Kassinger absolutely did not know what kind of book she wanted to write, and as a result, this book suffers a lil bit.

We kind of have 3 books rolled into one: 1️⃣ Memoir 2️⃣ History 3️⃣ Natural Science

These things can be blended well (see most things Robin Wall Kimmerer does) but I don't know that it was overly effective here. It isn't that anything included wasn't worth reading - Kassinger is funny, the history of Botany is wild, she selects some really fun plants and insects to highlight. But their relationship to each other was not always well developed, nor do we always smoothly transition between the topics. We spend a lot of time talking about gross 1600/1700 medical practices, isolated white men being stuffy and wrong, with some real quirky personal offerings from Kassinger.

And most notably, what didn't work for me, is what is missing. Kassinger makes no mention of indigenous knowledge, the role colonialism played into botany, or how many of the ecological issues we are facing today (which she occasionally talks about) are a result of seizing land from its rightful stewards. And while I don't expect every book to tackle every angle, this meandered too much for the omission to be excusable for me. Since she wasn't focused with a clear agenda, it really stood out to me that everything she talks about is very very westernized, stripped of it's proper context.

All that said - I still had a good time. I learned about lil buggers that eat one (1) time and then photosynthesize the rest of their lives, cocktail trees, root structures, flower genetics, biofuel, how to grow a 1,800+ pound pumpkin, scientific rivalries - and more! I also didn't realize that basically every OG white male botanist started as a physician and or man of the cloth. It is so interesting to me that human medicine and western divinity were the pipelines to studying plants. That could be a whole book on it's own!

Is this the best book? No. Does it give you a general understanding of how we blundered around plants for many centuries? Yes. Is Kassinger funny? Yes.

If you want a sassy, shortish overview of early botany that couples with some nitty gritty science and personal anecdotes, this is a decent pick.

A book for the girls who made potions