I've been intending to read this book for a while now, and I'm glad I finally did! I really enjoyed the vast majority of these stories and even the stories I liked less I'm still glad to have read. I loved the sense of place I got from most of these. I've never been to Malaysia, but it was a character in most of the stories too, and it felt very present throughout the book. (Except maybe for the couple of stories set in England, which confused me at first. Seeing the Malaysian main characters of those stories in a different setting was neat too, though.)

I hadn't realized at first that If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again was in this compilation. (The link will take you to the B&N page for a free ebook copy of this story.) I've read it before and adore it. (And I cry every time.) This story won the 2019 Hugo for Best Novelette, and is one of my all-time favorite short pieces. If you haven't read it yet, please do. It's so worth the short amount of time it takes to read.

I also hadn't read that another story I'd previously read was in this compilation: The Terra-cotta Bride. For this one, I think I understood it a lot more than when I read it as a stand-alone novelette back in 2020. Between then and now, I've read a lot more stories featuring the Chinese idea of the afterlife, so I was less confused by the set-up to this story.

My favorites in this compilation are led by "If At First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again," but also include "The Earth Spirit’s Favorite Anecdote," "The Terra-cotta Bride," and "起狮, 行礼 (Rising Lion—The Lion Bows)."