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Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery
10 reviews
acsmallwood's review against another edition
Graphic: Animal death
Moderate: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Chronic illness, and Suicide
s_marie's review against another edition
Moderate: Animal death and Animal cruelty
kk_gotit_goinon's review against another edition
5.0
Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Suicide, Animal cruelty, Terminal illness, Grief, Self harm, and Dementia
Minor: Self harm
aspi8tionalpile's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Car accident, Death, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Cannibalism, Dementia, Suicide, and Suicide attempt
liltastypuff's review against another edition
2.5
I also found her stated theolog and actions in opposition of each other.
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
purplepenning's review against another edition
3.0
The author is a talented memoirist and travel/nature writer and is clearly having a love affair of sorts with octopuses. However, although much of the book personalizes and attempts to empathize with these incredibly intelligent octopuses (which the author literally calls "inmates" when in aquariums — definitely a tone), there seems to be a sharp limit to the implications considered. For example, they get bored and enjoy interacting with puzzles and humans, but it's okay to leave a young octopus in a plain, dark, boring, solitary barrel for weeks (months?) — and then wonder about her behavioral issues? Similarly, is the end of life "dementia" they experience really inevitable or is a life in captivity and on display contributing to it (and what a flippantly brutal comment about how we "take humans with dementia 'off display'" and hide them away so it's probably okay to do that with octopuses too!)? Octopus lives are short, so grief is probably inevitable while studying them and becoming attached, but the tragic outcomes for the octopus inmates here don't seem inevitable. And while there is genuine grief in those moments, the overall tone is blithely upbeat.
The author struggled, due to an ear condition, to deep dive on her forays to see octopuses in the wild. She seems to have similarly struggled to deep dive in her examinations of their lives in captivity. Overall, it's an interesting, informative, touching observation of the lives of captive octopuses but it's not a satisfyingly full exploration of those lives or their potentials.
Graphic: Confinement
Moderate: Animal death, Grief, Terminal illness, Animal cruelty, Cultural appropriation, Dementia, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Sexual content and Sexism
maddyreads89's review against another edition
2.5
Graphic: Animal death
Moderate: Animal cruelty
Minor: Suicide
mexigingerale's review
3.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
Moderate: Grief and Suicide
Minor: Suicide attempt
deltheclown's review against another edition
inspiration that animals give us (not into consciousness, as the title suggests). after the first chapter, it rapidly goes downhill. the author spends a large part of the beginning of the book talking about how octopuses NEED enrichment to
survive in captivity. she goes into extreme detail about the ways aquarists + scientists provide it, even mentioning that there's a volunteer at the aquarium
whose WHOLE JOB is designing toys for the octopus there. she then completely glazes over the fact that the non-display octopuses at that aquarium are kept in "tanks or
barrels that were completely barren - no hiding places or rocks or sand or tank mates" (pg. 44). the octopus
that the 3rd chapter is about, Kali, is kept in an empty 55-gallon drum!
how can someone who claims to love these creatures so much endorse these practices? refuse to condemn them? ESPECIALLY when she is writing about information that proves the unethical nature of the tanks - she KNOWS how shitty it is to do that!
i stopped reading when she PRAISED that aquarium for their naturalistic tanks. it's great that they have naturalistic display tanks - but does that not matter for the
animals not on display? are they not deserving a natural environment? why does the display animal have someone whose whole job is encouraging play, when the non-display animals are kept in drums and completely bare tanks?
does the author ACTUALLY love these animals? Or does she just love what they do for her?
Graphic: Animal cruelty
describes extremely poor treatment of octopuses while completely disregarding exactly how horrible it iskayesomething's review against another edition
1.0
Graphic: Animal death and Animal cruelty
Moderate: Chronic illness, Self harm, Suicide, and Medical content
Minor: Grief