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readerette's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
5.0
My other favorite Mary Roach book is Stiff for its highly practical knowledge and guidance related to matters of human dying and cadavers. This book is now tied for favorite because of its similarly practicality, providing tons of context on and insight into various animal control methods and their effectiveness and consequences over time and around the world.
I found myself laughing at Mary's anecdotes and asides (seriously, do not skip the footnotes) and crying about the deaths of all these "vertebrate pests" she researched for this book as well as the ongoing efforts of various humans to find the balance between acceptance and control.
I want to give this book to my tween brother because he loves this sort of niche/dark knowledge (he has always loved reading about disasters, for example), but there are a few too many adult subjects his parents would object to at his age (ejaculation, copulation, details about pain related to killing methods, etc).
I found myself laughing at Mary's anecdotes and asides (seriously, do not skip the footnotes) and crying about the deaths of all these "vertebrate pests" she researched for this book as well as the ongoing efforts of various humans to find the balance between acceptance and control.
I want to give this book to my tween brother because he loves this sort of niche/dark knowledge (he has always loved reading about disasters, for example), but there are a few too many adult subjects his parents would object to at his age (ejaculation, copulation, details about pain related to killing methods, etc).
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing, Sexual content, Medical content, Violence, Animal cruelty, and Animal death
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