Review by emergencily - Green Frog

4.0

short story collection that spans a few genres (sci-fi, folk tales, surrealism) focused mainly on the experiences of korean-american women
most stories were okay, with only a few standouts to me:
- "human hearts" - a folk tale about kumiho and a coming-of-age fairy tale (kumiho are female fox spirits, known as seductive tricksters who eat men's hearts)
- "the arrow" - a woman's unplanned pregnancy forces her to confront the changes in her contentious relationship with her emotionally abusive mother
- "love song of the mexican free-tailed bat" - an emotional tale that struck close to my heart about a woman dealing with her estranged father's unexpected death and the complicated legacy he leaves behind
the sci-fi stories ("presence," "attachment processes") were especially weak to me. their premises have been done 100 times over, and the stories had nothing new to say, even with the addition of an asian woman's POV