Reviews with content warning for Self harm - Los peces no existen

Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

Los peces no existen by Lulu Miller

43 reviews

nawakhtha's review against another edition

informative inspiring medium-paced

3.75

A book about David Starr Jordan where the author researched him to find out his source of perseverance in the face of chaos. It starts off rather annoyingly as it was mainly discussing Jordan in a positive light and might seem to ignore the deeply concerning and hypocritical aspects of his legacy, but this all gets addressed in the second half of the book. The first half of the book also has the author taking a tone of scientific and atheistic snobbery at times (not really excessive, just to the point where I personally found it mildly annoying), but it mellows out as the book progresses which ends up painting a nice picture of how the journey of researching Jordan’s life has transformed the author. I expected to dislike this book quite a bit, but my feelings on that shifted the more I got into it which I think adds a lot to how I was able to feel the author’s transformation through her journey. It was also rather gripping and written smoothly enough that I was still able to enjoy it throughout.
The illustrations in the beginning of every chapter are beautiful.

It does contain references to self harm, eugenics, and forced sterilization. I personally thought those topics were handled well by the author, but it’s worth mentioning in-case you just generally don’t want to engage with these topics at this point in your life.

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royalmilktea's review against another edition

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informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

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katiezew's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

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cass_lit's review against another edition

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3.0

There is a certain category of nonfiction that doesn’t work for me. This started off like that and I was worried.

I had no idea where this was going for most of this book. It seemed in the beginning like a stream of consciousness about “chaos” as the author worked through some thoughts on dependency (her dad, her ~curly haired~ ex-boyfriend). (All of her thoughts there are totally valid, I just don’t get a lot of enjoyment out of reading them.) I did not understand her obsession with David Starr Jordan at first, but then she started telling us all of the shitty things he did and I REALLY did not understand why he deserved a book that wasn’t focused on setting his reputation straight. When someone uses his power to cover sexual assault with threats and potentially murders someone (and definitely gaslights the hell out of her after her death), I’m simply not interested in the psychology behind why he did it. He did it and he was wrong. In my opinion, the author’s desperation to find out why Jordan was like this felt like she was trying to find an excuse for him.

The last ~1/4 or so of the book truly saved it for me. Miller felt like she was unequivocally calling Jordan a bad person, and she even got a little vindictive - deservedly. The threads of the story finally started to make some sense and I could find a point to why she wrote this. I am in awe of Anna and Mary’s strength for getting through what they did; they’re a great model of what women (and all humans!) can be, no matter what depraved narcissists have said. I also didn’t know that “fish” wasn’t considered a scientific classification any longer, so it was equally as interesting as it was satisfying.

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dark emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

The audiobook, read by Miller, is delightful!

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