A review by boosterfan2021
Being A Beast by Charles Foster

3.5

This was a very strange philosophical/practical exploration of our relationship with animals and our identity as humans. I found some sections of it very moving and found some great quotes to ponder on. I did feel that Foster lacked a little bit of direction and the chapters didn't seem to have any system to them. He didn't provide much context and jumped straight into the 'being a beast' sections without much explanation about why he was doing this, how he could go about it or where he was arriving at this desire to understand various philosophical questions. It felt slightly too 'artistic' for my taste without enough grounding in reality. I found his connection to animals and the natural world to be slightly odd. This may have been partly due to the aforementioned lack of context as to his life in relation to the environment. 

However, I did find the exploration of animal identity interesting and I thought he wrapped up his ponderings well in the epilogue. I would want to go back and highlight some of the best quotes in this book because there were many that made me feel really seen.