As anthologies go, this one was dense. Most of the stories in here were spicy dark chocolate truffles for my imagination; I could only consume a few at a time or the intensity of flavor made it hard to actually enjoy them.
The forwards for each story provided an education about a place, type of spirit, or time. The stories did not lean on the forwards as much as I expected, but stood on their own without contexts. The introductions just made the stories richer.
I admit that I'm an American girl, and that I'm looking for happy - or at least balanced - endings. This book had more unhappy or haunting endings than it did balanced or happy ones. Most of the endings were slashingly conclusive, but not in a way that I would relish reading again later. So why did I rate the book so highly? These stories are works of art. A lot of time and thought was put into crafting the small, surprisingly sharp images. I am impressed, and I hope other readers will be, too.
I picked it up through reward level. I found out about the Kickstarter through Seanan McGuire's blog. Hey, a McGuire story has a 50/50 chance of being positive. (It so very much was not, this time.) So I'm recommending this anthology to the Mira Grant fans instead.
Books read in 2016
