Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

36 reviews

mobooks_mojoy's review against another edition

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5.0

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lue_moon's review against another edition

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5.0

Beautifully written prose. I love all of the ways in which the stories of sea creatures were woven into memoir and memoir into the stories of sea creatures. Hits home for the little me who wanted to be a marine biologist, and still often finds sea creatures fascinating, even if bodies of open water terrify me slightly.

Most resonant for me were "My Mother and the Starving Octopus," "Morphing Like a Cuttlefish" and "Us Everlasting."
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kaydee_reads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective relaxing slow-paced

5.0

This book is strange and lovely and best served slowly, reading a couple essays a day and then putting it back down to let them sink in. I loved the mix of science and memoir. Some essays are stronger than others - the cuttlefish one and the one about the sturgeon stood out as particular favourites in terms of matching the animals to the topic - but all make you think and feel and I loved the writing. 
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sarahsbookstacks's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative sad medium-paced

4.0

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mathenam's review

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challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

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tiffanyjeannine's review

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4.0

Great collection of essays mixing personal experiences with a sea creature’s own experience. The way the stories parallel one another was masterful. The animal stories were fascinating. I feel like I need to go watch a nature documentary or two. I also need to check out the physical copy to see the illustrations I missed out on. Definitely check trigger warnings. Things get heavy.
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joannalouise's review against another edition

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emotional informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.25

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bookbrig's review against another edition

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emotional informative fast-paced
I read this thinking it might be a good fit for teen readers, and I do think it could work for teens with some clear content warnings. It's creative and moving, and deals with lots of teen relevant topics - college drinking/hookups, body image, racism, family dynamics, gender, and sexuality, plus there's engaging science and animal stuff. But it doesn't elide details. It's... graphic is the wrong word, but maybe just blunt? Honest. And that makes it both excellent and definitely not something I was in a great place to read right now. Check the content warnings on this one before you go in, because I didn't, and I wish I had. I wasn't really in the right place to read it, though I will happily recommend it to the right readers. The audiobook, read by the author, was excellently done. 
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ariizolas's review against another edition

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Not for me - I loved the early essays, but the metaphors got old for me very quickly. Might finish this one up when I don't have so much on my TBR. 
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marioncromb's review against another edition

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hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

Essays on particular aspects of the authors life that also inform about and draw parallels to the underwater natural world. A bit too personal/individual for my taste but thats the nature of the book and for the most part its done well. Interestingly, the author seems to choose creatures whose stories she's already read other peoples articles about that resonated with them personally rather than picking potential (maybe over-tired) examples that are less personal but more directly/explicitly show the natural world has different forms of community, gender & sexuality (like seahorses getting pregnant, clownfish changing sex for example)

I particularly liked the chapter 'Pure Life' which parallels queer nightlife/community spaces with hydrothermal vent ecosystems.

The main issue i had with it is the use of imperial units, which i feel don't belong in any book with a scientific topic, let alone the UK/European version, even if the author is American!
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