Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC copy of this book!

This was an amazing read. This book fits perfecting into my wheelhouse-- queer memoir with science mixed in! In Spawning Season, Joseph Osmundson talks of their experience in an unconventional queer parenthood. Their book follows a plan, starting with a small fry and morphing in an unexpected and sometimes difficult way.

There are 3 parts working together in this book-- the lived experience, the salmon life history facts, and the theory. They work excellently together, nothing feels extraneous, and the theory did not lose me; It was woven in like poetry. I loved being thrown into the ocean or river with the salmon, from the very beginning. I marveled at the writing, it made me think critically about how the author was using various techniques to create different emotions in the work. That, for me, is the mark of quality writing-- when I'm thinking about it with my critical writing brain, because it makes me want to tease apart the meaning of the structure on the page.

There was grief in this book. I came to realize that this book was part of a grieving process for the author, and I was grateful to have been let in on that internal world. Sharing grief is not something western culture is good at, and I think its really important. This story is deeply felt in the body. Reading it, I too was moved in my body. I don't think I've previously met a story which expressed the desire to be a mother in the way that I too feel it. I think Joseph Osmundson and I have similar ways of feeling the world.

The culinary aspect of this book appealed greatly to me, as someone who loves to cook. Osmundson takes the time to describe cooking with the mind of a scientist. Cooking was a form of mothering, of caring for others and yourself. We are built by the molecules that we eat, so food should be nourishing and wholesome, the better to grow by.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, and I think it would work for anyone who is interested in the intersection between science, memoir and queerness. This story made me want to write, which is one of the best feelings to come out with after finishing a book.