This was a beautiful, mind expanding read. Mixing both autobiography, the experience of queer life and the natural history of animals, plants, fungi and birds, I found this incredibly moving. I was worried that it might be too scientific for me, but it was engaging, easy to read without dumbing down and gorgeously engaging.

Wow this book was incredible. *Forest Euphoria* by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian is a vibrant celebration of the queerness inherent in the natural world, blending memoir, science, and lyrical prose. Drawing from her experiences growing up in the Hudson Valley, Kaishian explores the diverse and often overlooked lives of fungi, slugs, and eels, revealing the fluidity and complexity of nature's systems. Her writing invites readers to see beyond human-centered perspectives, offering a refreshing and inclusive view of the interconnectedness of all life forms. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper, more inclusive connection to the natural world. I loved this one!

Forest Euphoria felt exactly like I was sat down for coffee with the author, listening enthralled while she spoke about this topic she is so clearly passionate about. Yes, it could perhaps have done with more structure*, but the train of thought through each topic was more than clear enough to follow.

Prior to reading this book I had just finished Raising Hare, which had the same manifesto of exploring and deepening our relationship with nature and the creatures around us. The difference here is that the creatures Kaishian feels an affinity with are not ones conventionally thought of as cute, gracious, or even nice. They’re often considered nuisances or pests, but she sees the beauty in them. By highlighting the way other creatures are different from us, rather than similar, she emphasises the way human concepts such as gender are completely arbitrary, and encourages us to be amazed by these animals.

I do think a little more structure would have been of use, particularly given the way memoir and essay are woven together. There was slightly too much meandering for the book to have had its maximum effect, but it was still a fascinating read with a very moving personal tale woven in. I think anyone would read this book and finish with a newfound appreciation for the world around them. (The whole passage about cicada mating seasons will never cease to astound me!)

*It is worth noting that the chapter divisions did not appear on my ePub copy, which I didn’t realise until quite late on. I have tried to take that into account!

I received a free copy for an honest review.

Forest Euphoria is a blend of memoir and nature reflection. I found myself reading this one quite slowly. After each chapter, I just wanted to sit with what I had read.
So much of this book spoke to me. Since working outside more, I've gotten to appreciate all the intricacies of our natural world. Nature is not just queer its constantly changing. Forest Euphoria helped me find new sparks of joy in the world. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian gave me new ways to think about the world, how queer the natural world is, and how removing our binary human view of nature helps one see nature for all that it is. I particularly loved the reverence that Ononiwu Kaishian uses when talking about all facets of nature. I truly saw the magic and wonder of each and every topic.
I found this very reflective, and I left with new ways to view not only nature but myself and my relationship with nature. My identity has always been closely tied to nature, and I've always loved what others find weird, such as snakes and mushrooms. Anyone who might want to learn more about the intersection of nature, queerness, and culture will also love the journey that this book takes you on.

This was a very mellow read and overall I quite enjoyed it. I appreciated the theme of the queerness of nature, the anti-colonial lens and the link to actual science and biology. While there was a good balance of memoir and science, toward the end I found the pacing was off, making it more difficult for me to connect with the writing and the author. The audio narration was well done.

I recommend this to folks who are interested in reading about nature and biology through the lens of politics, philosophy and the personal.

Thank you to Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, NetGalley and Spiegel and Grau Publishers for providing me with a free ebook in exchange for an honest opinion.

The author is a mycologist (fungus scientist) as well as an enthusiast of all of nature in its messiest, most unprofitable, most vibrant glory. In this wonderful little book, the author draws calmness, confidence, healing and self-knowledge from the wild areas around her homes, from childhood through to adulthood. In her childhood her family encouraged her to get to know the swamp nearby and to delight in the residents there. When trauma was visited upon her at a young age, it was this love of nature that helped her to cope and eventually led her to a career in mycology. Kaishian also turns to the wild to help her understand her sense of gender dysphoria. Throughout the book there are examples given of wonderful creatures in nature that do not occur in merely two assigned genders, but myriad of possible genders some of which change through the creature's life, some of which occur within a creature simultaneously, and many which have far more than a mere two genders with which to reproduce.

This is a wonderful book reminding us all that we do not own any part of nature and that the naturally occurring plants and animals in our habitats have every bit as much right to live and thrive as we have. It is a reminder that needs to be repeated now more than ever as global climate change (and global climate change deniers), overpopulation, rampant deforestation, water pollution, and high rates of extinction threaten the future of both Homo sapiens and all other life as we know it.

An excellent addition into the ranks of queer nature memoirs that have come out (ha ha ) in the past few years. While I thought the transitions between the informative sections and the author's personal narratives could have been smoother, I overall appreciated her perspective as a mycologist, as mushroom and plants are not the part of nature I generally am drawn to.

I enjoyed the themes and flow of this book. I like books that address topics of nature. The cover initially caught my attention.

Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian's Forest Euphoria beautifully strikes the balance between informational and engaging, blending memoir with nature essays expertly. Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature tenderly explores the intersection of Mycology and the human experience. Told through vignettes of patricia's ability to find home in the culverts and swamps of Hudson Valley, this work examines the ways in which the queerness of nature informed the author's thoughts on her own intersectional otherness as someone who is Armenian, Irish, queer, neurodivergent, a trauma survivor. Kaishian finds herself in the intimacy of slugs and the diversity of fungi. Above all, I enjoyed having the opportunity to see such a wonderful scientific explanation of the field of mycology, especially one so heavily enriched with personal connection and significance. I must say, Forest Euphoria may have the strongest introduction I have ever read into a nonfiction work. Gorgeous and grounding, a tour de fungi!

Patricia has single-handedly ensured I will be making many a nature journaling trip this summer!

As always, thank you dearly to Spiegel & Grau, as well as NetGalley, for the advanced reader's copy of this work! I couldn't wait to get my hands on this work, and within a page had recommended it to someone!

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley.
Maybe it’s just my mood at this point, but I wasn’t expecting the constant switching between serious memoir and nonfiction science text, and I just couldn’t get into it.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced review.

I loved this book: Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian’s Forest Euphoria is a mesmerising exploration of nature’s wonders. The mix of poetic storytelling and scientific depth adds to the complex content.

From fungi with countless sexes to love-dart-exchanging slugs, Kaishian makes biology feel intimate, personal, and refreshingly unpredictable. Her writing feels like a conversation with a friend—one who happens to know a staggering amount about the wild and hidden brilliance of life around us.
This book is more than just a study of nature; it’s an invitation to rethink the way we see the world and ourselves. A must-read for anyone who craves a deeper, more inclusive understanding of life’s magnificent complexity

Over on my booktube channel (Hannah's Books), I shared this book in my description of exciting books forthcoming in May. Link to the particular discussion: https://youtu.be/4zoXuMKGD2A?si=kykTAvPFYhrIOOi5&t=924

This is a fascinating and accessible introduction to queer ecology. The diversity in thought and cultural perspectives brought to the table by the author bring a richness to the information not seen elsewhere.

This is an interesting meditation on plants, animals, and fungi (which are neither plants nor animals), from a person who identifies as neither male nor female. (s)he describes many living beings which are bisexual or asexual---anything can be considered 'normal' depending on the living being. (s)he is a knowledgeable professor of mycology in New York, and describes her fascination with living beings from an early age that lead to research and a degree in mycology. This describes her musings about life as well as descriptions of various fungi. This book will appeal to both biologists and philosophers.

Thank you to Netgalley and Spiegel & Grau for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I thought this was the strangest book I have ever read. I did read it in one day, cause I just had to finish it. I am not sure if I would recommend this book.

Forest Euphoria is a luminous, genre-blurring blend of memoir, natural science, and queer theory that invites readers to rediscover the strangeness and beauty of the natural world—and themselves. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian writes with tenderness and wonder as she traces her journey from an out-of-place child in the Hudson Valley to a mycologist attuned to the overlooked and misunderstood. Through intimate storytelling and fascinating insights—from the polysexual lives of fungi to the mysteries of glass eels—Kaishian dismantles rigid ideas of normalcy and instead celebrates complexity, fluidity, and kinship across species. It’s a revelatory reminder that nature is not just queer—it’s expansive, affirming, and deeply alive.

An interesting interweaving of personal memoir and natural history primer.

Patricia Onoiwu Kaishian grew up feelings most at home in the swamps and culverts around her house in the Hudson Valley. As she came to understand her developing identities as a queer, neurodivergent person, she often felt most comfortable around the beings and fungi of nature. This book intersperses personal memoir on the making of a scientist with an introduction to the queerness of all life around us.

First off, seeing parts of nature that seem to be often overlooked and discussing the inherent interconnectedness of everyone and everything is beautiful and also a powerful framework to explore, especially as Western society so often separates humanity from nature as if they're juxtaposed. Reading these stories of parts of nature (fungi, glass eels, forest sit spots, etc.) definitely makes me want to go out into the forest somewhere and see what I can find.

I think the most challenging part of this book is that it's written in a very stream-of-consciousness style. While I can understand why this is, shifting between science and memoir, it still made for a slightly more challenging read that was not always fully immersive.

Overall, I definitely recommend giving this book a read, particularly if you're curious about nature or science in any way. It's a quick read that makes you interested and creates a desire to read more about topics that spark your interest as you go through the chapters.

Patricia Onoiwu Kaishian has a fluid writing style that weaves together memoir, stories of nature and historical events that all support Forest Euphoria. As a queer microbiologist I knew this book was going to be for me and knew I would love it by the first 20 pages. I am so excited for folks to get their hands on this book. With having a science background the science details and scientific names enriched the story, but I can't tell if that would feel like a barrier for non-science folks. I really enjoyed the queerness in nature examples woven into the memoir and I have a new appreciation for eels and corvids. Since reading Forest Euphoria, I have a greater appreciation to observe and witness the nature around me. Something that was incredibly interesting to me was when Patricia talks about colonization and how historical events have shaped nature and changed the course for some of our landscapes. I also was very interested in the course that Robin Wall Kimmerer founded and directed that looks at science with two lenses, both with a scientific lens and Traditional Ecological Knowledge lens. This book is in conversation with Braiding Sweetgrass, How Far The Light Reaches and Hijab Butch Blues, so if you enjoyed any of these books, I think you would love this one! I want to thank Spiegel & Grau and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. This book is out May 27, 2025 pre-order now.

In an era when the President of the United States is attacking the beautiful diversity of life at every turn, it was wonderful to read Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian.

Kaishian is an academic specialising in the study of fungi, and this memoir explores her fascination with fungi and other forms of life that make a mockery of Trump’s outdated belief in rigid binaries and hierarchies. In nature, Kaishian says, queerness is everywhere. In Forest Euphoria, she takes us through a series of examples showing how fluid the boundaries are between genders, species and any other categorisation that humans might choose to impose.

Slipper snails, for example, all start out as male, and then at some point in their life cycle, they all pile on top of each other and their sex is determined by their position in the mound, with some remaining male and others transitioning to female.

Then there’s the cassowary bird, which many Indigenous peoples of Australia and Papua New Guinea consider to be a sacred creature because of its blending of sexual traits. Modern scientists have confirmed that although cassowary males have a phallus, it is turned inward like a vagina except during mating. And females also have a phallus that is smaller but otherwise identical to the male’s. So there’s no clear binary.

In the world of fungi, things get even more complicated.

“It is common for a fungus to have more than two biological sexes, and some fungi, such as Schizophyllum commune, have as many as twenty-three thousand mating types.”

Forest Euphoria itself resists easy definition. I’ve called it a memoir, but it’s far from traditional in form or structure. It takes us swiftly from the personal to the scientific, from the deeply individual to the political, from the smallest scope of a single forest ‘sit spot’ to the widest scope of the planetary ecosystem.

Kaishian starts by exploring her early fascination with swamps and forests. As a kid who didn’t feel as if she fitted into any of the dominant categories of human life, she found refuge in these places. They gave her “a chance to move amphibiously, to shape-shift, to creep, to oscillate like algae in a riffle, to be neither a boy nor a girl and have no particular identity at all.”

Later, we discover how she discovered mycology and became an academic, and the story broadens out to include politics, race, colonisation, the climate crisis, and so much more.

I appreciated the insight that as we navigate the climate crisis today, we already have postapocalyptic peoples among us—those who have survived genocides, the destruction of their whole way of life, and can perhaps teach us how to deal with what’s coming. I also liked the use of “Plantationocene” to describe our epoch, making it clear that climate change is not just caused by humans but by a particularly exploitative, extractive form of human activity that began with plantation slavery.

And through all the personal stories and political investigations, the fascinating examples keep coming. Eels spend nearly their entire lives as intersex beings, only acquiring a particular sex determination in their last year of life. Jack-in-the-pulpit flowers start off asexual, then develop male flowers, then acquire both male and female structures, and finally transition to being entirely female.

Kaishian also broadens the idea of ‘queerness’ beyond sex and gender, using it as a way of demolishing all kinds of categories and boundaries, upending the human-centric narrative that we often live by, exploring different ways of looking at time, nature and a lot more aspects of life.

“Ultimately, queerness invites us all, regardless of our identities, to be more undefined, unclear, transitional, merging, interdependent, cooperative, and nonhierarchical—a very fungal way of being.”

It’s a surprising argument to come from a scientist, since science is usually about finding clarity and relies heavily on establishing categories with clear definitions. But I found it very refreshing, especially in these times when we’re being asked more and more to pick sides, to entrench ourselves in one group or another, to shed our compassion and empathy for others.

Now more than ever, we need a lot more merging, a lot more cooperation, a lot more undermining of hierarchies. The rigid, hierarchical way of thinking has brought us to a desperate place of political division and ecological catastrophe, so I’m happy to give a fungal way of being a try.

It's been a while since I finished reading this book, and ever since, I've been thinking about how to write a review that properly pays tribute to all that deserves it. In terms of genre, it's a combination of nonfiction supported by scholarly evidence and a memoir containing personal life stories. It's written by an American mycologist, Patricia Kaishian, who is of Armenian and Irish descent, and identifies as queer and neurodivergent. (All of these identities should be mentioned because they inform the narrative in important ways.)

Readers can learn a lot about specific species here, especially those that human knowledge traditionally relegates to the murky spaces of "weird": slugs, fungi, cicadas, and moths in old cemeteries. From the disciplinary perspectives I was previously aware of, I would say this text is informed by environmental history (the history of human interaction with the environment) and the history of knowledge, in addition to the author's degrees in biology. However, Kaishian suggests an additional critical paradigm that I only learned about from this book: queer ecology.

"Queer ecology not only helps us identify faulty narratives around sex and reproduction but also encourages us to document the numerous ways in which human biases have entered science. Queer ecology challenges scientists to ask what boxes exist in our fields, who made them, and what we could learn if we broke them down."


However much I found information about individual themes in the book fascinating, what I appreciated the most is the general outlook and understanding of nature that informs it all. The euphoria at the exuberance of nature and the interconnectedness of every life form that we start to notice especially after we dare to break down those epistemic boundaries. (And the grief for its loss, which goes well beyond the monetary equivalent of human-centric "ecosystem services.")

"Our bodies are ancient communal swamps. The swamp is never any one thing on its own; nothing in the swamp can be isolated and understood fully."

"When people live together, their microbiomes are brought into contact, like several rivers meeting in an alluvial plain and creating a swamp."


I am very grateful that someone wrote this because it hits so close to home for me. Yet, it's even more valuable to read this from someone with a scientific background in biology rather than solely from one's own esoteric experiences:

"I see my relationship to nature, to other species, to landscapes, as queer. Not as an expression of my sexuality but because these relationships challenge what has been established as normal. In them, I found what I needed to survive in this world, a world in which I always, somehow, felt like an outsider."


I could quote even more to persuade you to read this ASAP for all the reasons, including its rigorous scholarly background, paradigm-shifting intent, and beautiful prose. But I will stop with just this one:

"[certain location] was ideal for noticing my kin— squirrels, deer, a fellow student dozing in a hammock, the crows."


Publication date May 27, 2025.

Thanks to the publisher from providing me with an eARC through NetGalley. The opinion above is my own.