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kschuster's review against another edition
5.0
Loved this
Such a unique and engaging way to learn about such a specific yet universal scientific topic. This book had me questioning so many assumptions about universality of behaviors and functions between species.
Such a unique and engaging way to learn about such a specific yet universal scientific topic. This book had me questioning so many assumptions about universality of behaviors and functions between species.
stevepoll's review against another edition
4.0
Charming and funny. Very much enjoyed the author's writing style, and the material, which might seem at first to be a bit off-putting to the more sensitive crowd, is really quite benign and on the whole quite interesting. With such an engaging style, I hope she produces more work as this 10-year-old tome is apparently her only one at this point, according to her Amazon author page.
zhelana's review against another edition
5.0
This book was really interesting. It is about all of the different ways animals and plants have sex and how evolution works, but told as though it were a sex advice column with questions and answers by a sex therapist. It covered many different topics from the evolution of two sexes and some species having hundreds of sexes, but most evolved two, and two evolved many different times. We talked about the dangers of incest, but also that some species do better if they are incestuous. We talked about how monogamy evolves, or rather doesn't evolve often. We talked some about cannibalism during sex, which evolves when the calories provided by the snack outweigh any help the male might be in child rearing. We learned that making a successful sperm is actually more energy than making a successful egg. My only complaint for it was that it skipped from thing to thing too rapidly, and I don't remember a lot of it because it just got mentioned in passing and then moved on to an entirely different subject. But still, it was really interesting while I was reading it.
msjoanna's review against another edition
3.0
Maybe 3.5 stars, rounded down.
This book has lots of cool facts and information about all the different ways that living things reproduce and interesting thoughts about how different sexes developed and why they exist in the ways that they do. The book seems fully researched with lots of detailed endnotes for those wanting to follow up on the underlying research.
It's also a cute idea--animals writing in to an advice column with a question or a complaint about their particular biology. It allows for a breezy and readable tone as the answers are given in a advice columnist voice rather than dry scientific reporting. But this idea also started to wear out about two-thirds of the way through the book. By that point, I was fully engrossed in the science and started to find the advice column format repetitive and tiresome.
Also, did you know there's a slug with a penis the size of three champagne bottles laid end to end? And an animal where the male is 200,000 times smaller than the female and she just snuffs him up into a special body part where he goes about fertilizing eggs for the rest of his days? And dozens more fascinating examples.
This book has lots of cool facts and information about all the different ways that living things reproduce and interesting thoughts about how different sexes developed and why they exist in the ways that they do. The book seems fully researched with lots of detailed endnotes for those wanting to follow up on the underlying research.
It's also a cute idea--animals writing in to an advice column with a question or a complaint about their particular biology. It allows for a breezy and readable tone as the answers are given in a advice columnist voice rather than dry scientific reporting. But this idea also started to wear out about two-thirds of the way through the book. By that point, I was fully engrossed in the science and started to find the advice column format repetitive and tiresome.
Also, did you know there's a slug with a penis the size of three champagne bottles laid end to end? And an animal where the male is 200,000 times smaller than the female and she just snuffs him up into a special body part where he goes about fertilizing eggs for the rest of his days? And dozens more fascinating examples.
lindsayw's review against another edition
4.0
As delightful as I expected it to be, this book was fun to read and extremely interesting. Lots of funny, fascinating tidbits about creatures you've never even heard of and a few that you have. The only downside was that I felt that it was a little heavy on the lesser known creatures and didn't feature much on ones that would maybe have been more interesting since we're already familiar with them. Still, an enjoyable read with a cover that scandalizes everyone who sees you reading it.
allthatnas's review against another edition
funny
informative
4.0
yeah I read it for class but I don't care. I'm gonna count it anyway