A review by lindsayholladay
Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction by Michelle Nijhuis

3.0

While I enjoyed some of the chapters, especially the early narrative ones, this book overall felt disjointed, sterile, and NOT about beasts. I understand the the author herself admitted from the start that the conservation movement is a fraught, imperfect institution mostly made up of white males, but really? We couldn’t find a single conservationist of color (spoiler: until the VERY final chapter) or even a woman who deserved an entire chapter in this whiplash-inducing march through history? I really wanted to learn a lot but was left more confused by the jumping back and forth in time, the relentless name-dropping, and the total lack of actual beloved beasts.