In the opening pages of the stunning and thoughtful essay collection How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures, science journalist Sabrina Imbler recalls the first time they wrote about an octopus and how it made them think of their mother: "I discovered unexpected, surprising resonances that cracked open what I knew about the ocean and myself." Expanding on that first essay (included in this collection as "My Mother and the Starving Octopus"), How Far the Light Reaches continues that tradition, weaving together the oceanic and the human in thought-provoking reflections on queerness, race, family, love and identity along the way.

Recalling their senior thesis on whales in "How to Draw a Sperm Whale," Imbler notes the many ways "we shoehorn distinctions between ourselves and other animals, often harming both of us." Through the lens of Imbler's life and experiences, each essay in this collection serves to collapse the distance implied by those distinctions. They compare their grandmother's flight from the Japanese occupation of Shanghai to the nearly impossible 1,900-mile upstream journey sturgeon make from the sea to fresh-water breeding grounds in "My Grandmother and the Sturgeon." In "Us Everlasting," Imbler considers the role of trauma in the regeneration of immortal jellyfish--and in human identities. Imbler draws life lessons from salps in "We Swarm," noting that these transparent marine mammals move at different paces but reach a collective destination only when working together.

This balance of science and memoir blends seamlessly across each essay in Imbler's collection. Little-known bits of trivia about sea creatures (Did you know that a mother octopus does not eat while protecting her eggs, slowly dying as they grow? Or that cuttlefish can not only change color but texture as part of their self-protection mechanism?) sit aside startlingly clear reflections on what it is to be Imbler, to be one's own self, to be human ("I do not want to feel resolved about myself.... I want to imagine how I am continuing to live"). Tender and candid, How Far the Light Reaches is a poignant invitation into the depths of ocean life and a call to consider what nature can reveal about the human condition from a brilliant and poetic writer. --Kerry McHugh, freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: This tender and thoughtful essay collection draws parallels between oceanic life and what it means to be human as it explores queerness, race, family, love and identity.

How Far the Light Reaches is a blend of science fiction and memoir by Sabrina Imbler. There are ten short essays that connect marine life to Imbler's own life experiences as a queer, mixed-race journalist. Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
This collection is for anyone interested in science, memoirs, and both, of course. But more than that, I feel that this collection could be a powerfully relatable read to many readers out there. While I do not share much in common with the author, I can see how their experiences could help other readers feel seen and known through shared experiences.
Like with every collection, there are essays I felt were stronger than others. I think my favorites were My Grandmother and the Sturgeon (very emotional, clear connection, conservation is touched upon) and Morphing Like a Cuttlefish (this one was the most eye-opening for me, and I felt I could really learn something from it).

If You Flush a Goldfish: I feel the connection between the science-related parts and the real-life application wasn't very strong in this one, but I took it as relating goldfish taking over any biome they're thrown into to people prospering when they are allowed to branch out.

My Mother and the Starving Octopus: This was a contender for my top favorites due to its emotional nature. Imbler delivers incredibly sad topics in a matter-of-fact way that somehow makes them more impactful. It speaks on eating disorders, how body dysmorphia can be passed from parent to child, and struggles with one's identity.

My Grandmother and the Sturgeon: This one was one of the hardest to read as it touches on very serious topics both from Imbler's grandmother's history as well as the history and future of sturgeons.

How to Draw a Sperm Whale: I learned quite a bit from this one, and it also packed lots of emotion. Imbler uses necropsy reports as a way to detail past relationships. I feel like this one was super personal and I commend anyone who is able to write personal things such as this out for the world to read.

Pure Life: This one discusses hydrothermal vents and yeti crabs in particular, a deep sea creature that has adapted to the pressures of living so far below. Imbler relates these topics to the queer experience after the 2016 election and finding safe spaces.

Beware the Sand Striker: I think this is the one I can relate to the most, and I love the thoughts Imbler added to the end of this essay (about how they wish more men would help protect women in vulnerable positions rather than seeing them as an opportunity). They connect the steps certain prey take to avoid sand strikers to the experiences females have of growing up being told how to protect themselves from predatory men. Again, somehow Imbler talks about extremely hard topics in a matter-of-fact way but still makes them impactful.

Hybrids: The connection between the hybrid butterflyfish and their experience as a half Asian half White person was very clear. As someone who doesn't share this experience, it was interesting in an eye-opening way to hear about someone's own relationship with their identity.

We Swarm: This essay connects salp (small, jelly-like creatures) swarms to LGBTQ+ parades and the community. At one point, Imbler mentions that major for-profit companies only care about the LGBTQ+ cause when they have room to profit, and while I never made that connection before it makes sense now.

Morphing Like a Cuttlefish: The author is incredibly open in this one, but I think it was for the right reasons. Gender fluidity, I feel, isn't talked about in super open/public spaces much, so a lot of people (like myself) have little to no understanding. I think this essay offered the most to learn in an encompassing way (about cuttlefish, about the author, and about gender fluidity). While one person's experience isn't everyone's, I think hearing people's perspectives is the first way to gain knowledge.

Us Everlasting: I think it was smart and powerful to have this for the final essay and to include other queer STEM people's perspectives as well. Immortal jellyfish are the topic for discussion on the science end, and I think the information we get on them is one of the more interesting of the marine life.

Overall, this is an exceptionally put-together collection of essays and I am SO GLAD I found it.

Equal parts queer memoir and science writing about life in the deep. If the conceit felt a bit forced at times, it was more than outweighed by the many parts of this I loved. Insightful examination of nature through a queer lens, and careful examination of self through a nature lens.

Great read, although I found the natural history elements of the book a bit more interesting than the autobiographical sections.

An original bio linking life, queerness, and struggle with different marine animals.
Engaging and thoughtful

A really stunning memoir/science hybrid that left me thinking deeply about all we do and do not yet know about ocean life--and how the sea and its fascinating, misunderstood creatures might help us envision what it means to be truly alive. Highly recommend.

This book is more memoir than science. It's beautifully written but not for me. DNF at 25%.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Imbler's work manages to be intimate, educational, and heart-wrenching all at once, no mean feat. They nimbly thread the line between erudite nature writing which captivates me with its empathy, respect, and knowledge for the creatures it describes and a thoughtful memoir which tugs at my heartstrings. I highly recommend this book to those who love queer memoir, nature and science writing, or who want to read something simply beautiful.

I really liked this book! I loved how the author compared various aspects of their life with that of sea creatures. It was such a unique way to tell their story. I feel like we, as humans, underestimate the creatures around us and don't realize just how alike our lives really are. The author presented these similarities in a way that made the book instantly relatable. Will absolutely be recommending this to patrons in the future.

This incandescent essay collection felt like targeted content for me. Personal essays about being a young queer/trans Asian American through the lens of facts about sea life? It could not be more perfect. Imbler’s warm and speculative personal tone is a good match for their precise, but not too scientific, explication of sea creatures from goldfish to immortal jellyfish. Imbler is unafraid to let nonhumans stand simultaneously as subjects and metaphors, to set a genuine fascination at their lives alongside what they can help us understand about human life.

I love this collection for the way an octopus mother is a window into eating disorder, whales into a first relationship, sales into queer community. A final collaboratively written essay imagining the many lives of the immortal jellyfish is an excellent touch. If I could characterize all the essays with one overarching mood, it is defiant exuberance—finding clear moments amidst the pain, pursuing wonder and a better world. Because if paying a little attention to the largely understudied, vastly unknown oceans can tell us one thing, it’s that what may seem impossible to us on land—aging backwards, living in a hot lava flow; alternatively, unencumbered queer joy—might already be happening underwater—that is to say, on this very earth.

Highly recommend this one—I’ll certainly be returning to it.

I'd heard some buzz around this and saw it was up for request on NetGalley, so I decided to request this on a whim. As it turns out, this was a fantastic whim, and one of my favorite non fiction reads so far this year. Imbler juxtaposes some interesting deep dives on some weird sea creatures from the deeps against their own queer and cultural awakenings in each essay. They also manage to transition easily between the more scientific writing and their own personal writing. I also know a bunch of queer folks, myself included, who relate deeply to sea animals, so it's great to be able to learn more about them, and also see the parallels in how Imbler relates. This is Imbler's first collection, and I'm definitely interested in reading more of them. Pick this up when this comes out this winter.

This collection blew me away. The brutal and beautiful realities of life in the ocean are juxtaposed with the author’s own experiences. From cuttlefish to sperm whales, from eating disorders to transmasc awakenings, each essay thematically links oceanic vitality to the glories and horrors of being visibly enfleshed. I was struck over and over again by the author’s thoughtful resiliency. These essays will stick with me.

This was such a strange, lovely book. I really like how the author relates the sea creatures to aspects of their life. This was funny, sad, interesting, and educational.

3.5 stars rounded up

thank you to netgalley for the ARC!

I like science nonfiction and I've been trying to break into memoirs, so this seemed like a great option for me. Overall, I enjoyed it, although I was left wishing I felt deeper or more strongly about it. Some of the essays did hit like that, leaving me thinking about them long after. I think the essays and the writing style got stronger mostly as they went, which makes sense from a layout perspective. My biggest complaint would probably be that many times the stories about sea life and the stories about the author's life were just stacked together and there wasn't any kind of segue or written connection between them, which is certainly a stylistic choice, but I think made the connections less powerful than they could have been.

individual essay thoughts:
if you flush a goldfish: would’ve liked some deeper application of the metaphor to real life, but it leaves you with interesting thoughts

my mother and the starving octopus: a lot of facts about sea creatures presented in paragraphs that break up the personal story, once again lacking connective tissue

my grandmother and the sturgeon: definitely the best chapter so far. the science and the personal anecdotes are still disjointed, but not nearly as much as in the first two chapters. the overall feeling of this book so far though is something like mourning, which makes it hard to read sometimes

how to draw a sperm whale: the new best so far. The emotional punch that’s been missing was abundant here, particularly in the necropsy of a relationship sections. The connection between the science and the real life anecdotes still wasn’t great, but the best it’s been so far. The prose was sometimes kind of grotesque and hard to read in a clinically gory kind of way

pure life: this chapter read quick and didn’t feel very deep or memorable to me. I did really like the parallel of finding safe spaces as queer and/or POC with living I’m near hydrothermal vents, and it was interesting to read about the discovery of hydrothermal vents, which is a lot more recent than I’d thought it was

beware the sand striker: the content of this was predictable within the first page or two, and I can’t say I really enjoyed it. This is always a hard topic to read about and I felt it was kept very surface level, which did make it easier to read but also made it less impactful I think

hybrids: a lot more personal story and less science in this one. the bits with john randall felt out of place. I liked the analogy with the butterflyfish although I don’t feel like the authors voice was as clear here as it has been in other essays

we swarm: by far my favorite essay so far. the salp metaphor fits so so well, and the language here is so rich as to be feel like you’re there. there’s a kind of hope-adjacent feeling in this part and I really enjoyed the sense of community imbued in it

morphing like a cuttlefish: not quite back to the harsh lines between science story and personal anecdote but also not as linked as it maybe could have been, through better than most of the beginning ones. learned some cool new things about cuttlefish and learned some very personal things about the author that I’m kind of hmm about. do like the talk about how identity is fluid

us everlasting: most similar to we swarm and as such one I enjoyed more than others. the analogy was very strong here and I liked the paragraphs from other contributors to provide some other POVs besides the author

How Far the Light Reaches

A truly moving hybrid book that blends a memoir with a nature guide to sea creatures. The author writes beautifully and I enjoyed how they spliced in interesting facts about marine life with a discussion on the author’s race, gender identity and sexuality.

I enjoyed learning all about the various sea creatures. The author had a truly impressive way of proving interesting information about these animals with a deeply personal story about their own life. The author had a way of making even the humble goldfish absolutely fascinating. (For example, a goldfish’s memory lasts several months and they are so smart they can navigate mazes!) The information the author provided about the various marine critters was fascinating, but the stories yeh author told about their identity had my heart.

I highly recommend this book interested in nature or in the LGBTQIA community.

SUCH a great science book that's super appropriate and approachable for anyone - science afficianato or not. The writing was lovely, although at times gave more details than perhaps necessary, and I adored the metaphors flowing through the book to help these animal topics be much more understandable. I will definitely be adding this to my library and would recommend it for anyone fascinated by nature and the ocean.

This was a really well done memoir and science nonfiction, I was engaged in the story and enjoyed going through this book. Sabrina Imbler had a great writing style and I could tell that she knew what she was talking about. I look forward to reading more from Ms. Imbler. This was a great read.

A lovely hybrid work--light memoir cum science journalism. The structure of this text follows a distinct formula: it weaves in the story of a resilient sea creature and notes various parallels between the sea creature's strange survival mechanisms with those that queerness demands upon a person. Imbler introduces 10 of such of these creatures.

Its interesting how this book brands itself as memoir ("my life" in sea creatures), because I found it quite reticent with details--it's less about Imbler's queer child/adulthood than about a sort of generalizable queer child/adulthood, illustrated by occasional examples from their life. Rather, I find that this book is strangest--and shines most--in the way that it fully occupies a hyper-specific niche that Imbler has carved for themself. While details about their life may be scant, those about the sea creatures are not, described in lush language that reveals a writer clearly in love with these bizarre, esoteric creatures. Thus, I found this book unique in how it combines rigorous research into this specific topic with more conventional memoir-ing one might expect from such a genre. A worthwhile read.

How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler is a strange new book.
In this book, Imbler switches between describing a sea creature and their own life. The most interesting aspect of this is how they relate the sea animal to themself, such as talking about an octopus mother who starves herself to death for her babies, and Imbler's mom. The largest part of this book to take away appears to be how insidious it is to discriminate against someone based on their ethnicity or sexuality. How painful it is, and how much it affects them for years and years.
I really liked this book. It was funny, interesting, sad, and educational. It made me long for a world where people do not see your color, or who you are attracted to, and judge you off of it. It also made me feel bad for these creatures. As bad as we are to other humans, we are even worse to creatures we do not understand. Torturing jellyfish to make them rebirth, or using a special machine to literally shred thousands into little pieces. Ripping mothers away from their eggs, leaving all the eggs to die, because they want to study them. Polluting the rivers and causing one of the oldest existing fish to start dying out. The list goes on, why can't humans just let creatures live?
I would recommend this book to anyone looking to understand some sea animals and humans in one book, and for queer, mixed race, or trans people who want to feel seen and understood.

Note: This is probably one of the most stunning covers I've seen. I can't wait to buy a physical copy of this!

This was the type of queer memoir I didn't realize I needed. I'm not usually a memoir reader but the way that Sabrina Imbler combines science and their own life experience was fascinating. Some of the marine animals that were featured in the book were familiar but some were completely new to me. Imbler interweaves the narrative of these marine creatures with growing up, their exploration in the LGBTQIA+ community, and their own Asian heritage and culture. I highly recommend this book and am so glad I was able to read it during Pride month. I would love to read more from this author and follow their work in the future.