austin1314's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
Absolutely wonderful
lhhrmn's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 rounded up; a surprising rating from me for this one! A few chapters in I was afraid this was too dry/ too biographical (without Miller's memoir piece) / too philosophical, but the length of the chapters and book as a whole kept it from getting away from itself. Some of the philosophy was surely over my head and I think I was on to Jordan before she seemed to unearth his not-so-great side, but the pacing and story arc worked out well enough that I, who isn't often into non-fiction/memoirs/philosophy wanted to read to the end and see where this one went.
mishellsch's review against another edition
4.0
3.5/5 I would’ve rated this lower but that long epilogue tied it all up beautifully. This book is much more of a biography on David Starr Jordan (who was a colonialist, racist, ableist, misogynist, @$$) with Lulu Miller’s own life and opinions sprinkled in. Then there’s like the 5-10% science and history. I wish more time was spent on the science aspect rather than rushed through at the end.
connerubert's review against another edition
5.0
The best book about the taxonomy of "fish" and understanding Purpose I've ever read.
siphonophorae's review against another edition
2.0
Any parallels between Why Fish Don’t Exist and Svensson’s Book of Eels end as quickly as they begin. In blending descriptions of her personal life and David Starr Jordan’s, Miller disengages the reader from both. As a fish taxonomy obsessive, this should be the perfect book for me; the fact that I struggled to finish its 200 pages signifies a failure of the writer. Lulu Miller is quite promising as a writer and I do anticipate she will go far. I just don’t think this book deserves to accompany her.
khagan's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5