A review by jselliot
The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson

emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Although I could go into greater detail, two other reviewers essentially captured my thoughts on the book overall and I'll reference their thoughts below. 

My Kindle copy also unfortunately had formatting issues, which broke immersion several times throughout the book. I'm not going to hold that against the storyline, though, just making the note of it.

 siria's review 
A really beautiful retelling of a Heian-era Japanese folk-tale, The Fox Woman tells of the intersecting lives of disillusioned nobleman Kaya no Yoshifuji, his wife Shikujo and his fox-wife Kitsune. Johnson uses the story to look at what it is to be human, what it is to be real, what it is to be true to yourself, and manages it with some skill, particularly towards the close of the novel. That said, for some reason I didn't find The Fox Woman to be quite as effective or as affecting as the other novel of Johnson's that I've read, Fudoki; the characters didn't come alive so vividly, and the book was perhaps a quarter again as long as it needed to be. Those flaws aren't enough to make me regret reading it, however, and I do think it makes a good companion to her other works. 

& 

kristi_asleep_dreaming's review 
I wanted to love this book, even while reading it. The glimpses of medieval japanese court life were beautifully and delicately done, the characters were strong, the prose was lovely... But it dragged. There was too much of everything. The ten years compressed into a few weeks that Kitsune spent with her lover were like a metaphor of the book: it seemed much longer than it was. And I preferred Kitsune when she was a fox.

I did like the pillow book entries of the wife; I never got tired of her.