I didn't realize this was YA going into it and if you're someone like me who doesn't like YA very much, I don't think I'd recommend reading this. I was intrigued by the premise, but the actual story development felt a bit heavy-handed and predictable to me. Additionally, the art style wasn't my favorite and the dialogue was a little too casual and silly for what I was looking for. It was a breeze to read, though, as I finished this in one sitting. Lastly, the portrayal of propaganda and the strategic deceit of empires, caste, how aspiring to assimilate into a structure that relies on (and is) your oppression does not equate to liberation, as well as the process of disillusionment people go through in unlearning propaganda was clear and centered, but I still feel it lacked the depth I was looking for. I wish I had better things to say about this story, but it just wasn't for me!

This was very meditative and soothing, like a warm cup of tea. 🍵🌿 It didn't lull me, though, and kept my attention. I think listening to the audiobook mostly while I tended to my plants helped me connect with it deeper!

Additionally, the audiobook narrator had a very sincere care and curiosity in their voice which felt endearingly in tune with the book contents and made listening easy.

I agree with a lot of the other reviews saying they were surprised and even disappointed with how much of the book was memoir-focused, but I appreciated the focus on the micro-macro symbiotic connections of our world; I also didn't have many expectations going in so I didn't mind as much.

The main theme of this book is how science fields warped to justify eugenicist and colonial ideals are the foundation for a lot of commonly-held (but ultimately false) beliefs about behaviors, bodies, and relationships on this planet; specifically around the normalization, enforcement, and projection of gender norms onto human and non-human bodies as a colonial tool.

Content-wise, it's half about their journey of finding queer belonging in nature and half about the biology, history, and wisdom of queerness in non-human species. The writing is also very tender, immersive, thoughtful, and well-informed. Overall, I felt the understanding of and opposition to white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy as tangibly connected systems was pretty spot-on too.

An issue I have is with the structure of her personal stories, especially the childhood ones; there were a lot of abrupt breaks and while her stories all get eventually circled back to, the transitions weren't seamless which made it harder to follow. Additionally, I wish there were trigger warnings at the beginning of the book / each chapter.

I also see where @tequeguava's review is coming from re: the author's comparing of humans (specifically Black, Brown, intersex, queer, and trans people) to animals / more specifically, eels which are intersex, could come across as dehumanizing considering the history of colonizers creating stereotypes that frame Black and Brown people as "animalistic" or "savage" in order to justify and rationalize white supremacy. However, I believe Kaishian's point is not to uphold those stereotypes, conflate humans with animals, nor conflate animals with humans, but to show how our oppressions (and liberation) are directly linked. The author's "it may not be polite" comment also rubbed me the wrong way too and definitely should've been worded differently. I'm open to feedback and critique on this, by the way!

Unfortunately, this was pretty disappointing for me.

My expectations going into this were what it says in the title: "building consent culture." I was especially looking forward to reading ideas on how a consent culture could be implemented in the various settings mentioned in the book synopsis ("[in and] outside of the bedroom, whether it's at the doctor's office, interacting with law enforcement, or calling out financial abuse in radical communities"), but instead, it was mostly stories on why consent culture is needed from the anthology writers' specific experiences. Further, a lot of the pieces were about sex and didn't align with the marketed settings.

My expectations aside – while this is a book that is for those new to understanding and cultivating consent culture, I don't know that I can recommend it as such because of how outdated and surface-level it was overall. In the introduction, the latter is acknowledged; additionally, the editor notes that previous books she had read on consent culture were by and for middle-class cis white women and as a middle-class cis white woman herself, she wanted to make an effort to include and not tokenize QTBIPOC authors, but for... 'an audience of white feminists'. So, the gaze is still a white one.

There is also repeated acknowledgement of systemic oppression, but often as a brief side-note; many of the pieces lack a full understanding of the fact that connected systems of oppression (white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy) are the roots of the critiqued aspects that make up a violating culture which consequently, despite the authors' intentions, often ends up framing things in their pieces like they exist in a vacuum or are isolated. Colonialism and imperialism were also not mentioned at all, which makes the critiques of white supremacy and patriarchy incomplete and flat. Additionally, in the pieces on the "criminal justice system," there was a great lack of understanding around the history and mechanics of police, prisons, and punishment / carcerality which formed a reformist lens rather than an abolitionist / transformative justice one.

Re: writing styles, they were accessible, but most were just a little too conversational and blunt for my personal taste. I was also surprised at how prevalent mentions and perspectives of BDSM and kink were; that's not something I'm used to or know much about, so this book taught me more, including how certain things like 'safe words' originated in those communities/spaces. I do wish this was made clear in the book description before I had read it, though.

Trigger-warning wise, there is frequent discussion (and in some cases, depiction, mostly from those on the recieving end but one on the perpetuating end as well) of abuse, sexual assault, rape, transphobia, fatphobia, anti-Black racism, and misogyny.

I think this book makes more sense as a historical snapshot of discussion around (mostly sex-related) consent rather than a guide to cultivating it. Better alternatives to this book are ones about transformative justice, especially works by Mariame Kaba, Mia Mingus, Leah Lakshmi-Piepzna Samarasinha, etc!