Reviews tagging 'Death'

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

33 reviews

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

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

bookbrig's review

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

I learned a lot from this relatively short audiobook, but it wasn't quite what I expected. Which is my own fault for not reading a summary first, but for other readers have a heads up that there's a lengthy dive into eugenics that is well reported and interesting, but heavier than I was anticipating from the cover. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Death, and Racism

Minor: Suicide attempt and Infidelity

readingpicnic's review

adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Medical trauma, Child death, Child abuse, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Homophobia, Sexual assault, and Racism

Minor: Infidelity and Self harm

justkellyann's review

informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Death, Child death, and Medical trauma

Minor: Xenophobia and Rape

inthemoonlight's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

I genuinely have no words for much this impacted me. It is truly beautifully and completely done. 

My only warning would be to look at any trigger warnings if that's something that would impact you. I personally went in blind, not even knowing what it was about, and did not realize how dark things would be. Vital to talk about, but still potentially triggering nonetheless.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Genocide, Medical trauma, Forced institutionalization, Racism, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Death, Rape, Child death, and Physical abuse

fridayreads's review

emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Infidelity, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Misogyny, Alcohol, Death, Slavery, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Addiction

whatannikareads's review

informative reflective sad fast-paced

2.75

nooooooot y’all tricking me into reading about a eugenicist!!

i’m a mixed bag of emotions about this book. after about halfway through i think the first half of the book was completely unnecessary/a different book altogether. i fell asleep quite a few times during the first half. the second half was much more interesting, but i kept getting whiplash on the organization of it; we kept switching from history to memoir to social science. i don’t feel the memoir section was expanded enough to be super engaging. the connection between the writer and david star jordan, aside from her research of him, felt like a reach. i think if she has developed her story more, or just made it a completely separate book, it could’ve been more enjoyable. the whole book could’ve just been 3 different articles tbh. it felt like reading a really long op-ed and i don’t think ot should’ve been a book tbh.

also again, i don’t know if talking about how shitty his beliefs were in the second half made up for how nicely he was portrayed in the first half?? it was just very clearly not written by a person of color lol. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical trauma, Death, Racism, Xenophobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Ableism

librarymouse's review

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

About a third of the way through this book, having googled David Starr Jordan, I was ready to finish this, as a hate reader if need be. Jordan was, without question, a horrible man. The atrocities he inflicted upon the world with his promotion of eugenics outweigh any good he may have done as a scientist by multiple orders of magnitude. Seeing Lulu Miller's hero worship of the man was off-putting, the more I learned of him. However, I ended up really enjoying this book as I read on, as Miller explores her own life alongside Jordan's, she brings along the reader. We learn of the atrocities he's committedin the same order she did while conducting the research for this book. It's still hard to have the hero worship of the young Jordan, with his love of stars and rescy jokes, when faced with the knowledge of his role in the American Eugenics movement.

Jordan's hands-on malicious acts, like his touring endorsement of eugenics and the possible murder by poison of his benefactor are completely bonkers. I am constantly amazed that people Revere him, while simultaneously understanding, as I, too have been in awe of the young man he once was.

This book breaks down every facet of Jordan, from his political, religious, and social beliefs; to his family life, addressing each idiosyncrasy with data driven research.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Alcohol, Grief, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Body horror, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Racism, Child death, and Homophobia

erictb's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Suicidal thoughts, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Death and Racism

Minor: Rape