A short novel, that is one of the finest examinations of grief I’ve ever witnessed. Fung demonstrates the challenges of processing grief and families that don’t communicate or express feelings. She points to the restrictions as well as permissions that are often unspoken in homes. The generational component is quite interesting as it centers around grief and loss.

The unnamed protagonist of Ghost Forest ponders life and grief after her father dies. She grew up with an "astronaut" dad. The family migrated from Hong Kong to Canada, but the dad stayed in Hong Kong to work and support his family. The family never talks about emotions or feelings, so the protagonist finds coping with grief challenging. I found this beautifully written novel about a woman struggling with grief and trying to connect with her family as they all find their way through ordinary circumstances.

Ghost Forest is built around a family's reflections of life when her the father dies. Death in any family brings forth so many stories of how this person lived and loved. Pik-Shuen Fung's story is slightly different as her family left Hong Kong when Britain retirned governing back to China in 1997. The family moved to Canada, her father maintaing two residences, one in Hong Kong for work, then the family's home in Canada. This is a short read. The short length of the chapters and ultimately the book, set the reader up to reflect on the similarities between families when one of the pillars of their history die. It's a lovely story of shared love and grief.

Snippets of family life and grief and love and loss. So much left unsaid but that the reader can fill in the blanks, maybe from their own lives and experiences. I didn't know what to expect when I opened this book but I certainly did not expect to gain so much from tiny vignettes. Wonderful collection. Highly recommend.

beautiful.

My grandmother said every family has its own prayer that's hard to recite.

in the evenings before we slept, my grandma plucked her string of black beads from our nightstand to pray. We prayed to Kwun Yam for my sister to be healthy. We prayed to Kwun Yam for my mom to be happy. Then I passed my palms together harder as my grandma recited the Buddhist prayer she knew by heart. I didn't know the words. I couldn't follow along, but once in a while it sounded like Pineapple Sock.

In my heart I repeated it—pineapple sock pineapple sock—thinking of my sister.

Ghost Forest is a book that takes the reader to Hong Kong. The book is about the author herself and her family. It is somewhat difficult to find words for this review because it was a short read, with even shorter chapters. But the mainline of the autobiographical and non fictional story is that her family is a typical astronaut family. Many Hong Kong families left in 1997 before the takeover of Hong Kong from Great Britain to China. Pik-Shuen and her family moved to Vancouver, Canada. Her father kept moving though between Hong Kong for work and Canada, from this comes the term astronaut father. And altough the rest of the family left Hong Kong, the bond with it stays strong. She revisits memories of her late father in the book, who became very ill and did not surive his illness. And during the book more memories from her and narratives of her mother and grandmother follow. The short chapters deal with immigration, grief, questions and family dynamics.

I though it was a short but nice novel, very different then anything else I've read. I am a huge lover of books set in Asia and especially Hong Kong, and this book truly had a real Hong Kong feel to it. So if your are into to something original and out of the box, this is a book not to miss!!

This book contained wonderful prose and an interesting story, one we don't often hear about, immigrants from Hong Kong to Vancouver, Canada in the 90s. I love learning as I read. This story is told in snippets and while they were well written, but I really love to fall into a setting and a story and found the choppiness of this book to hinder that. That's personal preference, however, and I know many people like this style of storytelling. It helps move the narration quickly and is easy to follow. I would recommend this book to folks who like that style of writing.

One of the best books I've read in a long time. This small book packs a punch in how a daughter grieves the death of a parent and remembers the time spent with a loved one. The writing was beautiful and I wish the story had gone longer, but it was perfect.

I am half way through with this book, and I am enjoying it. I really love the way the author has written the chapters in short bursts. I have seen mixed reviews due to the layout of the chapters. I think the chapters is what makes this tory unique. I could see how someone would want more character develop and it is out of order so that could be confusing as well.

Ghost Forest is a slim little tome and consequently doesn't leave the biggest impression on the reader, but I did find the time I spent with it to be worthwhile. In a style reminiscent of Kim Thúy, Pik-Shuen Fung writes lyrically about her experience as a Hong Kong immigrant growing up in Canada.

I thoroughly enjoyed the style of this book. The vignettes were lyrical & each told their own story. It felt real & raw and if I didn't know it was fiction I would think it was a memoir. This is a story of love, grief, family and identity, This was an incredible debut & I will be looking out for more by this author.

The writing is sparse, deceptively straightforward, and intensely expressive. I would highly recommend it.

This book was beautiful. I loved the style of this moving memoir and how although it jumped around in time, you got a great sense of the family dynamic. Also, this was one of my favorite covers of all time.

A novel about grief, family, love, and tradition. Beautiful and realistic portrayal of the immigrant experience. Loved that this was written in short essays makes it feel like the reader is experiencing these moments along with the unnamed protagonist.

GHOST FOREST by Pik-Shuen Fung is an interesting novel! It’s told from the point of view of an unnamed protagonist who immigrated from Hong Kong to Canada and deals with her father’s death. I liked the writing structure as each short chapter is a tiny vignette of her life. The story seemed very autobiographical and if this wasn’t categorized as a novel I would think this book was a memoir. I loved the Vancouver setting as that’s my city. Great quick read! I’d be interested to read more from this author in the future.

Thank you to One World Books via NetGalley for my advance review copy!

Ghost Forest is a debut novel from Canadian writer, Pik-Shuen Fung. The story is written in brief vignettes that give snapshots or fragments into the life of a Chinese/Canadian family. No character is named, we only know them by relationship to the narrator. The narrator is a young girl when the story begins and her family immigrated from Hong Kong to Canada. Her father is an astronaut father meaning, he is working in Hong Kong and the family only sees him once or twice a year. This distance causes distance in relationships as well.
Although the novel is fiction, in many ways it reads like a memoir. We never get an in depth look into any character and at first, it seems that the story itself stays surface level, but the writing is quite beautiful and the spaces on the page, I think, are just as important as the content and what we do learn. The writing is different than anything I’ve read and it’s quite beautiful.
One of the main focuses is the relationship between the narrator and her father. It’s a story about the dynamics of a family, a story of culture and immigration and forgiveness, and grief. It’s definitely a promising debut.

Heavy moments written as airy vignettes. I kept consuming them like popcorn before I realized how much emotional heft had accumulated.

Thank you Netgalley, Random House Publishing Group - Random House, One World and Pik-Shuen Fung for free e-ARC in return of my honest review of Ghost Forest.

An amazing set of stories about grief and how one might deal with it, about parents and their sacrifice, about community and family. Interesting structure of the book grips the reader from the very beginning. The stories are connected but differs in the time line. It helps to create an atmosphere of understanding our parents more when we look through the past to the present.

Beautiful structure, beautiful story telling technique and most importantly (for me personally) set in Canada.

Strongly recommend.

Ghost Forest by Pik-Shuen Fung. Published in 2021. Thanks to Net Galley @netgalley for letting me read a digital ARC of this novel.
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After her father's death, the unnamed narrator provides a portrait of her family dealing with their grief. Prior to his death, the father was an "astronaut" flying back and forth between Vancouver, where the family lives, and Hong Kong where he works. The story is told in short ephemeral memories and reflections. This fragmented structure leaving much empty space on a page emphasizes the idea that "empty space was as important as form, that absence was as important as presence." Despite being told in sparse vignettes, the novel feels emotionally intimate. I truly kept forgetting this book was fiction as I was reading it - it feels so much like reading a memoir.
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i really enjoyed reading this book, it was a great and beautifully done story with great characters and I enjoyed reading this.