Read for the Translated Fiction Online Book Club, which is very fun to be part of and you should all join in.

This is a breezy collection that takes traditional Japanese ghost stories and reinterprets them through a feminist lens.

It is a wonderful premise for a group of stories and the result is... fun. A little quirky, a little charming, and, unless I'm just missing a lot in translation, a little too close to the surface. The POV of each tale keeps the reader at a certain distance and the narration is often in a tone that is hard to figure out - glossy in places I didn't expect. It was sort of like pop music, which often doesn't do it for me. So that felt like it inhibited whatever intellectual project Matsuda had in mind.

I look forward to discussing these tomorrow with the group to see how they struck other readers.