Forest Euphoria is an interesting book in the vein of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It’s a mix of autobiography, scientific information, and social commentary. The author, Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, is a fascinating person. Her father is Armenian and her mother is Irish, and she grew up near swamps in the Hudson Valley. She is also a mycologist, which is an extremely rare scientific profession that studies fungi among other things. Finally, she identifies as both queer and neurodivergent.

One of the parts I appreciated most about Forest Euphoria was learning the many ways fungi, plants, and animals do not fit into modern western, human, sex categories. Conservatives have often argued that being heterosexual and cisgender is the only natural state of being. Kaishian brings up numerous examples from nature to disprove that claim. Kaishian also points out that western scientists (who are supposedly completely objective) have long ignored instances in nature that contradict their beliefs about what is normal or right for people. Western scientists have only just begun to correct for their past biases.

There were a couple of aspects of this book that brought it down to 3 stars for me. Firstly, it lacks a strong or consistent enough theme to unify its various parts. The subtitle of the book is “The Abounding Queerness of Nature”, and while there were some such examples, Kaishian should have included a lot more.

There were just too many random topics that were covered in this book. The biggest offender (for me) was a rather lengthy discussion of the Golden Records sent with the Voyager spacecrafts. It was interesting, but it certainly didn’t have anything to do with the abounding queerness of nature.

Another of my other issues is that Kaishian strongly stated that most mushrooms are perfectly safe to eat and aren’t poisonous. I would assume she is correct about that. But my problem is after establishing the point that mushrooms have been falsely maligned as dangerous, she then writes about her great experiences of using hallucinogenic mushrooms in college. I have heard about studies that demonstrate the usefulness of hallucinogenic mushrooms under proper medical supervision. However, Kaishian didn’t have proper medical supervision, and she didn’t provide a warning that taking hallucinogenic mushrooms without proper medical supervision might be dangerous.

Overall, though, I found the book to be both informative and enjoyable even with my qualms.

Thanks to Spiegel & Grau by Spotify Audiobooks through NetGalley who allowed me to listen to the audio version of this book. The narrator, Aven Shore, did an excellent job!

Part memoir, part reflective science text, Forest Euphoria is a love letter to the natural world that will make readers want to go outside to rediscover the wondrous queerness of the world.

Beautifully written and incredibly narrated, part nature guide and part memoir, this book is a beautiful combining of our earth and all the things that live upon it and our search for ourselves. This was a really beautiful book to read going into pride month.

Forest Euphoria offers a thoughtful and underutilized approach to understanding the natural world through the lens of queer theory. Rather than centering queerness solely as a form of identity, the book draws on queer theory's broader critical lens (its questioning of binaries, categorizations, and norms) to reconsider how we think about species, sex, behavior, and biology. Slugs, eels, fungi, and other organisms become entry points into a conversation about the instability of categories we often treat as fixed and how the natural world more often defies than conforms to these rigid boundaries.

Early in the book, I was reminded of Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation, a show I first encountered in an undergraduate “Biology of Sex” class that used humor and spectacle to highlight the diversity of sexual behavior in animals. However, I was glad to see that Forest Euphoria goes beyond simply presenting examples of “non-traditional” sexual morphology and behavior in the natural world. It offers deeper reflections on what these examples reveal about our broader understanding of nature and about ourselves. The author expands on these conversations and use queerness not only as a way to challenge normative ideas of sex and gender but as a critical tool for examining how scientific knowledge is produced; inviting readers to consider which kind of research receives funding, whose questions shape the field, what counts as legitimate data, and how systems of power, identity, and social norms influence the scientific process from within.

While Forest Euphoria succeeds in opening up critical conversations about how queerness can, and should, reshape our understanding of science and the natural world, it is ultimately a memoir that weaves the author’s personal experiences and identity as a queer person into the larger analytical framework. This personal lens is powerful in places, particularly when it brings emotional depth and vulnerability to topics that are often treated as detached or objective. But as the book progresses, the memoir component increasingly becomes the dominant mode, with the scientific and ecological material pushed into the background.

As this shift happens, the book introduces broader social issues such as colonization, capitalism, and genocide. These are undeniably important topics, and clearly significant to the author’s personal experience and interests. However, I found that as the book moved in this direction, it drifted somewhat from its central premise. Rather than integrating these themes into a cohesive dialogue connected to queerness and queer theory, the book tends to present them as separate reflections, with the links between them often left implicit or underdeveloped. This lack of connection results in a narrative that feels fragmented, with compelling ideas existing alongside one another but not fully engaging or illuminating each other. Still, these conversations are overshadowed by the memoir aspects, which I personally found difficult to connect with.

Stylistically, I found the book could have benefited from more structural elements (more chapters or subheadings) to break up the text and clearly delineate its different themes. As an educator, this would have made it easier for me to incorporate some of the non-memoir aspects into a classroom setting. Without these clear demarcations, however, it becomes difficult to separate the personal narrative from the broader discussions (which I think is likely what the author wanted), but complicates their use in an educational context. These structural elements may be present in the print version, but they were not apparent in the audiobook I listened to. Additionally, I think the audiobook would have benefited from a different narrator.

That said, a few sections of this book really stood out to me. For example, the discussion of indigeneity and how living, breathing, and dying within specific ecologies leaves “an imprint on behaviors, beliefs, and ways of thinking of that human collective” was particularly compelling as were the considerations regarding how language itself is shaped by the environments and cultures from which it emerges, highlighting the deep connections between place, identity, and our understanding of the world. I also appreciated the critique of ‘ecosystem services’ and the common equation of productivity with value, which raises important questions in environmental and social sciences.

Ultimately, this book is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature that illuminates important conversations and complex intersections of culture, science, nature, and knowledge production, challenging how we understand norms and structures. However, with the memoir elements becoming the dominant focus, the work feels more like a personal narrative framed by, rather than fully woven into, its original thematic aims.

TW: Child sexual abuse
The author’s mentions of their experience of childhood sexual abuse were presented without much warning or contextual framing. While these disclosures are no doubt significant to the author’s story, they emerge abruptly and may be distressing to readers who were not expecting to encounter such material in a book largely positioned as an exploration of the natural world. Additionally, I am concerned that the way this experience is presented could unintentionally reinforce harmful misconceptions, such as the idea that trauma shapes or alters sexual identity, an argument often used by conservative groups to at best delegitimize and at worst weaponize queer identities.

3.25 stars.

Thank you, NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau by Spotify Audiobooks, for sending this audiobook for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

I got this as an audio arc on Netgalley and it has since come out. Both the writing and narrating got me hooked. Was more memoir than expected but interweaving personal stories with nature to show that we as humans are nature too and that it means in its core therefore that nature is queer is stunningly well done.

i loved every second of this. completely exquisite and i only wish i had it when writing my dissertation at uni. the reading was gorgeous - it kept me company during a 6 hour wait in a&e. i feel very lucky to have read this.

This book was much more of a memoir than I expected. I did really enjoy the fascinating information about mycology. As someone who tends towards eco-anxiety sometimes the book was hard to take. I try not to get overwhelmed by the terrible things we as a species have done to the planet and this book does confront that a little. There are also descriptions of how destruction of land had been used in conflicts so sometimes the history gets very heavy as well. Obviously this is valuable and important information (I had never heard of the destruction of the Mulberry trees before) and shows how we are all on this planet together. The interconnectedness of everything is beautiful and terrifying. I mention all of this because I felt like the description leaned into the science part more than the memoir part and this book is very much both. Aven Shore was a good narrator and kept a nice pace with all the information. Thank you NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau by Spotify Audiobooks for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

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.

I was expecting a nonfiction novel while instead Forest Euphoria is a true memoir with some science, animal facts, and queerness thrown in. I preferred the elements of this book that spoke about the queerness of nature- especially the fact that scientific research is formulated in a way that promotes binary beliefs (ie: queer scientific observations are not included in studies due to political and societal pressures). I did not enjoy the memoir aspect of this book. 3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to the audiobook Forest Euphoria.

Forest Euphoria talks about the often buried avenues of scientific and historical research into queer topics. I like that the author discusses how often scientists don't include queer scientific observations in their studies and how little queer history is discussed. I like that this book talks about these often overlooked topics. The author's personal tale is woven throughout the narrative of facts and studies and it makes the book very fascinating to listen to. This book felt like a combination between a memoir and a niche nonfiction book. Forest Euphoria is a fantastic book for people who love to talk about the science and history behind queerness.

The audiobook is very well produced and sounds great. The narrator sounds interested and is engaging with the story. The narrator also still sounds great sped up and was overall very easy to understand!

This is a great book for people who want to try a nonfiction book without it being like a textbook. I also think it's a great addition to the queer nature and history book canon. I would recommend this book for an intriguing summer read!

When reading this summary, I missed how heavy the memoir portion was going to be and thought it would mostly be just what the title explained. I ended up being fine with it, but just thought I would mention in case others go into the book confused, who might not be in it for the memoir part.

Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian explains how her childhood, family, teachers, and nature experiences have shaped who she has become, what she has chosen to study, and how she interacts with her environment. Although she is a mycologist, this book discusses much more than fungi. She discusses creatures that will change their sex when it is needed for reproduction, creatures that have multiple kinds of genitalia in one body, and creatures that are so secretive we have yet to learn how their reproductive cycles work. Scientific studies are used as evidence for various facts and Kaishian also explains how many studies have been silenced or lacked support from the scientific community when those studies had topics that were seen as queer. She shares the various ways that spending time in nature or studying different species has helped her to better understand herself and her needs. Kaishian is so open about her various revelations and confusions as she grows as a human, student, and educator.

Listening to the audiobook, narrated by Aven Shore, allowed me to feel the passion and excitement for nature that the author was trying to express. Some moments seemed to jump from one topic to the next without a transition that might not have been as jarring if I had a visual book to reference while I was listening. But this also helped the book to feel more conversational.

We need more books that confirm the abounding queerness of nature so more people understand the truth about the truly fascinating world around us. This book also reminded me to take more time to just sit and take in my environment.

I love seeing people having great experiences after coming out of the ESF program from Syracuse University! I have met and read about so many wonderful people from this Environmental Science Program.

Eels are magnetic! (Sort of.)

I definitely learned some new fun facts that I cannot wait to share at unsuspecting people! I love random fun facts. Some fun facts: snails are kinda sorta basically genderfluid. And some lady birds have fake male reproductive parts. Isn't that fun? I'll say it again: love fun facts.

This is a non-fiction book about the unique and interesting aspects of sexuality within nature and animals and some plant-adjacent beings (fungi and the like). And this is interspersed with lots of personal anecdotes.

I do understand why the personal anecdotes were included, but most felt rather unnecessary, leading the author and book off on unrelated tangents that struggled to get back to the main point at hand.

Overall, this was a cool book, especially if you like bizarre facts and nature! And it also has a pretty cover!

Thanks to NetGalley for the audiobook ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review! My Goodreads review is up and my TikTok (Zoe_Lipman) review will be up at the end of the month with my monthly reading wrap-up.

Trigger warning for this read: Mentions of childhood sexual abuse.

"I felt safest when I was unwitnessed by other people."

This book is facts interwoven with the author's personal journey discovering nature and themself as well as their developing understanding of the world and nature as distinctively and naturally queer. The author's view of queerness as diversity in nature was so inspiring and made me really evaluate my own relationship with nature. As an amateur forager, the author's insight into the landscape of my home and passion for mycology really resonated with me.

This book made me tear up and feel so many emotions over the wonder and queerness of nature and the author's relationship to the natural world is so refreshing and inspiring. As resident of the Hudson valley, their descriptions of the nature and space we live in was so poignant and I will be thinking about and feeling this book during my time in the forests (of which I spend a lot!)

Forest Euphoria was so beautiful! I had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook; Aven Shore's voice was perfect for this journey through the author's story. I felt like I learned a lot in very digestible snippets and would highly recommend this book.

Four stars instead of five because I feel like I was often left wanting more! I think some of the transitions between topics were a little too abrupt and at some points quite jarring. Moving from talking about snails at one point immediately to childhood sexual abuse was not expected. I think some softer transitions between topics would have been a bit more palatable. However, I grapple with my dislike of this style as it's definitely a reflection of the author's own neurodivergence.

Thank you to NetGalley and Spotify Audiobooks for this advance audio copy.

Kashian weaves her life and queerness together to create a story that opens your eyes to the natural world around you. She uses nature as a mirror to explore and question aspects of her life and of our wider collective community. What you hear about each species is enough to understand her point but left me wanting to research more, which I really enjoyed!
A beautiful reminder that you are not, and have never really, been alone. The earth and the trees and the birds and so many more are all around you if you only take the time to look and listen.

I understand the comparison to RWK's work and see some overlap, though this book takes a different angle and feels more conversational, so if you've read one, by no means should you skip the other. I must admit I wish they'd chosen a different narrator, but that's a personal preference. I enjoyed the different topics that were touched on and how Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian connected them to personal stories.

Thank you to Netgalley and Spotify Audiobooks for the audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you to the publisher and net galley for this audio book arc!
The audiobook was narrated by the author, which I always enjoy. I thought this book was really well done, with tons of sensory details that fit the nature theme. Even though we don’t learn a ton about the authors life for a memoir; I feel like you do get to know them well! I love how they combined the different themes of their life story, mental health, ecology, and genocide. Despite being varied, it still comes together to form a cohesive text. My only complaint is that some parts got bogged down by all the details, and using up pages that could have described the plant life to the reader.
4 stars

5🌟

Thank you netgalley for this arc!

From the beginning I loved both the way this author wrote her story and the subject matter about which she wrote. The blending of memoir with science was beautiful. I'd love a longer or second book where we can delve deeper into the queerness of nature and how nothing is a binary.

This book wove a beautiful story and spoke directly to issues a lot of people face in science, both in industry and academia. I appreciated the beauty and hope that apparent throughout this book. I am not typically a fan of nonfiction, but will be recommending this book to everyone.

I experienced "Forest Euphoria" as an audiobook narrated by the author herself. More often than not, I can struggle when authors read their own material. I am pleased to say that this was not “the case with Forest Euphoria." Listening to Kaishian talk about her rigorous mycology research and her personal insights on queer ecology felt like a passionate celebration of nature’s wild diversity.

Having Kaishian’s voice throughout the audio made it all much more immersive, I felt it successfully transformed what could have been verbose scientific observation into poetic truth. Here we are exposed to everything from gender-fluid slipper snails to the intersexed anatomy of cassowaries, all while weaving in her own story of gender dysphoria, neurodivergence, and healing through connection to the natural world. It’s a short listen, but rather than devouring it all in one sitting, I felt it was important to take my time to digest it all, particularly as some of the ideas presented were very new to me.

Rooted in the forests and swamps of upstate New York, "Forest Euphoria" is a call to recognise that queerness is not an exception in biology; rather, it is everywhere. With science as her compass and personal narrative as the map, Kaishian charts a vulnerable, ecstatic, and rebellious terrain where same-sex bird courtships and endlessly sexed fungi flourish, proving that nature itself resists binaries.

This truly revelatory blend of memoir, biology, and eco-philosophy serves as both an enlightening lecture and a candid, deeply personal act of reclamation. It is a celebratory reminder that all life is interconnected.

Thanks to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau by Spotify Audiobooks for the advance reader's copy.

"Forest Euphoria by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian" was an ancipated release for me this year and unfortunately I found it to be a rather annoying listen.

A very unique and unusual book - this is a blend of memoir, philosophy and scientific information.

The author takes us on the journey of her life, as she comes to understand her place in the queerness of the world, while sharing and explaining the joys of nature and its variations around her. As she discovered snakes, snails, eels, and especially fungi and the many ways in which there are more than two sexes, or sexes that are fluid, she followed a path that led to her understanding herself and also led her down the path of being a mycologist and immersed in the science of nature.

I enjoyed the scientific facts and all the wonderful and fascinating information about many different species, a lot of them ones that typically do not get attention. I loved the concept of a 'sit spot' and slowing down to appreciate the changes in nature that happen all around us.

To be honest, I enjoyed the scientific side of the book a little more than the memoir.

I listened to the book, and while the frequent sudden changes of direction took a little while to get used to, I think it reflects the neuro divergency of the author. The narrator was able to capture the wonder of the information that was shared.