Reviews

I loved this book! It really inspired me to read more nonfiction this year. This book is super readable while still satisfying my scientific brain. It reads super fast and is so interesting. It’s unfair but the only reason it’s not a 5⭐️ is that there are so many descriptions of the island and where they are, I needed a map in the book. I love penguins so this is probably why I picked it up, but I learnt so much, and was even a good bedtime read.

wordsmithreads's review

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4.0

Every figure about Antarctic marine species is the result of an enormous output of time and labor. For every single dot on a graph scientists present to clean-cut diplomats and policy-makers, there is a grimy field worker like me, stationed on an isolated island, surrounded by penguins, covered in penguin muck and smelling like fermented shrimp, writing down metrics and surveys in an equally grimy field notebook. For every long-term population trend reported in a journal article, there are decades of field biologists standing in wind and snow, monitoring penguins or penguins, hitting tally whackers with numb fingers, far from family and friends and anything resembling human civilization. Our lives are tied to the weather, the season, and the wildlife itself.
It’s not glamorous work. You’re dropped on this frigid island with four other people and no privacy. Your body is buffeted by the elements. Your mind strains under the work’s demands. Your heart is rubbed raw with beauty. You live among wild things in a wild place, stand on a stark island facing your own stark nature. There are no shops, no roads, no TVs, no trails, no distractions from the machinations of your own mind. Just a handful of lonely shelters, your crew, the wind, the rocks, and the penguins.

[b:Lab Girl|25733983|Lab Girl|Hope Jahren|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1441826687l/25733983._SX50_.jpg|45572105] meets [b:Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North|25773791|Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North|Blair Braverman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1458594651l/25773791._SY75_.jpg|45622533], with a sprinkle of [b:Migrations|42121525|Migrations|Charlotte McConaghy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1612818084l/42121525._SY75_.jpg|65230718]. de Gracia is the daughter of journalists, but at her heart, she is a field worker — drawn to the data collection and minutiae of animal life, even if she doesn’t know anything about the animal upon arriving. (I was especially struck by this: she arrives at the camp and points at an animal in the distance, exclaiming "Look! A penguin!" because even though she is going to be doing data collection on penguins for 5 months, she doesn't know what one penguin type looks like versus another.)

de Gracia wrote this a little like a diary, weaving in her day to day, the moods of her crew and her thoughts on climate change, but also tried to make it a story about the Antarctic, weaving in tales of Shackleton, Amundsen, and other polar explorers. If you are generally interested in the Antarctic or penguins but haven't read much about them before, this is a good place to start — de Gracia writes with some poetic flair and is fairly accessible.

I think this could have used a little stricter editing, which is why this is 4 and not 5. We jump around a good amount, and I heard about her recipes and cooking a few too many separate times. And leave poor Matt alone! My goodness, this man is obviously wants a moment to himself, we didn't need to hear over and over how he secludes himself elsewhere.