This book isn't necessarily an easy read but it's a great book to read if you're into ghost stories and are learning about Japanese culture, and even some historical events that resulted in folk tales. These stories are full of sadness, loss, betrayal, and even disappointment. In particular there are lots of stories about ghost brides. 

It was so interesting to see a different culture's folk tales, even if it was translated and diluted through a western perspective. I loved how casually death was treated, it was so normal which is quite different to many other myths or legends. Death is not scary. It's the coming back, or the being stuck in between that's horrifying. 

Hearn's style is super minimalistic, and that actually compliments the stories super well. None of them honest to goodness scared me, but a lot of them did elicit strong emotional reactions. Comparing it to Ito, who I'd read recently, made me realise how differently horror can be evoked based on the presentation!

It was really endearing seeing the stories where bits were skipped cause the author was bored, or the tale just well... tails off. Mostly cause SAME DUDE. All in all, I really enjoyed this as a gateway into Japanese folk tales and it's definitely inspired me to seek out more by native authors this time.