Review - 'The Fox Wife' by Yangsze Choo

Exquisite and mesmerizing, The Fox Wife kept me enchanted from the very first moment to the very last.

Told through the alternating perspectives of Bao, an aging investigator with a penchant for sniffing out the truth, and Snow, a mysterious lady on a quest to avenge the death of her child, this story sits at the irresistible intersection of historical fiction, mystery, and folklore.

Secrets and questions abound in here. Who are these characters? What do they want? And how do their paths cross through so many years and miles of tribulations? Add to that a main character who is not quite human, as well as the singular backdrop of the wintery world of Manchuria during the last years of the Qing dynasty, and the scene is set for a tale unlike any I've come across before.

I'm always drawn towards folklore, and the hallmark of a good one is the seamless blending of the real and the fantasy. You don't want to get mired in the weeds of the how's and why's of this slightly altered world, but you also don't want to just be dropped in the middle of what feels like an artificial construct. And this story achieves that balance flawlessly.

With so much of the story riding on its animal characters, there's the fear that it can come across contrived or, even worse, silly. But the foxes in here feel so real, as if these creatures really do live in our world, coexisting among us in disguise and leaving havoc but also wonder in their wake. In fact, the portions of the story told from Snow's perspective were the most evocative, and I found her to be vivid and compelling.

Snow's quest to avenge her dead child struck something in me. The quiet and reflective prose that Yangsze Choo so deftly wields adds this soft dignity to Snow's plight, and the end result is so emotionally resonant, I felt it deep within my heart. Her grief and anger were so raw and sharp, yet her continued strength in the face of such tragedy makes her the sort of strong female character I love and cheer for.

One of the most surprising and delightful additions in here were all the little nuggets of fox wisdom. Of course if the world were seen through the eyes of an animal, their life experiences and their way of thinking would be different from ours, resulting in unique insights. And these little morsels were dispensed at the most pertinent times, leaving me nodding and chuckling along at their undeniable wisdom and humor.

When I finish a book, there are two distinct feelings I can have. Either I'm happy to be done and excited to move on to something else, or I feel a sense of melancholy that I've reached the end of a magical journey and there's no more. And this book falls squarely in the latter. I could've easily gobbled up another 400 pages of this and it still wouldn't have been enough.

What an epic and memorable tale Yangsze Choo has crafted. The story itself often speaks of foxes beguiling humans into falling in love with them, yet I can't help but feel as if it were the story that has cast a spell on me, and I were the one who was beguiled all along.

Readaroo Rating: 5 stars!