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3.38 AVERAGE
3.38 AVERAGE
I could have done without the sub-par, cheeky fictionalized accounts and passages, but otherwise really enjoyed this book. Every animal profile is no more than a few pages long, making this book great to pick up and put down as often as needed. It also offers the reader just enough information per creature to easily digest and retain information, without becoming too heavy and textbook. Sure, this isn't the purest, more advanced academic text you'll come across, but it's not meant to be that way either; it is instead just enough of a geeky, educational read for an independent learner/reader to enjoy themselves.
Fun :-) read a lot of this one to my 9 year old son who likes learning about strange animals. The little vignettes were occasionally funny but most of the time I ignored them.
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
I have to admit, I didn't read all of this. After the first section, I began skipping past the awful "stories" in which the author tries to be funny, but fails miserably. She anthropomorphises the creatures she's writing about, and takes on an awful colloquial tone, using phrases like "look, I get it, I do [insert creature name here], but you won't have much luck with the ladies doing [insert unusual animal be behaviour here]." So, so awful. I would hate to meet this author. Her idea of being funny involves making fun of ugly people and trotting out predictable tropes about desperate women, horny guys and "oh my god you guys, this weird sex behaviour is like, the funniest thing ever!!! Lol" Some of her commentaries I just didn't even get, like, "Hi Spanish Ribbed Newt, how's this Thursday sound? I'll bring Scrabble. x" What a waste of space.
The book would get three stars if she kept her "humour" to those easily skippable paragraphs at the beginning or end of each chapter, but ridiculous terms like "she lizards" make their way into the actual descriptions of some creatures, ruining what would otherwise be fascinating short chapters on some of the weirdest and most wonderful creatures that exist, or once existed, on our incredible planet.
I loved learning about the marvellous bodies and behaviours of interesting animals, but the author ruined the book by, well, writing it. Someone else should have been given this job.
My favourite piece of information though:
"When provoked, the Spanish ribbed newt's ribs will burst out of its skin to produce twin rows of poison-tipped spears".
The book would get three stars if she kept her "humour" to those easily skippable paragraphs at the beginning or end of each chapter, but ridiculous terms like "she lizards" make their way into the actual descriptions of some creatures, ruining what would otherwise be fascinating short chapters on some of the weirdest and most wonderful creatures that exist, or once existed, on our incredible planet.
I loved learning about the marvellous bodies and behaviours of interesting animals, but the author ruined the book by, well, writing it. Someone else should have been given this job.
My favourite piece of information though:
"When provoked, the Spanish ribbed newt's ribs will burst out of its skin to produce twin rows of poison-tipped spears".
Probably more of a 2.5. I didn’t really care so much for the animal skits that took up so much of the book. I went into this one a bit blindly so I missed that those were advertised. The animal facts were mostly interesting, I was just looking for something a bit more fleshed out.
Really didn’t like the misogynistic, immature stories that took up over half of the pages. But the actual science writing is good, and there are plenty of interesting facts.
Great idea, but an epic fail.
Becky Crew is not a science writer. She is a blogger and nothing more. The writing is poor - lackluster and childish. The humor is dull ... and its best, it is juvenile/dimwitted. The author spent too much time trying to be quirky and not enough time on the animals (many write-ups are only a page and a half).
I have no idea why Becky Crew gets the acclaim that she does. What a letdown.
Becky Crew is not a science writer. She is a blogger and nothing more. The writing is poor - lackluster and childish. The humor is dull ... and its best, it is juvenile/dimwitted. The author spent too much time trying to be quirky and not enough time on the animals (many write-ups are only a page and a half).
I have no idea why Becky Crew gets the acclaim that she does. What a letdown.
Amusing, bite-sized essays on our planet's weird-ass animals. Some of the little anthropomorphized mini-stories pushed things too much but it was a fun read and easy to pick up and put down.
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
I loved the part about animals. I generally unabashedly adore books with short vignettes about weird shit animals do, I eat that up, it’s gr8. This one, in addition to our old friends the angler fish and the mantis shrimp, provided information on species like the great tit (kills bats and eats their brains!) and more than one phenomenally gross type of parasite.
However, with each vignette is an anthropomorphized short story about the animals as if they were people. I found them virtually unreadable–not because of swearing, although Amazon reviews would beg to differ, but just because of the complete upheaval caused by trying to picture something like a male angler fish in a human context.
Skip those and the book is excellent.
A neat book of articles on the wild and wacky creatures that inhabit this planet. If you are a fan of Youtube shows like SciShow, you'll get a kick out of it. Where this book really stands out is in the witty prologues or epilogues that accompany most of the articles, wherein the author posits how life for the creature would go if they were anthropomorphized as humans. For instance, the lovelorn Spanish Ribbed Newt, who can't attend dinner parties because his ribs explode through his chest when startled, thereby stabbing his seatmates. (He's using online dating, but with limited success.)