Fathoms: The World in the Whale

This is maybe a 3.5 star for me. I learned a fair amount and certain parts were very interesting, and I love learning about Whales. The parts about their vision and whalefalls and how whales are impacted and impact the environment and the parts about whale songs were fantastic. I wanted to give this book 5 stars just for that.

Alas.

Two major problems arise here, both relating to writing style. The first is just an extreme lack of focus. The author would take huge tangents away from the central subject. I would zone out on audio for just a second and suddenly she'd be discussing the history of plastic manufacturing or Japanese cuisine history. None of it was TOTALLY unrelated, but I'd be left wondering, “Is this long tangent necessary?”.

The second problem is that the author was determined to write this in the most pretenscious way possible. I am honestly baffled that she thought it was a good idea. Why would you overwrite a book about whales this much? Understand the general public. I consider myself well read with good reading comprehension and half the time she would say five nonsense sentences that sounded lyrical but didn't mean anything at all. It was severely off-putting. If I had read it physically, I probably would have DNF'd. It was a bit easier to bare as an audiobook; I could just float right past the unnecessary words.

A decent read overall, but I would only recommend if you really enjoy the subject matter.