Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

26 reviews

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.

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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

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 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Sexual assault

dreareads_'s review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

There is so much about this book to love. I love the way Sabrina is so open and honest about their life, identity, and existence. Each essay provides us with a glimpse to their story, a story that is intertwined with a love for sea creatures and science that only Sabrina can blend together. By portraying their life through sea creatures, Sabrina opened the door for strangers to walk in and see a world that is both familiar and strange. Of all the essays I must say that my favorites were definitely "If You Flush A Goldfish" and "We Swarm". Two essays that felt both deeply personal and universal at the same time.

The only reason I do not give this book 5 stars is because there were a couple of essays where the chosen sea creatures and scientific discussions did not easily blend with the story that Sabrina was presenting at the time. 

Regardless, I cannot help but love a book where I learn a lot and feel even more. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Eating disorder, Racial slurs, Bullying, Cultural appropriation, Drug use, Sexual content, Blood, Dysphoria, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Grief, Racism, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Rape, and Sexual assault

ocoury23's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

3.5

*Trigger warnings for book: non-consensual sex and references to eating disorders

*Review based on experiencing the book as an audiobook 

I enjoyed this book, especially since the author narrated the audiobook themself, so you can really appreciate the stories as they are meant to be told. Each chapter is a different story, perspective, or experience of the author, paired with a unique sea creature to which a metaphor is created. While I appreciated learning about each of the unique animals, some of the metaphors and descriptive language was a bit exaggerated, while others were beautifully conveyed. I really appreciated getting to see the perspective of the author - someone whose life I will never be able to live, but I feel more enriched for having gleaned the smallest glance at their experiences. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content and Eating disorder

albernikolauras's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

A memoir that uses sea creatures as framing and metaphor. This is a lovely memoir that freely winds between life experiences and facts on the sea creatures the chapter references. Imbler's writing can lean a tad overly metaphorical, but the audiobook made this barely an issue. Imbler's chapters are more like essays exploring different aspects of themselves and their lives than a chronological memoir, which I felt worked perfectly for the format and the discussions they wanted to have.

Essays cross subjects like race, gender, queer romance, and complicated parents.

My favorite essays were "Starving Octopus" and "We Swarm."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism

Moderate: Fatphobia, Sexual content, and Rape

fellowshipofthebroom's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Sexual assault, and Rape

Moderate: Dysphoria, Sexual assault, Rape, Sexual content, Racism, and Xenophobia

modernbookwoman's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content

maddiearthur's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, and Sexual content

ambert's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.5

 I'll be honest, when I first saw this book as one of the nominees for Goodread's book of the year I thought that it was a book that would follow sea creatures as they interact in the ocean. Almost like a food chain, going deeper into the sea as time goes on.
I have never been happier to be wrong about a book's topic.
This is an incredibly poignant memoir for those who don't quite know who they are, but know they are getting there. Each essay is an examination of an amazing sea creature and their unique social or morphological attributes, intertwined with experiences from the author's life. 
My favorite of the essays has to be 'My Mother and the Starving Octopus', where Imbler connects an extraordinary Mother Octopus who stands vigil over her eggs for an astonishing 53 months, and how her mother's body image affects how Imbler sees herself. VERY relatable. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Eating disorder, Dysphoria, Body shaming, and Sexual content

Moderate: Sexual assault, War, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Alcoholism, and Animal death

Minor: Bullying, Alcohol, and Drug use

One of the chapters (octopus) deals with body image, both theirs and their mother's. It also covers eating disorders, wanting an eating disorder to become skinny, fatshaming themselves, etc. Another chapter (sandstriker) deals with sexual assault, alcoholism, and has the most sexual content out of any other chapter. Many chapters talk about the unfortunate fact of marine biology research being: The best way to learn about an animal is to take a carcass of one for a specimen. This results in many researchers having to kill the animal they are studying so that they can dissect it or preserve it for later studying. Another chapter (sturgeon) details the jopurney her grandmother took to escape japanese-controlled China in the 1940s, and the realities of war. Later chapters deal with their transition and how they still struggle with body dysmorphia, and many chapters speak about the racism they face today.

rogue_leader's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Mental illness, and Sexual content