Review: "The Fox Wife" by Yangsze Choo
“The Fox Wife” by Yangsze Choo is a wonderful blend of Chinese lore and magical realism, slowly unfurling as we follow Snow and Bao on their parallel paths. Snow is a fox, a neigh-immortal shapeshifter who’s spent centuries trying to lead a secret, virtuous life, but when tragedy strikes and her only child is murdered she sets out on a quest for revenge. Bao is an elderly police detective, supposedly blessed by a fox as a young, sickly child. But when a string of murders crops up, all somehow connected by hushed whispers of foxes, he can’t help but get involved, following the trail across the country.
Yangsze’s writing has an almost lyrical quality to it, one that quickly pulled me in. Snow’s chapters in particular follow this cadence – all are in 1st person and read as though Snow herself is retelling the story some time after the fact. Her tendency to cut herself off, dismissing tangents as being “a tale for another day” especially add to this feeling. But even with Snow’s apparent distance, her pain and anger over her child’s death are vividly clear, burning deep within her every step of the way. This focus on a mother’s grief was extremely refreshing – with the book’s title I half feared romance would overshadow the rest of the plot, but Snow’s righteous fury takes center stage. She has no interest in starting a new relationship, no matter how much other characters might pressure her. She only has one goal in mind – avenge her child – and she won’t stop until she achieves it.
Bao’s chapters were harder for me to appreciate at first. Written in 3rd person, they’re a mix of his work surrounding the ongoing investigation and him reminiscing about his childhood. The threads at first seemed tangential, distracting from Snow’s extreme forward momentum, but with each chapter Yangsze builds more intrigue. I found myself driven to keep reading just to see how Bao and Snow’s trajectories would overlap, and when that moment finally happened it made Bao’s thread that much more compelling in hindsight.
This book felt like the perfect balance, with the romance beats that are there complementing the overarching themes of grief and loss. Both Snow and Bao end their arcs exactly where they need to be, their respective pains healing as they reconnect with people they’d thought fully lost to them.
I give this book a solid 4.5 stars.
About the Author, taken from Yangsze Choo’s website:
Yangsze Choo is a NYTimes bestselling novelist and a fourth generation Malaysian of Chinese descent. Due to a childhood spent in various countries, she can eavesdrop (badly) in several languages. After graduating from Harvard, she worked in various corporate jobs and had a briefcase, while writing fiction on a coffee table at home in her spare time.
Her debut novel, The Ghost Bride, was a New York Times bestseller and now a Netflix Original series. Her second novel, The Night Tiger, was a Reese Witherspoon Bookclub pick and a Big Jubilee Read selection for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. She lives in California with her family and loves to eat and read (often at the same time). Her upcoming third novel, The Fox Wife, and all previous books would not have been possible without large quantities of dark chocolate.
Yangsze is happy to visit bookclubs via Zoom! You can find her on her website, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.