"When Fox Is A Thousand" by Larissa Lai (BR)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

The Amazin' Eights challenge participants chose this as our first book! Anyone else who'd like to join in the BR, please be welcome!

[Anna]

🦊

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Only 800 more years to go before you can qualify for this status, Anna!

[Anna]

We'll see *smirk*

[Beth]

I'm in!

[Lowell]

yup. I'm in.

[Rachel]

I may have started. Just a little bit.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

haha! yay for a br!

[Ines, Resident Vampire]

I want to join, but the ebook is rather expensive over here, so I'll wait and see how you like it and decide then.

[Rachel]

Allison’s tip about hoopla worked for me as my library does it.

[Meredith]

I’m looking forward to this!

[Anna]

Those who aren't in the US, and thus can't get this through Hoopla, if you want to set up an alternative BR for one of the other books that were nominated, please do! You don't have to read this one to continue the A8 challenge, it can be any book that fits the dealer's card or your own card. Probably best to talk about that either in the A8 thread or in the BR thread.

[Nicol]

I just started it and really liked the first chapter but I am keeping hopeful but reserved, I felt the same way about Dawnshards and that didn't turn out as good as I hoped. So far it seems fun and whimsical, exactly what I need right now.

[Rachel]

I also really enjoyed the first chapter. It looks like there will be a mix of three POVs maybe? I like 🦊

[Anna]

I also read the first bit and loved it!

[Anna]

I'll be reading the first part again when I properly start this, hopefully soon, but here's what I highlighted when I took a sneak peek a couple of days ago.

Dedication: (view spoiler)[

"For all the foxes" <3

(hide spoiler)]

Part 1 - Fox: (view spoiler)[

"One must take human form to engage in human affairs. It was difficult."

"My penchant for nightly roamings ceased to be a mere quirk of character, but rather became an entire way of life."

"And that is how it happens that I live alone."

This fox really *gets* me!

(hide spoiler)]

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

yeah, i think I'm going to be very happy

[DivaDiane]

I never managed to get it from a library so I slurped and bought it!

[DivaDiane]

Did I really say, “slurped”? I meant splurged.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

hahaha I was curious what the autocorrect was

[Mel]

Iori, I also overcommitted to January, caught up in the New Year fever. But I'll be along shortly!

Diane, is it odd that I didn't bat an eye at the expression? Like, wait, you mean to say you weren't drooling at the thought of this delicious book?

[DivaDiane]

Haha! Melissa, I love your interpretation!

[Lowell]

I jumped in today, as I finished one of the club reads and felt the need to keep reading... and... yeah. This, so far, is right up my alley.

The authorial voice here strikes me as a minority and woman who writes like either Charles de Lint or Neil Gaiman. Mythic-making storytelling.

[Lowell]

Anna wrote: "here's what I highlighted when I took a sneak peek a couple of days ago"

yeah. this book has a lot worthy of highlighting. I think my favorite thus far is..

(view spoiler)[ I like to fish, and I like to steal chickens. But I don’t do either anymore, except on those rare occasions when courtesy demands it. (hide spoiler)]

[Bobby]

I was able to get this from Hoopla, so I'm going to try to read this next, but I do have another couple books I'm reading. I'll try to jump in when I can

[Meredith]

Ugh, I've tried twice to get this from Hoopla. Yesterday was at the end of the day (~5pm) and my library had hit its daily limit for checkouts. Then I tried this morning around 9:30 and the daily limit was already hit! So, now I'll probably stay up to midnight to catch it.

[Anna]

I don't have Hoopla so I don't know how it works. I could google but I'm hungry and lazy, so: Is the daily limit for the book or for all Hoopla checkouts for the library?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I have never seen that! I didn't even know that's how it works. That's frustrating!

[Meredith]

I think it's just my particular library's daily limit. I had it happen once before when I tried to checkout something in the evening. Then I just grabbed it the next morning with no trouble. The count resets at midnight.

[Anna]

I hope you get it tomorrow!

[Meredith]

Me too! I was waiting to check it out closer to when I was ready to read it, and now I am ready to read it!

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

Haven't started the book proper yet, but my first impression is that using little images to signal what time the chapter is set in is unnecessary yet cool.

[Anna]

I... I’m in love with this book! <3 I have to (view spoiler)[ ”close my eyes and curl into a good morning’s sleep” (hide spoiler)], but I’ll be back to quote spam when the sun goes down again.

Spoiler is for the middle(ish) of part 1 and just a short quote, not really a spoiler.

[Mel]

Anna wrote: "Spoiler is for the middle(ish) of part 1 and just a short quote, not really a spoiler."
"Too late," says the obsessive opener of mysterious spoiler tags.

I started, and from the first chapter it looks promising. :)
Digging the fairy-tale vibe.

[Anna]

I still haven't had my evening chicken blood coffee, but here are my favorite highlights from Part 1, in addition to the ones in msg #16:

(view spoiler)[
"It is other foxes who are strange, not me."

"When it amuses me, I laugh. When it hurts me, I laugh. And because laughing is not something foxes generally do, they twitch their noses in disgust and hurry away."

"I, too, become warm inside an envelope of human flesh, less nervous and hungry."

"Each night is an experiment in survival."

"I look forward to a time when my dealings with humans are not so uncertain, a time when I can tell at a glance whether there is a chance of trust and affection."

"... foxes are bad company."

"The only complaint I have is that the more time I spend in human form, the more human I become. And the more human I become, the more I want a human past of my own"

"I close my eyes and curl into a good morning’s sleep"

(hide spoiler)]

I don't think I've felt this seen since I first read Murderbot.

And then a couple of non-fox things, also from Part 1:

(view spoiler)[
She mentions how starfish regenerate, and compares it to humans, which is interesting considering this is central in The Tiger Flu. I'm loving Fox so much more than I did Tiger. I should've always read this one first. Not that Tiger isn't worth reading, it's just extremely triggering and gross and I was not prepared! Also I read it while having a cold/fever, just when the covid-19 pandemic was really starting, and it was all kinds of uncomfortable. Anyway, that was an interesting connection.

And of course there is a quote for Allison:

"Princess by day, owl by night."

:D

(hide spoiler)]

[Ines, Resident Vampire]

Since you all seem to be enjoying it this much, I will invest the money and join in :) The book I had nominated (which I would have read as an alternative) costs the same anyway.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I'm in part two.

(view spoiler)[ I'm loving the slow blend of stories and never quite knowing who's involved. I'm super intrigued by the Fox and the Taoist nun's contest. (hide spoiler)]

Also, thank you, though often I feel more like an owl by day and a princess by night haha

[Anna]

Either way is good! :D

[Anna]

Ines wrote: "Since you all seem to be enjoying it this much, I will invest the money and join in :) The book I had nominated (which I would have read as an alternative) costs the same anyway."

I'm a bad mod who doesn't remember what everyone nominated in a challenge I'm not running, but I want to again say that we're not trying to pressure people into buying books that are more expensive than they're are willing to pay! Not everyone who is taking part in the Amazin' Eights challenge has said they'll be reading this, so I'm sure an alternative BR can still happen. I encourage everyone to boldly go and seek out new books and new buddy reads! :)

That said, I'm struggling because now I really want to read Salt Fish Girl, which is only available as a physical book, and it's super expensive :S Has anyone read it? I'll wait until I'm finished with Fox, but if Fish is more like Fox than Tiger, I'll have to "slurp".

[Sha]

Starting~

[Mel]

Through Part 1:

(view spoiler)[Reading the bits in Vancouver, I feel like I'm transported back to school. I feel I know these girls, and can imagine where they’d fit among the different Asian/AZN cliques. The outlier Humanities students, the little details of family life, the religious parents, the Suzuki lessons, they all ring true. I’m remembering family dinners spread with 10 different dishes, fragrant bright greens with sesame oil, sucking and spitting out bones.

There are some very pretty lines, but at the moment my mood is too restless to appreciate them as I otherwise might. Rushing instead of savoring. Liked this one though:

Suddenly a panic of white wings fled past my face. Doves.

In a nice coincidence, I read the temple scene while burning incense, and so had the smell mirrored in my room. (hide spoiler)]

[Ines, Resident Vampire]

Anna wrote: "Ines wrote: "Since you all seem to be enjoying it this much, I will invest the money and join in :) The book I had nominated (which I would have read as an alternative) costs the same anyway."

I'm..."

Please don't worry about me, Anna! I don't feel pressured at all, I never do. I thought Fox sounded interesting, but I wasn't sure and not willing to pay the current price on a gamble. I'm more than willing to pay it for a book I'm fairly sure I will enjoy - I was willing to pay it for my nomination. So I just decided to wait and see what all of your first impressions would be before deciding which book to read. Now it sounds so good, I'm looking forward to it!

[Anna]

Melissa wrote: "fragrant bright greens with sesame oil"

Yum! ^_^

Not really a spoiler, and again just part 1, but (view spoiler)[ although I'm aware this was published in the 1990s, it's weird reading about things like credit card carbon slips. I don't know when the 90s turned into historical fiction, I used to think it was yesterday. (hide spoiler)]

[Anna]

Ines, that's great! :)

[Mel]

Re: being written in the 90s
(view spoiler)[I know! I realized that is part of what's summoning the nostalgia. Needing a quarter to call someone's home. If someone doesn't show up on time, you simply wait for them, hoping they turn up. Linear television, catching a late-night movie at a particular time. All normal, until you realize things have changed. (hide spoiler)]

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

It's reminding me of college (part one discussion)

(view spoiler)[While it wasn't quite the 90s when I was in undergrad, cell phones were still "nights and weekends" based and payphones were still in most subways etc. because not everyone had one. I'm picturing some of the places we thought were "nice" bars at the time, where financial district folks would go for happy hour. Obviously, I'm also not Asian Canadian, but these small connections are making it that much easier to picture them and feel what they're experiencing. I'm loving the "old world" that was too "new" for the traditional types, and the "new world" in both the different families we're seeing. (hide spoiler)]

[Travis]

My copy is still on hold, so I've just skimmed this thread. But what I'm seeing makes me very excited to read.

[Bobby]

Starting slow for me. I love the Fox parts, but not so sure about the rest. I'll keep going in the hopes that something changes or there are more Fox parts.

[Anna]

There are more Fox parts! :)

[Jemppu]

Anna wrote: "There are more Fox parts! :)" 👀