arellareads 's review for:

Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian

4.5

---

At the start, I expected this to be a typical nature-inspired memoir. Yet Kaishian subverted my expectations in a wonderful way—while subverting traditional societal ideas around the intersection of nature, science, and queerness. 

The book is united by the theme of “otherness” in the natural world, with each chapter filling in the pieces through engaging and powerful anecdotes about swamplands, mating rituals, “creepy crawlies,” and so on. I especially love the observations Kaishian shares, as a mycological scientist, about fungal systems being a symbol of community and a disruption to colonialist and conqueror narratives. I’m very passionate about labor rights and third spaces, and her ongoing insights on “community time” versus “clock time” really resonated. 

Overall, this is an exceptionally beautiful and well-researched piece that I’d recommend to anyone who’s willing to go into it with an open mind. “What [fungi] show us, completely and utterly, is that all life is interdependent.”