CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian's Reviews > How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures

I think my expectations for this book of hybrid memoir / essays was a bit too high, so I ended up being disappointed. Although I enjoyed both aspects of Imbler's writing -- science journalism about interesting sea creatures and personal stories about their queer identity and experiences -- the essays felt like two alternating threads that weren't well integrated.

I also thought thematically the connections between the sea creatures and Imbler's life didn't quite resonate. Although I loved the idea of combining these two disparate genres, the execution didn't work for me. That said, I learned a lot of cool stuff about the ocean and its inhabitants that I won't forget and I appreciated getting this information from a queer feminist mixed race perspective. I would have liked a book that was just that better, I think.

I read this as an audiobook, which was fine, but I might have appreciated the writing more in print. The author reads the book themselves, which made sense, but when someone who isn't a performer does an audiobook it's never as good as when someone who is does. It was cool to hear Imbler's smile and laugh sometimes when they read certain lines.