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A review by natbrick
Soundings: Journeys in the Company of Whales by Doreen Cunningham
3.0
3.7 stars to be specific! I'm going to give my general breakdown of this book in star ratings because I couldn't decide what to rate it overall:
- writing: 4.5/5
- imagery: 4/5
- describing characters: 4/5
- portrayal of mother-child relationship: 5/5 -- beautifully done
- cover: 5/5 (LOL I just love every version of the cover I've seen)
- pacing: 1.5/5 (this book was too slow for me, and while I know memoirs aren't going to be fast-paced, necessarily, I found myself wishing it would leave me with more of a cliff-hanger feeling)
The main themes I drew from this book: paralleling with whales' lives, similarities and differences between other mammal species when it comes to mothering/protecting their babies, RESILIENCE, birth/rebirth...
Climate change also played a big role in this book, of course, and while I appreciated that, I found some of the pages/sections that went into detailed statistics + quotes to be kinda boring. I didn't pick up this book for a history lesson nor a warning about climate change, and perhaps I was mislead in that regard. I wish there had been more STORY and less research, but I completely respect that the way I would approach a memoir is very different than how Cunningham did, and that makes her writing style no less valid! I do think I would've enjoyed this book more if I'd been a researcher of whales or really passionate about studying them. Some of the imagery was beautiful and the writing was wonderful, but I wanted to get lost in the story and instead, I found myself kinda lost in the recitation of facts and numbers.
- writing: 4.5/5
- imagery: 4/5
- describing characters: 4/5
- portrayal of mother-child relationship: 5/5 -- beautifully done
- cover: 5/5 (LOL I just love every version of the cover I've seen)
- pacing: 1.5/5 (this book was too slow for me, and while I know memoirs aren't going to be fast-paced, necessarily, I found myself wishing it would leave me with more of a cliff-hanger feeling)
The main themes I drew from this book: paralleling with whales' lives, similarities and differences between other mammal species when it comes to mothering/protecting their babies, RESILIENCE, birth/rebirth...
Climate change also played a big role in this book, of course, and while I appreciated that, I found some of the pages/sections that went into detailed statistics + quotes to be kinda boring. I didn't pick up this book for a history lesson nor a warning about climate change, and perhaps I was mislead in that regard. I wish there had been more STORY and less research, but I completely respect that the way I would approach a memoir is very different than how Cunningham did, and that makes her writing style no less valid! I do think I would've enjoyed this book more if I'd been a researcher of whales or really passionate about studying them. Some of the imagery was beautiful and the writing was wonderful, but I wanted to get lost in the story and instead, I found myself kinda lost in the recitation of facts and numbers.