aardwyrm 's review for:

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

2.5

emotional informative slow-paced

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Not being for me does not innately mean a book is bad, so if there is someone out there who knows absolutely nothing about either natural history or queer theory and wants to, they might enjoy this. The actual information, when it's there, is fine, but very, very basic. Most of the book's fun facts and mini biographies are things anyone with the slightest interest in the subject matter would already know, and the queer theory is similarly simple and childish, tumblr-blog 101 stuff. The personal essay intertwined with the topic of scientific interest is a hard balance to strike, and this is maybe 90% personal blathering that simply isn't good or interesting. It's overripe and half-baked. Respect other ways of being, but anthropomorphize everything. Criticize western colonialist capitalism in the flattest terms while posing everything else as utopian. I don't even disagree with much of what she says, but the sugary swill that surrounds it makes for a smothering experience. Nature is very queer! What if one explored that instead of just dubbing everything one likes queer and working backwards from there, though? The silly blandness takes a lot from the substance is all.