations of themselves and their experiences to explain why their respective cultures might have created such unquiet spirits. The authors mix memoir with folklore and advice for readers in captivating essays that are equal parts familiar and new.

"Tap into whatever your culture perceives a madwoman to be and watch the berth you're given widen; watch the leash you're on extend." –Nadia Bulkin

These women also go beyond the traditional undead ghouls we as readers associate with horror. One author includes the Christian idea of the Holy Spirit to explore the role of religious assimilation in immigrant populations. Another uses the yamauba to theorize about the strangeness—especially any deviation off the path toward motherhood— that turns women into witches in society's eyes. This chapter in particular is very poignant for an American reader in light of Roe v. Wade.

"I am reminded that the spirit is not just a silent reminder, a haunting of the awful things that have happened in the past. The spirit is also something that animates us, that moves us to be better and stronger and braver than we are now." –Gabriela Lee

Overall, I'd give this book a rating of 4.5 stars. This book has more lines that I've highlighted because they resonated with me than probably any book I've read in a decade. My only "complaint" (even that feels too harsh) is that there are two essays that stand out as not really jiving with the rest of the collection. Grace Chan's "Holy Revelations" centering the Holy Spirit feels strange to me in a collection of stories about traditional folklore, but I think the overall point of the essay helps it fit better. "The Agency of Modern Kunoichi" by Tori Eldridge discusses female ninjas, which is incredibly cool but so unlike the rest of the figures of folklore that it doesn't mesh as well with the rest of the essays. It is still wonderfully written, and I want to get the author's novels in the near future. Both of these essays are good in their own right, they just felt somewhat disconnected to the others in terms of their content.

CW: Suicide, racism, death, spiritual possession, fat shaming, sexual assault/rape, murder, gun violence, domestic violence

Ever since I was little, I loved reading Asian fairy tales and stories, because they sounded more serious, wiser, and scarier than other recommended stories for children.

For Asian families, it’s important to maintain regular contact with the dead, to ensure they are nourished and entertained—to placate them. In Chinese culture, people become hungry ghosts because of evil deeds carried out in the course of their lifetime.

It is very interesting, that the realm of ghosts is full of greedy women who want more than their due.

The book Unquiet Spirits presents several stories written from the female point of view, mainly from the point of view of people who are permanently displaced or born outside their native land and therefore not only physically separated from their ancestral roots and traditions but also spiritually. Hence the fear that after death they can become hungry ghosts or apparitions.

This unique collection of essays explores themes of identity, expectation, duty, and loss.

Empowering and emotional read about woman's role in folklore, which still affects lives in the Asian diaspora today.

I opened this with an open mind, not knowing what to expect. The srories, unique and different, intreging and empowering, blew me away. A fantasital collection of the most wonderul and gripping supernatural stories. A different take on what you thought you knew, all told with fantasic and compelling hints and clues to unravelling the hidden secrets. Tales of wonder, fear love and horror. Mystical animals, ghosts all from a unique, intimate and new perpective. The result really gets under your skin! Empowering, unsettling and informative all at one. A fantasitcally compelling read.

An absolutely brilliant collection of essays from Asian women-in-horror. Lovingly crafted, and sure to be a seminal text.

This was an interesting collection of essays about ghosts, spirits, and other supernatural Asian folklore. I liked how the essays were quite personal and I loved how diverse it was — often, I have noticed that when it comes to Asian rep, it's predominantly East Asian. I loved how it was more a varied mix here. However, there were in-text citations and quotations that I felt that sometimes took away from what the author is trying to talk about as it got distracting. The text was kind of hard to get through sometimes and it kind of felt like I was reading through a textbook. There were still many things to like though, and I learned a lot from reading this book.

I misunderstood and thought this was more along the lines of a traditional horror anthology. That being said, it was a lovely collection with sharp perspectives, lovely writing, and very informative. A little dense but, overall, a strong collection.

This is an edited collection of writings by 21 Asian ladies on ghosts/spirits from their various cultures. What struck me most was that 1) many of these women are from immigrant communities and have sadly experienced racism and 2) many of the ghosts discussed are women who’ve been subject to violence by men. If you’re looking for a systematic treatment of Asian ghosts, this book is not it, nor is it trying to be.

These short essays analyse the ways in which traditional Asian systems have been setup to favour men: ghost stories as fables for how to be a “good woman” (who might still be murdered/attacked), polygamous marriage systems meaning wives can be neglected, expectations that women will sacrifice themselves for men/family (but no expectation that sons will do likewise), etc. These ghosts are then seen as part of various cultural Asian norms which the writers find themselves both resisting and conforming to. The chapters are not ordered by location of writer or ethnicity of writer or ghost(s) under consideration. This gives the collection a surprise factor as the reader is never sure what the next chapter will be covering.

This was a fascinating read but heartbreaking in places as you read of the suffering experienced. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This is an excellent anthology about fantasy and horror in Asian literature, and how Asian writers today understand, shape, and re-use stories of ghosts and vampires and kitsune in their own work, and how others tap into this wealth of lore as well, using it to grapple with things like diaspora, bigotry, and problematic traditions. The essays are uniformly well-written, and I enjoyed and learned from them.

So this definitely is not my usual cup of tea and I went way ahead of myself due to the cover and some of the synopsis. That being Because I got the arc, I did finish it, seeing as it was my fault I picked it. Now that being said, it was pretty decent. I enjoyed reading most of these shorts, and a lot of them were interesting with quotes from authors on the subject being discussed in the shorts. Well written and nicely entertaining.

Review coming soon...

I accidentally picked the wrong book to review - I am still reading this one.

Full review to come soon!!

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I think I misunderstood the blurb for this one. I was expecting an essay about how the writers were Asian and how that affects them when it comes to writing horror, then a short horror story in relation to the particular spirit that they were talking about. And while a few of these had that format, not all of them did. Some read more like bios that sort of touched on the spirit. I also think that perhaps if there were less writers in here, it would have been a lot better.

I did have favorites in here:

Plant a cherry tree over my grave
Ghost month in Taiwan
Tearing ourselves apart

A beautiful collection of horror stories by Asian authors, it was a delight to read this and it took me through a lot of emotions. I enjoyed it incredibly.

The essays are all very well written and interesting to read. The cover is awesome. I liked the illustrations within the book as well. I definitely recommend reading this book.