Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

The Gospel of the Eels by Patrik Svensson

17 reviews

bookbrig's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

3.25

Ugh what an ending. Learned lots of eel facts!
Author lost their dad to cancer at the end of the book.
Not an ideal read for me right now.

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courtofsmutandstuff's review against another edition

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informative

4.0

Eels are fucking weird y'all. 
I picked this up because of a TikTok where a girl was info dumping about how eels can only reproduce in the Sargasso Sea and I went very quickly from 1) OMG how cool/weird, 2) that can't possibly be true, 3) there's a book?! I must read it. 
The Eel Question is intriguing, and before that TikTok and this book I had no idea that eels had such an interesting life cycle: they spawn in the Sargasso Sea, travel up the Atlantic to either North America or Europe (though Svensson is mostly concerned with the European variant), then go through several Pokemon type stages of evolution, before the final, sexually mature version grows reproductive organs and travels back to the Sargasso Sea to reproduce and then die shortly thereafter. Svensson talks about several famous people (including of all people Sigmund Freud) who studied eels, and it's incredibly interesting (I particularly liked the depth and breadth he had of subjects, including his focus on Aristotle, Freud, Schmidt, and Carson). 
Svensson also alternates the scientific chapters with more memoir-esc chapters about fishing for eels with his father (and later his family in general), which has sweet moments and provides a nice contrast. However, if you were looking for a purely scientific book, you may be frustrated by the alternating chapters that are more about spending time with his father and eel fishing techniques than the scientific aspect of eels. I enjoy memoirs so it wasn't a dealbreaker for me. 
There are also some incredibly poetic passages as well, and the voice of the book is nice. The audiobook narrator was good as well. 
This is a solid book to pick up if you would like to learn about a completely unique animal.

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sunburntghost's review against another edition

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informative slow-paced

5.0


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marionlundqvist's review against another edition

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informative lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.0


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cammack1022's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0


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foxo_cube's review against another edition

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informative reflective relaxing medium-paced

4.0

 A very pensive book that's half memoir and half... collection, I suppose, of historical and scientific anecdote.

The book starts with an overview of eels, and progresses more or less chronologically, both throughout the author's childhood up to his father's death, and through the development of scientific knowledge of the eel and its prospects in the world today. It's not an in-depth icthyological text, but contains a lot of interesting information alongside its more human, emotional facets.

It reads a little flowery at times, but I tend to like that sort of thing, honestly. The chapters about eels tend to have some sort of message or life philosophy at their conclusion, and the author will often relate said message to the memoir chapters. I think that works well as a way of making the book flow as a whole.

The book caught my attention initially because I thought the cover art was pretty, and the strangeness of the poetical musings about eels that I saw when I flicked through seemed both intriguing and kind of funny to me in concept, but it does mostly manage to avoid being too silly. It certainly does its job at conveying Svensson's fascination with eels, and makes it pretty infectious, too. 

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tinyfrogwizard's review against another edition

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4.0

I did not expect to get emotional when I picked up this book but the last few chapters really hit me. I learned about eels and nearly cried at work while listening to the audiobook.

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mateoj's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

yes I am crying about eels! you would cry about eels too if you read this book! 

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and_opossum's review against another edition

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funny informative lighthearted reflective fast-paced

4.0


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mscalls's review against another edition

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emotional informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

3.75


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