Reviews - The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion - Surprising Observations of a Hidden World

270 reviews for:

The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion - Surprising Observations of a Hidden World

It's refreshing to have someone push back against the anti- anthropomorphism however i disagree with some observations that we're made. The truth is that we just don't know what animals feel and I personally believe it varies widely even among animals of the same species. I struggled to stay focused on this book hence the low rating

alwaysaloaf's review against another edition

5.0

emotional funny lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

kkjensen's review against another edition

4.0

Took me a while to finish despite it being such a small book. A lot of reviewers wrote that there was no science behind his beliefs -they seem to have missed the point. He incorporated science/studies when they were available which underscored his entire point that there are limited studies pertaining to this subject matter. I enjoyed reading his hypothesis about animals but sometimes I did not follow his reasoning. But overall I adamantly agree with his belief that the human species need to be more kind to other species on this planet.

bex5050's review against another edition

3.25

informative relaxing medium-paced

mischief_in_the_library's review against another edition

3.0

Do you know what, I would've absolutely loved this if I'd read if as a teen. The anecdotes are sweet and it's always a fun surprise when Peter mentions yet another type of animal he has owned and cared for.

It wasn't what I was expecting, which was probably a bit more of a scientific and factual exploration into this topic. The chapters are very short and skip from anecdote to anecdote with a few references to studies in between. Peter gives away what he thinks of scientific exploration towards the end when he says something like, we can spare ourselves the boring science study. There are also a couple of times when he mentions what science says and then immediately disagrees with it and provides an anecdote as evidence. The claims could be made with more sophisticated arguments, but overall probably just a subheading that indicates its more of a musing on how lots of animal behaviours might be caused by similar emotional experiences might give readers a clearer idea what the book is about.