A review by absolutereality
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

dark emotional reflective fast-paced

2.0

I use the term “pretentious” very judiciously when describing a book. Some people call a book “pretentious” when what they mean is, “This book used a lot of multisyllabic words I didn’t immediately recognize,” or, “The tension in this book is mostly derived from character development, but I prefer a plot-driven book.” I use “pretentious” to describe books that assume an aura of importance or novelty that is not justified by the writing.

HOW FAR THE LIGHT REACHES is pretentious.

This might be a good book for someone new to queerness, multi-racial Asian identity, or cool sea creatures, but if you know anything about those three topics, then this book does not offer many novel insights.

I did find the essay My Grandmother and the Sturgeon to be quite captivating, and I think it is worth reading if you can pick this up from the library.

However, Hybrids was the low point of this essay collection, because I do not care for essays that include meta-commentary on what you almost wrote that would have made the essay worse.

First, by including the thing you say you are not going to write about, you are by definition writing about it.

Second, I just want to read a good essay, not bits and bobs of a bad essay. The author somehow wants me to think highly of their writing ability by pointing out all the ways they thought about writing badly but didn't. Good writing will speak for itself.

Third, if you start the essay by saying you will not write the multi-racial Asian essay cliches, I would expect something more interesting than yet another examination of what it means to be asked, “What are you?”

p.s., If you are not writing about art, then you get one “chiaroscuro” per book.