This is a book of short stories, and as such, it contains a wide range of themes, motifs, and symbols. However, a holistic analysis of the book could center around a consideration of the function of fantasy. Each story is anchored with recognizable characters with recognizable feelings and problems. However, the settings and imagery are fantastic; they are imaginative, original, and somewhat odd for the everyday reader.

"Books and Roses," the first story in the book, features two women in love, bound by serendipitous fate and a story structure that is similar to a fairy tale. There is a stirring juxtaposition between their unconventional love and wholly conventional story elements (the main character is abandoned as a child and so on).

In "Is Your Blood as Red as This?," a teenage girl explores her sexuality and development as a person through the lens of puppeteering and a friendship with a ghost. This is a truly strange and provocative medley of literary elements.

Throughout all the stories in the book, objects and people are described in novel ways: "A library at night is full of sounds: the unread books can't stand it any longer and announce their contents, some boasting, some shy, some devious.” Things behave like people, people behave like spirits, and all are beautifully jumbled into one, coherent universe of being.

Oyeyemi frames extremely common problems in imaginative ways. Why does the author paint conventional human problems in these colourful and sometimes bizarre terms? This is not only tremendously entertaining, it also helps the reader reimagine everyday problems in new and helpful ways. Gender, sexuality, and violence are explored at length in these stories, and the author infuses the tales with elements of fantasy to mix things up: it helps the reader conceptualize the characters' problems in new ways. The function of fantasy in this collection is to explore novel solutions to age-old problems of human existence and conflict.