I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

This was an enjoyable anthology about the Asian woman experience. While most of the short stories were unmemorable, I do recommend picking this up for a good collection that share the themes of feminism, folklore, and identity.

Unfortunately not for me. I liked the concept of the interwoven stories, but couldn’t connect much outside of that.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital arc.

I usually like short story anthologies and go through them quickly, but honestly I struggled to finish this one. While interesting conceptually, Love Doll just really made me lose interest for a while. There's also a thread of horror that I didn't quite realize from the description, though that's my own fault.

3 Stars
One Liner: Interesting but a mixed collection

Ninetails is a collection of short stories re-imagined and based on the fox spirit in Chinese mythology. It is a feminist anthology dealing with misogyny, immigration, racism, and different types of abuse against women, especially Asian women (by fellow Asians and Westerners).
Apart from the individual short stories, there’s an overarching story set on Angel Island where the Chinese people land in the US. The immigration office decides the fate of these people after the men and women are separated and made to stay in different buildings. The conditions are pathetic and deplorable.
As always, I made notes for each story (presented below with only grammatical edits):
• The Haunting Of Angel Island
Arrival: Tye arrives at the island for her new job as an interpreter at the immigration office. We get her past and a glimpse of the mythical fox. The beginning of the overarching story. I’m curious!
Love Doll: What happens when a love doll (a human-sized s*x toy) starts to have feelings? In the first-person POV of the doll, the story takes us through her life and that of its new owners. Falls flat when it should have hit the high note.
Beasts of the Chase: What happens when a woman decides to turn back into a fox (vixen)? How does her ethnicity affect her life? Okay!
• The Haunting Of Angel Island
More events at the immigration office. Different women, several stories, and different fates.
Turtle Head Epidemic: Meng Li was an eighteen-year-old student when the turtle head epidemic swept Singapore. Was it because of a dead pig, a woman, or a fox spirit? This should have been better.
The Fig Queen: What happens when a woman with a troubled life becomes tiny and someone else takes her place? A story of metamorphosis in many ways. Kafkaesque almost!
• The Haunting Of Angel Island
The overarching story continues as more women arrive and await the decision of the immigration officers.
A Huxians Guide to Seduction RevengeImmortality: The longest story in the book with a first and second-person narration. Well-written and better than the previous ones.
The Girl with Flies Coming Out of Her Eyes: Started great but I soon lost interest! The title says it all. Won’t reveal anything else.
• The Haunting Of Angel Island
More women, ghosts, spirits, and opposite faiths; believe your God or the White God?
Lotus Stench: The story of a fox spirit and a ghost (woman, obv.), and that ties them together. An interesting read.
The Crush: Another lengthy story about love… or as the title says crush. How do crushed manifest? What to do with them? Feels more mellow than the other stories.
• The Haunting Of Angel Island
Tye is the focus again as the connecting storyline comes to an end.
Departure: What kind of departure can this be? After all, there are many ways to depart! Surreal… (which is the aim of the collection).
Thanks to a review by a GR friend, I went into the book with fewer expectations. This helped since most stories didn’t have much impact and felt they couldn’t reach their potential. A couple of stories were above-average but most were the kind I forgot a day after reading (the notes saved me).
Fortunately, the overarching piece is a lot better. And, I now know some random information about figs, wasps, bees, foxes, etc.
To summarize, Ninetails has its moments with poetic prose and surreal situations. However, the stories have a varied impact, which dilutes the overall enjoyment.
Thank you, NetGalley and Penguin Books, for a copy of the book. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

A very well written anthology about various tales of women and feminism. My biggest issue with the book is that it wasn't subtle and I also felt like I've read these type of stories before (in theme not the story itself).

Ninetails tells the stories of Asian woman's experience, interwoven with the presence of fox spirits of Asian folklore. The stand-alone tales are allegorical and bring to light how they are perceived in the male-dominated society, and how the women 'fight back' with the help of the fox spirits. The short stories are interludes from a nine part narrative "The Haunting of Angel Island", set in the early 1900's and describes the treatment of Asian migrants coming to America (specifically on the West Coast) and the concept of 'paper children' (those abandoning their former lives and creating a new identity in the "Beautiful Country' (the literal translation of America in Mandarin/Cantonese).

These tales, while fictional, could be very much drawn from real world experiences, only with the inclusion of the fox spirit, which adds a fantastical element to the narrative.

The Fox spirits of Eastern Asia have always fascinated me: how could you not like spirits who can attain immortality after devouring men's souls? I couldn't resist checking this collection out on NetGalley. It may not have been what I expected, but it certainly surprised me in some very welcome ways. Despite my rather lukewarm rating, I'm very glad to have read this.

The overarching story is the definitely best written and most well thought-out—even if I think my personal favorite is "Love Doll," one of those aforementioned welcome surprises. I also love the way that the overarching story, "The Haunting of Angel Island," provides a contrast from the rest of the stories by being a little more planted in realism—with speculative elements.

Speaking of haunting, though, I will not only be haunted by some of these stories (like the way I actually enjoyed the story about love dolls the most, like the extremely devastating last paragraph of the second and third entries of the overarching story) but also by some of the things I learned from them. I now more about figs, wasps, and sweat bees than I would like. These true facts/stories are also incorporated into the collection's stories in a very organic and relevant way. But I was surprised how important a role insects play within them, considering the collection is about fox spirits, who actually seem to appear less.

What aren't very organically incorporated into the stories are the social justice causes that the author cares about. There isn't one of these that I disagree with, but they're presented in such a way that makes me instinctively shy away from them, a kind of preaching or lecturing style. But lately, I also feel that this kind of thing is pretty accepted as a trend—so I might just be a grump about it.

Looking up a little bit more about the author after finishing this, I've learned that she is a poet. This makes a lot of sense, considering her very vivid writing and colorful metaphors (that sometimes work, sometimes don't). Even if I didn't enjoy all of her works in this collection, I might check out some of her poetry.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Books for letting me read a copy in exchange for an honest review!

<U>Individual story ratings</U>:
The Haunting of Angel Island: ★★★★O
Love Doll: ★★★★O
Beasts of the Chase: ★★OOO
Turtle Head Epidemic: ★½OOO
The Fig Queen: ★★★OO
The Quillian's Guide to Seduction Revenge Immortality: ★★★½O
The Girl with Flies Coming out of Her Eyes: ★★OOO
Lotus Stench: ★★OOO
The Crush: ★★OOO

So much more than just stories of the famous nine tailed fox from Asian mythology and folklore. A beautiful selection of stories.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sally Wen Mao for an Advanced Reader's Copy of this title!

I don't usually pick up short stories, but I was super drawn by the cover and description of "Ninetails" and I'm really glad I was able to request it! The nine stories told within this book all center around the title idea of the nine-tailed fox, but also delve into the stereotypes of the kinds of women the nine-tailed fox represent - independent, hungry, othered, powerful, mysterious, and dangerous. The blend of modern and mystical - sometimes clear, sometimes left to the imagination of the reader - was fun to explore, and I really like (surprisingly, because I don't always personally love stories that are set in the immediate here and now, which is 2024 as of this review) how many of the stories were up-to-date with current events and helped ground the supernatural elements as really believable.

One thing I also really like about this book was that the stories weaved together - there was a central location that was mentioned in most stories where characters could weave in and out of each other's tales, and it helped bring this book of individual stories together into one cohesive work that I really liked. It's not something I've necessarily seen before (and that's probably because this is outside my normal genre), and it helped ground the experience of reading and examining the overarching theme of each story really tidily.

While this is a book about fox spirits first and foremost, it is much more about the women who seek more from life and are unfairly villainized from it. I think those who need to read stories about women who rise above their expectations - their own, or those that are prescribed to them - and face the morning, or who need stories about the loneliness of choices, or who seek stories about the ways women weave in and out of each other's lives, would really like this book.

2024 seems to be year of the mythical fox! This is the fourth or fifth fox-related myth book I have read this year, and I have enjoyed it greatly. Ninetails is a series of short stories, along side one longer story that is spread throughout. The stories are not really connected other than the fact that they are all somewhat related to mythical foxes. Different Asian countries have different fox-related creatures, but Mao mostly uses the Chinese fox spirit huxian. Nine-tailed foxes in China are spirits that are immortal and live to seduce men in exchange for their spirits. Thus, these stories clearly have a feminist bent that I thoroughly enjoyed.

As a fox-lover myself (I got a fox tattoo this year before even realizing this was the year of the fox for me), I truly loved these stories. I am usually not a fan of short stories myself, but this one had me thinking maybe I am! Highly recommend.

Thank you to Penguin Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was an interesting collection of stories that wasn’t anything like what I expected. I imagined a book that felt like fairy tales, but while these were born in culture and mythology they didn’t feel like fairy tales to me (it doesn't meant hey weren’t). A couple of the stories were pretty interesting (I especially liked the guide to revenge). A few I found pretty bizarre and almost all I had a hard time losing myself in. I did like that some of the stories tied together a bit and I loved the look at the unfair treatment of Chinese people and of women. I think these are the kind of stories that will stay with me as my mind continues to turn them around and pull more and more meaning from each one. I will say there should be trigger warnings for sexual content, abuse, and suicide. I’m not going to go through the stories and summarize them, while the book caught me off guard it was in the best of ways. I wavered between 3 and 3.5 stars so it is at 3 for now but I may come back to bump that up later.

Overall I enjoyed this collection, although I found some of the stories to be jarring, which I imagine was purposeful. There is almost the sense that the author enjoys shocking the reader. The writing is intelligent, however. I especially admired the longer story that was interspersed throughout the collection. There are a lot of big topic themes covered by the stories, which can grow tiresome after awhile. Maybe these stories are best in small doses. I look forward to more from this author.

I love mythology turned feminist, but something about this was so on the nose that it didn’t quite pull me in. I will revisit in a different mood to see if I feel differently, but alas, being an ARC, a review is due now. Solid three stars it is.

Sally Wen Mao is a talented author, but I didn't feel much emotion for this short story collection.

This collection is composed of eight short stories spread between one longer story carried out through several POVs. While the writing and themes explored were compelling, I struggled with staying engaged. The themes of immigration, misogyny/sexism, oppressive patriarchal ideals, and identity in one's culture would barely be touched in the story before it ended.

Without a doubt, the interspersed story was the most engaging, but only once I reached the last part did I feel that way. It came together in a collective tale that was powerful and moving.

While I'm sad this collection didn't work out well for me, the mythology's gorgeous, and the prose phenomenal. The themes are impactful even if the stories felt too brief for them to land. Mao has beautiful original ideas, so I will be checking out her other collections.

(I won't be leaving descriptions of the separate stories since I believe it best to go in blind, but here are my ratings for each.)

Angel Island collection avg.: 3 stars
Love Doll: 3.5 stars
Beasts of the Chase: 3 stars
Turtle Head Epidemic: 2 stars
The Fig Queen: 2 stars
A Huxian's Guide to Seduction Revenge Immortality: 5 stars
The Girl with Flies Coming Out of Her Eyes: 2 stars
Lotus Stench: 3.5 stars
The Crush: 3 stars

CW: Body Horror, Death, Suicide, Bullying, Violence, Abortion, Gore, Racial Slurs, Cheating
*this list comprises only what I noted and is not extensive*

Thank you, NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Books for the advance copy. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Thank you net galley for providing this ARC.

I unforunatly DNF'd this book, not because it was not good writing. It just not my style that I enjoy reading, I would still recommend this book to people who enjoy this writing and type of story.

I enjoyed these stories for the most part. Some held my attention more than others. Overall this is a good short story collection. The stories are very unique.

"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.