Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

52 reviews

semeyers's review

adventurous emotional informative sad fast-paced

3.0

Fuzz was a solid read, though it was not what I was expecting from reading the description and the Introduction. I was looking forward to more first hand accounts of specific incidents of animals behaving badly, more humor, and more hope? I guess? What this book turned out to be is Mary Roach going from spot to spot (mostly in the US, but occasionally abroad) and talking to the individuals on the front lines of human-animal-conflict and what they are doing to stop it. What I learned is it rarely, if ever, ends well for the animal and even with advances in technology, all we can hope for is more chances and a quicker deaths for these animals.

This grim reality causes Roach's humor to fall flat along the way and occasionally even seem awkward. The book is also written as a series of essays instead of a cohesive novel. A chapter may have a glancing mention of another part of the book, but that's about it. As a result, the book just kind of...ends. I was hoping for a wrap up, a what-did-we-learn, a here's-my-takeaway, type of chapter and I did not get it.

Minor issue, but there were also typos throughout my ebook copy (togather instead of together, "leather hiking books" instead of boots) that were fairly distracting.

Also, don't feed wildlife.

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tinytrashqueen's review against another edition

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challenging informative slow-paced

3.0

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tacoshark's review against another edition

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adventurous funny informative slow-paced

3.75

Why did this very brief book take me over two weeks to read? I don’t know but I think it’s probably less the book than me. I enjoyed this, though not as much as her other books. The second half was more fun than the first, for some reason - maybe because it was weirder? Anyway, enjoyable - and as ever, the footnotes are incredible. And bonus, now I know the difference between suffocation and strangulation, so yay?

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nikkihayes's review against another edition

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informative lighthearted medium-paced

2.5

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arlangrey17's review against another edition

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challenging informative lighthearted medium-paced

3.5

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lbock317's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

3.5

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jessrenbash's review against another edition

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adventurous funny informative slow-paced

2.75

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idksamiguess's review against another edition

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funny informative medium-paced

5.0

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lutheranjulia's review against another edition

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funny informative fast-paced

4.5

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gabi_tron's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny informative medium-paced

4.5

This was my first venture into the mind of Mary Roach and I appreciated traveling with her curiosity and humor all over the world to witness the various outcomes in human-animal interactions. By the end the reader will be glad Roached asked all those experts all those questions, especially the questions we wouldn't dare ask but we're dying to know the answers to. And many writers do not honor the value of a tangent/footnote quite like Roach.

*The chapters that tackle the violent nature of some animal-human interactions were tougher to get through, but luckily Roach handles these subjects with the curious care you'd hope for.

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