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A review by gigireadswithkiki
Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
An incredibly insightful read that tied together fascinating observations on marine mammals with reflections on how their habits can help influence human day to day lives, Undrowned was a book I digested slowly, one passage at a time, over the course of 2 days. The ways that Alexis Pauline Gumbs presented the anecdotes on marine mammals was engaging, detaching from the colonialist, patriarchal, and capitalist "factual" approach that is so often seen in guidebooks of any era. The line in the introduction about the contradiction of how scientists are told to be objective when writing, when objectivity doesn't exist within human identity hit me so strongly!
Within these stories, I loved seeing how Gumbs showed how the animals' livelihoods could be a tool for being more present, for divesting from capitalism, for learning to rest, and so much more. The writing itself was verbose and poetic, though at times I found some passages to be too overly winding and directionless. I really enjoyed all the different modes of learning this book provided and I'm definitely interested in perhaps annotating my own copy of this book in the future!
Within these stories, I loved seeing how Gumbs showed how the animals' livelihoods could be a tool for being more present, for divesting from capitalism, for learning to rest, and so much more. The writing itself was verbose and poetic, though at times I found some passages to be too overly winding and directionless. I really enjoyed all the different modes of learning this book provided and I'm definitely interested in perhaps annotating my own copy of this book in the future!