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Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
181 reviews
yajairat's review
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Came in expecting to learn about sea creatures, but I left this reading experience in awe of just how vast this world is and how similar their lives are to ours.
The essays were a beautiful mix of informative and personal. I like the fact that Imbler switched between the story of the sea creature and their own story every paragraph. Think it kept it nicely separated, but still saw the connections between them. They had some really poignant reflections on their youth, identity, sexuality, and big life events. Teared up at times not gonna lie!! One of my favorite reads of the year.
"In the animal kingdom, there are two ways to be a mother. Some animals can reproduce multiple times in the span of a life, others just once.... creatures like octopuses have no such maternal privileges. Their single shot at reproduction produces hundreds or thousands of babies, stacking the odds that at least a few will make it out alive... the octopus mother cannot leave her post to hunt. She survives on the stored energy of her body. She will never again see another place; this is her last view." - from the story "My Mother and the Starving Octopus", where a female octopus will starve herself while tending to her eggs, and dies once they hatch.
"I realize now that my mother's wish for me to be thin was, in its way, an act of love. She wanted me to be skinny so things would be easier. White, so things would be easier. Straight, so things would be easy, easy, easy. So that, unlike her, no one would ever question my right to be here, in America. I just wish I could tell her I've been okay without those things, that I've actually been better without them. I wish she would stop wanting those things too." - from "My Mother and the Starving Octopus"
"I predict I will always be in negotiation with my body, what it wants, and what I want of it."
"These animals eked out an alternative way of life. I prefer to think of it not as a last resort but as a radical act of choosing what nourishes you. As queer people, we get to choose our families. Vent bacteria, tube works, and yeti crabs just take it one step further." - from "Pure Life"
"I felt confused about why she never left, surrounded by the ghosts of the abuse and the trial and the hounding by the press. But I also understand the security that comes when you know a place and its ghosts. When you have seen the worst of it and survived." - from "Beware of the Sand Striker", Lorena Bobbitt's story and the bobbit worm that was named after her trauma
"Though prey can be caught off guard, can be surprised, can even be ambushed, prey is never truly unsuspecting. It has evolved the blueprint of its body in response to, or in anticipation of, trauma."
"Almost every system we exist in is cruel, and it is our job to hold ourselves accountable to a moral center separate from the arbitrary ganglion of laws that, so often, get things wrong. This is the work we inherit as creatures with a complex brain, which comes with inexplicable joys, like love and sex and making out in cars, but also the duty of empathy, of understanding what it means when someone is stumbling"
"Trauma is not just a catalyst to regeneration; it is the only catalyst"
"Maybe these moments teach me that this joy does not come from being around people who look like you but from people who are irritated in the same ways. Maybe home is the people who hear your rants and nod, because they know. Maybe complaining to someone who gets it is one of the purest comforts on Earth. Maybe it is less about our shared backgrounds than it is about our shared irritations, obsessions, grievances, fears, resentments. - from "Hybrids"
The essays were a beautiful mix of informative and personal. I like the fact that Imbler switched between the story of the sea creature and their own story every paragraph. Think it kept it nicely separated, but still saw the connections between them. They had some really poignant reflections on their youth, identity, sexuality, and big life events. Teared up at times not gonna lie!! One of my favorite reads of the year.
"In the animal kingdom, there are two ways to be a mother. Some animals can reproduce multiple times in the span of a life, others just once.... creatures like octopuses have no such maternal privileges. Their single shot at reproduction produces hundreds or thousands of babies, stacking the odds that at least a few will make it out alive... the octopus mother cannot leave her post to hunt. She survives on the stored energy of her body. She will never again see another place; this is her last view." - from the story "My Mother and the Starving Octopus", where a female octopus will starve herself while tending to her eggs, and dies once they hatch.
"I realize now that my mother's wish for me to be thin was, in its way, an act of love. She wanted me to be skinny so things would be easier. White, so things would be easier. Straight, so things would be easy, easy, easy. So that, unlike her, no one would ever question my right to be here, in America. I just wish I could tell her I've been okay without those things, that I've actually been better without them. I wish she would stop wanting those things too." - from "My Mother and the Starving Octopus"
"I predict I will always be in negotiation with my body, what it wants, and what I want of it."
"These animals eked out an alternative way of life. I prefer to think of it not as a last resort but as a radical act of choosing what nourishes you. As queer people, we get to choose our families. Vent bacteria, tube works, and yeti crabs just take it one step further." - from "Pure Life"
"I felt confused about why she never left, surrounded by the ghosts of the abuse and the trial and the hounding by the press. But I also understand the security that comes when you know a place and its ghosts. When you have seen the worst of it and survived." - from "Beware of the Sand Striker", Lorena Bobbitt's story and the bobbit worm that was named after her trauma
"Though prey can be caught off guard, can be surprised, can even be ambushed, prey is never truly unsuspecting. It has evolved the blueprint of its body in response to, or in anticipation of, trauma."
"Almost every system we exist in is cruel, and it is our job to hold ourselves accountable to a moral center separate from the arbitrary ganglion of laws that, so often, get things wrong. This is the work we inherit as creatures with a complex brain, which comes with inexplicable joys, like love and sex and making out in cars, but also the duty of empathy, of understanding what it means when someone is stumbling"
"Trauma is not just a catalyst to regeneration; it is the only catalyst"
"Maybe these moments teach me that this joy does not come from being around people who look like you but from people who are irritated in the same ways. Maybe home is the people who hear your rants and nod, because they know. Maybe complaining to someone who gets it is one of the purest comforts on Earth. Maybe it is less about our shared backgrounds than it is about our shared irritations, obsessions, grievances, fears, resentments. - from "Hybrids"
Content Warnings
Moderate: Eating disorder and Sexual assault
Minor: Racial slurs
threepigeons's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.75
A series of ten essays about sea creatures but also about the author's experiences as a chinese american, a queer person, a mixed race person, a person learning to be and become themself, all written in beautiful prose that makes the whole thing such a gorgeous experience. It's a book that filled me with awe and appreciation for not only the animals covered but also the lives of those around me and the many circles we all move in. This was awesome and you should read it! (I devoured this in two days during the middle of my work week pulling back to back 12hr shifts - it's Worth It)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Eating disorder and Sexual assault
elsakern's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Favourite essays: My Mother and the Starving Octopus, My Grandmother and the Sturgeon, We Swarm, Morphing Like a Cuttlefish, and Us Everlasting
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Alcoholism, and Eating disorder
jazhandz's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
I picked up this book because the marketing and blurb makes it sound like science nonfiction. It is not. It is a collection of personal essays that use marine as a metaphor. They’re beautiful essays, they’re very striking, but I was just intensely frustrated the whole time because of the marketing failure. I wanted the sea creatures to be the point of the book, and it didn’t feel like they were. Maybe I would rate this higher if I’d gone in knowing that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Animal death, and Eating disorder
Moderate: Alcoholism, Racism, Dysphoria, Body shaming, Sexual content, and War
Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Suicidal thoughts, Homophobia, and Racial slurs
crackhead_bex's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault and Eating disorder
jasperchandler01's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault
awildpreciouslife's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
4.5 ✨
"I want to imagine how I am continuing to live."
Beautiful, aching, so gentle in its tone. I'm so glad I picked this up. It made me miss being around queer community. And reminded me the joy of just being, and the joy of words.
"I want to imagine how I am continuing to live."
Beautiful, aching, so gentle in its tone. I'm so glad I picked this up. It made me miss being around queer community. And reminded me the joy of just being, and the joy of words.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault
jbosio's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I loved the writing and how the author was able to seamlessly compare sea creatures to their own life experience
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Sexual assault
lettuce_read's review against another edition
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Rape, and Eating disorder
Moderate: Racism and Homophobia
throwback682's review against another edition
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I have no idea how to describe this book. In short, it's a memoir told through the lens of dense scientific info about sea creatures. But that’s…. nowhere near accurate or at least nowhere near adequate.
Perhaps it’s a string of long strange similes that forces you to re-examine your assumptions about both marine life and humans.
How does a book flow seamlessly from Lorena Bobbitt to Brock Turner to dead whales to immortal jellyfish? From strap-ons to gender dysphoria to biracial identities to crabs huddled together on the edge of a volcanic vent at the bottom of the ocean? From mother octopuses starving to death for their babies to alcoholism to rape? From the NYC dyke march and the queer history of a tuberculosis hospital to cuttlefish camouflage? It shouldn’t all be able to fit in one book but it does and it’s spectacular. Example: at one point they perform a necropsy on an early queer relationship after a breakup.
I had to take breaks during some of the heavier subject matter and you should definitely check the trigger warnings but for me it was well worth the pain. What a brilliant piece of art. The synergy of all the myriad pieces of this book is extremely powerful.
Perhaps it’s a string of long strange similes that forces you to re-examine your assumptions about both marine life and humans.
How does a book flow seamlessly from Lorena Bobbitt to Brock Turner to dead whales to immortal jellyfish? From strap-ons to gender dysphoria to biracial identities to crabs huddled together on the edge of a volcanic vent at the bottom of the ocean? From mother octopuses starving to death for their babies to alcoholism to rape? From the NYC dyke march and the queer history of a tuberculosis hospital to cuttlefish camouflage? It shouldn’t all be able to fit in one book but it does and it’s spectacular. Example: at one point they perform a necropsy on an early queer relationship after a breakup.
I had to take breaks during some of the heavier subject matter and you should definitely check the trigger warnings but for me it was well worth the pain. What a brilliant piece of art. The synergy of all the myriad pieces of this book is extremely powerful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Sexual assault, Alcoholism, and Eating disorder
Moderate: Animal cruelty, War, Xenophobia, and Lesbophobia
Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic
TW: victim blaming, sexual assault