This book has interesting tidbits, but it is a bit unfocused--particularly when it comes to the author's personal reminiscences. These meanderings detract from the power of the book.

I have mixed feelings about this book. The writing is beautiful. The author definately knows how to write. However, the combination of essay/ nature writing (minimal science involved)/ anecdotes/ personal stories doesn't really work for me. The parts that included nature were simply too superficial and the rest was too autobiographical. Whole chapters were dedicated to the author's reminiscences, everything from Godzilla to baseball. Each chapter covers a separate topic that is vaguely tied together under ecological misfits. Each chapter reads like a magazine article or essay (which some of them appear to have started out as). Very little of the ecological information was new to me, so I got a bit bored reading superficial personal stories. If you like depressing memoirs with a touch of haphazard nature, you might like this book. If you were expecting something of substance in terms of ecology or animal life, you won't find it in this book.


WARNING: Book contains descriptions of animal cruelty.

This book revolves around pests, invasive unwanted species around the world and how humans treat/deal with them. More often than not, it’s not a pretty picture. It’s startling when they’re compiled like this, in a book. It really shows what humans are capable of doing.

As my progress inches closer to 50%, Pandora’s Garden has become more of an anecdote rather than a documentary-style book, which I wasn’t expecting. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that – I’ve just been expecting a more different presentation and approach, and in doing so has set myself up for disappointment. For example, there are extensive sections talking about baseball and Godzilla; I just wanted to get through it and read more about nature.

I had trouble focusing because at times because it takes 2-3 paragraphs to get back to the ecology misfit at hand. These deviations and detours are related but arranged…backwards? That’s how it was for me, at least. In my humble opinion, the arrangement at certain parts could’ve used more editing.

The writing style seems like a direct dictation or spoken word; When we speak, there are intonations and pauses that our audience can hear. However, when we write down exactly what we say it doesn’t make sense at times. Have you ever tried watching muted TV shows in waiting rooms (hospitals, etc.) that have Closed Captions (CCs) enabled? The sentences are nonsensical unless you tried hearing them in your own head. That’s how I feel when reading this book. Sometimes I have to conjure intonations and pauses in my head so the sentences can make sense.

While the cover of the book doesn't explicitly reveal this, Peters' book flip-flops between full-on examinations of plant and animal life that famously don't sit well with human occupancy and periods of introspection by the author---recollections and thoughts regarding troubled relationships, unique life experiences, and him working (i.e. learning from) those moments.

Pandora's Garden is most certainly at its strongest when it focuses on the "misfits" of nature---kudzu, rattlesnakes, prairie dogs, etc.---and the author, recollecting his journeys into learning about the subject matter, provides fantastic descriptive writing to fan away any recurring issues that come with books about nature, such as the clinical candor that can turn a reader away from a nonetheless great book lickety-split.

The moments that Peters pauses to relay and tie his life experiences to either a particular chapter or the book as a whole are interesting, sure, but some border on non-sequitur and can be pretty jarring until you finally figure out the cadence. The chapter on Godzilla was a swell read and I'm thankful for it, but why not tie it into a chapter on a oft-scorned species of lizard? The unfortunate result of examples like this is that to me, the reader, the book's aim starts to appear to unravel, to become a more spastic read, and then I can more easily lose focus on what the author is trying to convey. If I have to stop and ask, "What are we talking about, again?", especially in a book with such a rich writing style, then the thing's off the beaten path a bit.

At this time, I believe that I've read a book that has a lot of heart and does indeed contain a considerable amount of information about animals and plants; I learned quite a bit, actually, and I'm quite convinced that Peters did sufficient research to that regard. There is also a good book in here about a guy finding himself, contemplating various thoughts from existentialism to working out father issues. I just don't think that these two books should be coalesced (in this manner, at least). If this book was primarily about his personal struggles and you had injected examples of nature's outliers to demarcate sessions/periods a la how the book (or film) High Fidelity utilized music, that might have played out better. Gripes aside, though, I wouldn't be surprised if Peters churned out a book to substantially eclipse this one someday. He's obviously a gifted writer.

Many thanks to NetGalley for the advance read.