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I liked this a lot. I enjoyed the overlapping metaphors of the sea and the ships and the glass hotel/houses. Just beautifully researched and crafted. 

I was enjoying this immensely until 
 the last section where it suddenly takes a weirdly dark and hopeless turn. But I love the episodic structure, descriptions of the different symptomers interspersed with recounting of the narrator’s life and involvement. 

Ropa’s voice is one of the best things about this book, she’s a little punk with a heard of solid gold and from the top where it seems like we’re going to have a fairly straightforward “medium helps a ghost” story through when it gets much darker and stranger, it’s her humor and thoughtfulness that keeps you mindful of the stakes. Really enjoyed this, I can’t wait to see how she tackles her next set of problems. 

I love the concept of a novel comprised of interlocking novellas, but I don’t know that that’s really what this was? The stories only brush against each other in the most distant and superficial way, they’re really more about explaining this town and its history. In most short story collections, it’s usually hard to rate the collection as a whole because there are great stories and ok stories (except for Tender by Sofia Samatar which is 100% exquisite). This book it was more like, there were parts of stories I liked a lot but no one story as a whole. A lot of the denouements felt, frankly, a little silly in a horror book? But some imagery, like that of the north woods in the rain, or the weird horrible police officers, or the zookeeper’s dream, were something else. 

A perfect spooky season read, this might become an annual reread

Do you like the sound of a small village murder mystery mixed with ghost stories, 
an orphaned protagonist out to uncover what happened to his outcast teenage mother, aided by a brigade of savvy old women who’ve taken up the young hero’s cause? 

The interweaving mysteries placed side-by-side with Celehar’s more mundane and horrible duties was brilliantly done. 

I loved this. The structure of the book is that each chapter focuses on a species of these sentient, generally humanoid Beasts that live in the city of Yong’an - their history, their biology, their favorite foods, the industry they work in. But each chapter includes the trials and travails of the writer as well, and they add up to a singular overarching story that is funny and poignant and satisfying. 

More Eastern European Jewish folklore-inspired fantasy please 

This was extremely sweet and spicy and the time travel elements had the feeling of an 80s action movie plot, I really enjoyed it.