Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

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

33 reviews

madelinegl's review

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dysphoria, Body shaming, Eating disorder, and Animal death

Moderate: Alcoholism, Lesbophobia, Racism, Transphobia, Sexual assault, and Homophobia

quil's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Rape, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Dysphoria, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Body shaming, and Racism

ambert's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.5

 I'll be honest, when I first saw this book as one of the nominees for Goodread's book of the year I thought that it was a book that would follow sea creatures as they interact in the ocean. Almost like a food chain, going deeper into the sea as time goes on.
I have never been happier to be wrong about a book's topic.
This is an incredibly poignant memoir for those who don't quite know who they are, but know they are getting there. Each essay is an examination of an amazing sea creature and their unique social or morphological attributes, intertwined with experiences from the author's life. 
My favorite of the essays has to be 'My Mother and the Starving Octopus', where Imbler connects an extraordinary Mother Octopus who stands vigil over her eggs for an astonishing 53 months, and how her mother's body image affects how Imbler sees herself. VERY relatable. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Eating disorder, Dysphoria, Body shaming, and Sexual content

Moderate: Sexual assault, War, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Alcoholism, and Animal death

Minor: Bullying, Alcohol, and Drug use

One of the chapters (octopus) deals with body image, both theirs and their mother's. It also covers eating disorders, wanting an eating disorder to become skinny, fatshaming themselves, etc. Another chapter (sandstriker) deals with sexual assault, alcoholism, and has the most sexual content out of any other chapter. Many chapters talk about the unfortunate fact of marine biology research being: The best way to learn about an animal is to take a carcass of one for a specimen. This results in many researchers having to kill the animal they are studying so that they can dissect it or preserve it for later studying. Another chapter (sturgeon) details the jopurney her grandmother took to escape japanese-controlled China in the 1940s, and the realities of war. Later chapters deal with their transition and how they still struggle with body dysmorphia, and many chapters speak about the racism they face today.

caseythereader's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Eating disorder, Animal cruelty, Alcohol, Body shaming, Racial slurs, Death, Homophobia, Animal death, Rape, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic

claddel's review against another edition

funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.75

Die Queerness dieses Buches hat mich begeistert und in vielen meiner eigenen Erfahrungen abgeholt und mitgenommen. Zusammen mit den Einblicken in das Leben der Tiefsee, des Meeres ergibt sich eine zauberhafte Mischung. In den Texten steckt viel Schmerzvolles, aber auch viel Verbindendes und Hoffnung. Eine schöne Leseerfahrung, die ich queeren Menschen unbedingt empfehlen kann. Vorher nach Content Notes schauen ist ratsam.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dysphoria, Eating disorder, Sexual assault, and Fatphobia

Moderate: Racism

Minor: Body shaming and Alcohol

eicart_reads's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective

4.25

Engrossing, thoughtful essays that combine fascinating stories about sea creatures with reflections on the author's life as a queer, biracial person. The parallels that they draw are creative and compelling. I inhaled this on audio, read by the author.


CW:
I did not realize that this would contain so much material about the author, so I would not have considered content warnings. But there are some major ones: dieting, body shaming (by self and others), drug use, alcohol use, blacking out from alcohol use, non-consensual sex (inability to recall consent in some cases -- because blacking out from alcohol use), underage non-consensual sex.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Dysphoria, Body shaming, and Drug use

Moderate: Sexual assault, Xenophobia, Racial slurs, and Animal death

includes talk about blacking out with alcohol use and sex with dubious/can't remember consent while blacked out

lukests's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

I loved this so much

The way Imbler uses these awesome stories from the animal kingdom to illustrate their own story inspires such wonder in the reader. Learning about these unique animals while going on a journey of discovery of the author's self is such an enjoyable ride. 

Being able to relate to Imbler and a cuttlefish and an entire community on a queer beach as well as a colony of individual salps is a wild but magical feeling

To top this all off the gender euphoria and sense of belonging and understanding reading the last chapter was fantastic. 

It's not often I've read someone write the non-binary experience in such an authentic and relatable way. Also reading this and being jealous of a cuttlefish is so bizarre but Imbler just does such a great job and likening it to the trans experience of wanting to change yourself at a whim. 

As well as the stories of the cuttlefish, salps, and jellyfish, the story of the Chinese Sturgeon and how its journey almost mirrors that of their grandparents'own journey of migration through China during a war was harrowing. This coupled with how climate change and expanding civilisation is affecting the sturgeons spawning leaves a lasting impression. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Animal death, Racism, Rape, Body shaming, Death, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Transphobia

wonderreads's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Body shaming, Rape, Homophobia, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Alcoholism

aktreich's review

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual harassment, Xenophobia, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Sexual assault, Racial slurs, Alcohol, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Sexual violence, Fatphobia, and Racism

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic

ndd1227's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault, Body shaming, and Transphobia