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brittbat 's review for:
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures
by Sabrina Imbler
I did it! I achieved my goal of reading a nonfiction book per month in 2023! I know so many more things now!
Honestly, I think you might be better served reading Jessica Woodbury's review of How Far the Light Reaches than anything I might say, because her sentiments are pretty much the same as mine, but more coherently strung together.
I agree with her that the essays in this collection are good--I remember especially liking the first two--but that they grow repetitive as a collection because each one follows the same format of alternating personal anecdotes and discussion of sea creatures. After awhile, it became a bit difficult for me to differentiate between the essays because this format doesn't vary.
Honestly, this book makes me think that I just need to start reading more straightforward science and nature writing, because I enjoyed the sea creature sections more than I enjoyed the personal anecdote sections. In some ways this feels like two books smashed together, except that neither half feels developed enough to stand on its own. But I'm not sure that the combination works 100% of the time, either? Something about the combination of the two occasionally made me think that maybe the striving to make connections was overreaching, just a little? That maybe this book was taking itself slightly too seriously?
Maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm too burnt out to be the ideal audience for this book. There might have been another time or frame of mind when I would have been properly amazed at the thought that yes, the dyke march is exactly like a string of salps in the sea, maligned and unwanted but floating along, all pushing out water at different times, out of sync but somehow getting somewhere, together!! But as it was, I felt more like the worker at the Panera, looking blank-faced and annoyed about all the sweaty, loud people who crammed themselves into the bathroom, making my day a little bit harder than it already was.
However, I will say: that the stuff about the immortal jellyfish regenerating? I think that's going to hang around in the back of my mind throughout the next year.
Honestly, I think you might be better served reading Jessica Woodbury's review of How Far the Light Reaches than anything I might say, because her sentiments are pretty much the same as mine, but more coherently strung together.
I agree with her that the essays in this collection are good--I remember especially liking the first two--but that they grow repetitive as a collection because each one follows the same format of alternating personal anecdotes and discussion of sea creatures. After awhile, it became a bit difficult for me to differentiate between the essays because this format doesn't vary.
Honestly, this book makes me think that I just need to start reading more straightforward science and nature writing, because I enjoyed the sea creature sections more than I enjoyed the personal anecdote sections. In some ways this feels like two books smashed together, except that neither half feels developed enough to stand on its own. But I'm not sure that the combination works 100% of the time, either? Something about the combination of the two occasionally made me think that maybe the striving to make connections was overreaching, just a little? That maybe this book was taking itself slightly too seriously?
Maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm too burnt out to be the ideal audience for this book. There might have been another time or frame of mind when I would have been properly amazed at the thought that yes, the dyke march is exactly like a string of salps in the sea, maligned and unwanted but floating along, all pushing out water at different times, out of sync but somehow getting somewhere, together!! But as it was, I felt more like the worker at the Panera, looking blank-faced and annoyed about all the sweaty, loud people who crammed themselves into the bathroom, making my day a little bit harder than it already was.
However, I will say: that the stuff about the immortal jellyfish regenerating? I think that's going to hang around in the back of my mind throughout the next year.