Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller

87 reviews

chromatography's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism

Moderate: Racism, Mental illness, and Suicidal thoughts

alpal2020's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny reflective sad fast-paced

A fascinating story well told. The author intertwines her struggle to find meaning in life with the unwavering, unself-reflective confidence a pivotal scientist had in his.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Ableism, Mental illness, and Racism

sierrabowers's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

4.0

If you like reading about science and taxonomy, this would be a good book for you. If you’re loosely interested, maybe you would as well. I am not interested in these subjects but the way the author tied the subjects into her own story about life and how the universe is not as it seems… well I was interested to know why fish don’t exist. It was good book! Definitely not what I was expecting but it was enlightening and relaxing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Suicide attempt, Car accident, Death, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Racism, Racial slurs, Hate crime, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Misogyny, Slavery, Suicide, Homophobia, Infertility, Pregnancy, Classism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Ableism, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Gun violence, Medical content, Physical abuse, and Police brutality

garfguy7's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

this was wonderful. genuinely so INTERESTING - but yes, as a fan of radiolab i can say the pacing and tone was kind of an odd replica. there’s a bit of millennial humour but not enough to be noticeably annoying. i was captivated by the idea that fish don’t actually exist about a year ago, but didn’t delve into it. this book makes me want to pursue marine biology seriously. maybe i’ll have more to say about this later but i do wanna say: i think the author waited so long to reveal that jordan was a eugenicist to illustrate her point without giving us a bad preconceived notion about the guy. the point is that he engages in eugenics in a horrific attempt at controlling the “ladder” of supremacy as far as i can tell. it’s all about control and detrimental categorization, trying to make sense of things 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Classism, Rape, Ableism, Racism, Child abuse, and Infertility

Minor: Alcohol and Suicidal thoughts

cfinnigan's review

dark hopeful inspiring medium-paced

4.5

What a beautiful book. We start with the author’s obsession with David Starr Jordan a naturalist responsable for cataloguing a fifth of the worlds fish. Miller is looking for hope in his story of perseverance when his collection is almost destroyed. Instead we find Jordan is no hero he probably murdered someone and fought for eugenics. Miller rises above him in every which way. Also fish do not exist as a biological group. Suck on it Jordan.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism and Suicidal thoughts

sweetbeetle's review against another edition

hopeful lighthearted reflective fast-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism

Minor: Rape

ehmannky's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

I truly did not know what to expect with this book, but on the whole I thought it was a fine memoir/biography with a little bit of science sprinkled in. I don't think it's particularly mindblowing and I think it's definitely overhyped, but overall it was fine. I didn't know anything about David Star Jordan, and now know he was an awful eugenicist (and honestly odd to sort of have that be a Big Reveal when it's in the intro paragraph to his wikipedia page) who probably had Jane Stanford murdered for rightfully trying to get him to face consequences. The best parts of the book are Miller's interviews with survivors of the sterilization program and the bit about taxonomy at the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Ableism, Murder, and Racism

craftysnailtail's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective fast-paced

4.5

A challenging read, but also an important one. A story that ended up being about topics that I never would've expected based on the synopsis. Many of those topics were heavy and difficult, but I appreciated the way Miller wove them together. The novel felt raw and human in a way that really stuck with me, which was especially surprising with it being non fiction. Also loved how the audiobook ended. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Child abuse, Pedophilia, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Racism, Genocide, Emotional abuse, and Ableism

confuzzledsheep's review

reflective medium-paced

3.5

If you are not a biologist, or even yet a Taxonomist, and want to reflect deeply on one's own sadness in the story of the author and David Starr Jordan, then this may be helpful for you. As a depressed biologist who's been long disillusioned with the myth of a Sole Genius Scientist and has already had many of the discussions within this book, I will rate it as passing. I found this book lacking in detail on David Starr Jordans life that I expected it to have- furter discussion of the problems with the Holotype model of taxonomy, the sheer brutality of scientific discovery during the time period. This book touches on those, but never gets as deep as it could. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Mental illness, Ableism, Infidelity, Forced institutionalization, Colonisation, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Alcoholism, and Death

Minor: Domestic abuse, Child death, and Child abuse

alexandryareads's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Racism, Ableism, Medical content, and Medical trauma