The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

 

Reviewed by Christy

            In Chinese mythology, the fox spirit can take many forms and, depending on the story, can be benevolent or malevolent. In Yangsze Choo's The Fox Wife, Snow is a fox who looks like a young woman, and who is on a mission of revenge. Bao is a private investigator in his sixties, hunting down whoever is responsible for a young woman found frozen to death. As their points of view alternate, their stories slowly start to converge.      

            This isn't my usual type of reading but the cover would catch my eye every time I came across it. I picked it up on a whim, and I'm glad I did! I really enjoyed Snow's chapters – her quiet frustration with silly humans and her wry humor. I struggled more with Bao's chapters mostly because procedural detective stories are not generally my thing. But Bao is a sweet man who is hard to dislike, and he grew on me even more as their stories came together.

            Choo occasionally leaves little footnotes throughout to explain some of the mythology. As she clarifies in her notes at the end of the book, footnotes and reactions in the margins are a Chinese literary tradition. She wanted to fill the book with such annotations but was afraid of alienating her readers, so she used them sparingly (personally, I loved them).

            If I had to give a critique, the book is often very slow with not much happening. It can also be a little repetitive with the clandestine meetings and whispers between the same characters. Even so, there is still something engaging about the story and specifically the character of Snow. There's also a few minor reveals that keep things interesting.  And I enjoyed learning about the fox folklore!