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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
adventurous
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
3.7 stars to be specific! I'm going to give my general breakdown of this book in star ratings because I couldn't decide what to rate it overall:
- writing: 4.5/5
- imagery: 4/5
- describing characters: 4/5
- portrayal of mother-child relationship: 5/5 -- beautifully done
- cover: 5/5 (LOL I just love every version of the cover I've seen)
- pacing: 1.5/5 (this book was too slow for me, and while I know memoirs aren't going to be fast-paced, necessarily, I found myself wishing it would leave me with more of a cliff-hanger feeling)
The main themes I drew from this book: paralleling with whales' lives, similarities and differences between other mammal species when it comes to mothering/protecting their babies, RESILIENCE, birth/rebirth...
Climate change also played a big role in this book, of course, and while I appreciated that, I found some of the pages/sections that went into detailed statistics + quotes to be kinda boring. I didn't pick up this book for a history lesson nor a warning about climate change, and perhaps I was mislead in that regard. I wish there had been more STORY and less research, but I completely respect that the way I would approach a memoir is very different than how Cunningham did, and that makes her writing style no less valid! I do think I would've enjoyed this book more if I'd been a researcher of whales or really passionate about studying them. Some of the imagery was beautiful and the writing was wonderful, but I wanted to get lost in the story and instead, I found myself kinda lost in the recitation of facts and numbers.
- writing: 4.5/5
- imagery: 4/5
- describing characters: 4/5
- portrayal of mother-child relationship: 5/5 -- beautifully done
- cover: 5/5 (LOL I just love every version of the cover I've seen)
- pacing: 1.5/5 (this book was too slow for me, and while I know memoirs aren't going to be fast-paced, necessarily, I found myself wishing it would leave me with more of a cliff-hanger feeling)
The main themes I drew from this book: paralleling with whales' lives, similarities and differences between other mammal species when it comes to mothering/protecting their babies, RESILIENCE, birth/rebirth...
Climate change also played a big role in this book, of course, and while I appreciated that, I found some of the pages/sections that went into detailed statistics + quotes to be kinda boring. I didn't pick up this book for a history lesson nor a warning about climate change, and perhaps I was mislead in that regard. I wish there had been more STORY and less research, but I completely respect that the way I would approach a memoir is very different than how Cunningham did, and that makes her writing style no less valid! I do think I would've enjoyed this book more if I'd been a researcher of whales or really passionate about studying them. Some of the imagery was beautiful and the writing was wonderful, but I wanted to get lost in the story and instead, I found myself kinda lost in the recitation of facts and numbers.
adventurous
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Part natural history, part memoir. A mother and son follow the whale migration journey along the west coast of America. Learnt so much about whales, especially mothers and calves, and the early climate change warnings, ignored by most of the world.. And the Inuit peoples’ deep understanding of nature - their mythology interwoven with the author’s journey. Beautiful insightful book.
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
what are we doing to our earth? we are spoiling the world with our greed.
an excellent book. flawed protagonist but utterly human
an excellent book. flawed protagonist but utterly human
I've read a number of books about whales, as well as books about the Arctic, and that may have done this book a disservice: I had too much with which to compare it. Soundings weaves two threads of time together: it opens with an older Doreen and her young son Max, who are travelling the coast of the United States and Canada, following the great migration of the grey whales, the longest migration of any mammal. The book also meets a younger, childless Doreen who is Utqiagvik in Alaska, learning about bowhead whales, and joining Inupiaq people on their traditional whale hunt. Both of these stories are full of potential: there is space for the reader to learn about two fascinating species of whale, about migratory journeys, and about Inupiaq people and their relationship with whales. And Cunningham does touch on these subjects -- she writes in an interesting and persuasive way about how the Inupiaq, as subsistence hunters, understand the bowhead whales better than anyone else, and how their insight into, and respect for, the whale, is one of our more important examples of living alongside whales without destroying their habitats. However, everything in the book is filtered from Cunningham's perspective: we never learn about the whales without discovering what the whales mean to her, or learn a fact about climate change without it being filtered through a memory of Cunningham's own childhood. I was also frustrated by the emotional weight Cunningham places on the whales: she seems to expect their presence to heal her from a traumatic relationship and a difficult childhood, and looks to them for compassion and tenderness. It's important to resist the urge to anthropomorphize animals, and while studies have shown whales' complex language, societies and abilities, I do not believe they form special bonds with humans, or have a particular connection to us. Also, in most cases, the best thing we can do is leave the whales alone, and not try to pet them in their birthing lagoons or follow them in boots. If we truly loved them, we wouldn't follow them: Cunningham doesn't seem to understand that. I compared this to Sightings: The Gray Whales' Mysterious Journey by Brenda Peterson and Linda Hogan, which taught me much more about grey whales; to Fathoms by Rebecca Giggs, which is a careful, thoughtful study of whales and their history, and This Cold Heaven by Gretel Ehrlich, the most considered and thorough study of the arctic I've read, and found that Soundings was wanting every time. Too much of Cunningham's life is in this book, and she loses sight of the whales and of the Arctic culture she's writing about. It was nice to learn more about the bowhead though.