Each essay in their debut collection profiles one such the mother octopus who starves herself while watching over her eggs, the Chinese sturgeon whose migration route has been decimated by pollution and dams, the bizarre Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena) and other uncanny creatures lurking in the deep ocean, far below where the light reaches. Imbler's debut weaves the wonders of marine biology with stories of their own family and coming of age, implicitly connecting endangered sea life to marginalised human communities and asking how they and we adapt, survive and care for each other. By way of an exploration of the diverse wonders of marine biology, Imbler reconstructs with raw openness the intensity of their experiences of being a teenager, of coming out, and of gender and racial prejudice Literary Review Each essay in their debut collection profiles one such creature: the mother octopus who starves herself while watching over her eggs, the Chinese sturgeon whose migration route has been decimated by pollution and dams, the bizarre Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena) and other uncanny creatures lurking in the deep ocean, far below where the light reaches. Imbler's debut weaves the wonders of marine biology with stories of their own family and coming of age, implicitly connecting endangered sea life to marginalised human communities and asking how they and we adapt, survive and care for each other. Each of the 10 essays in Imbler’s astonishing debut juxtaposes a strange lifeform from the deep with an episode from their own existence as a mixed-race, non-binary American. In How to Draw a Sperm Whale, their first romantic relationship is set alongside the accidental slaying of a whale – with each requiring its own protracted postmortem. In Pure Life, they describe the tenacious oddities that make each other’s existence possible via symbiosis in the scalding chemical soup around deep-sea hydrothermal vents. This is married with the story of Imbler’s arrival in a new city after leaving college, and their desperate search for a queer community “that warmed me until I tingled”. The descriptions of their fluctuating sense of gender and the joy of finding their queer family are lyrical and profound I admit that I feel bad that I didn't like this as much as everyone else did. I really loved the first two essays. I loved all the essays, really. It's having them all in one book that was not really for me.

There was one stunning paragraph where the author knows she is being hypocritical, but is talking only of her own half-Chinese ethnicity and complaining of it. I am complaining about the moment when the Asian woman's parentage is explained by one white person to another - Chinese mom and Jewish dad - like a caption, a specimen ID. How to Draw a Sperm Whale: I liked this one, although the formatting it vaguely like a report was a challenge. This one tries to parallel their college thesis on sperm whales, information on necropsies, and their first girlfriend, M. (they abbreviate it 'M,' which I found distracting, like we were reading an impression of a medical report, except medical reports would no longer use abbreviations). Given how much I abhor whaling, even the historical accounts of it, it was hard to warm to this section. However, I thought it awkwardly done and felt, well, like a college writing project.Sabrina Imbler's latest book mingles memoir and marine biology in a tender, lucid look at the author's life refracted through the deep sea. Their essays' mesmerizing descriptions of the often mysterious lives of aquatic animals also serve as portals of inquiry into Imbler's life on land Scientific American Conclusion: The proximate cause of death may be falling in love with the idea of a person, or the idea of a relationship." A beautiful blend of memoir and oceanography that explores the ocean's depths and many of the big questions -- about identity, the nature of work, the pull of family -- facing young people today This book made my heart grow like a feral goldfish. Reading it was a journey into my rapidly expanding self. It made me feel limitless and accompanied. I'm deeply grateful to Sabrina Imbler for writing it DOREEN CUNNINGHAM, author of Soundings

Perhaps any human would pale in comparison to the wonders of the sea creatures Imbler describes with vividness and insight. Watch out for the bit where humble pet goldfish are released into open water and all hell breaks loose or for the lovely, bold descriptions of sturgeon, whose “mountainous scutes and chin bristles jut out like stalactites” and who “glide aimlessly, with an ossified kind of grace”. Watch out for the bit where humble pet goldfish are released into open water and all hell breaks loose Why can't she just exist without explanation?" I complain, and as I complain, I know that I am being a hypocrite; if her parentage wasn't given, I would wonder what her mix was, if it was like mine." So having to have the Chinese defined is upsetting, why can't she just exist? But the Jewish bit, well that's ok. It's the only mention of 'Jewish' in the book, so it's pretty obvious that she doesn't think there is anything wrong with defining the white partner as Jewish. Jews, in her head, don't have the same right to 'just exist'. Imbler is not a memoirist (yet) but a gifted science and nature writer, capable of describing sea creatures with knowledge, originality and supple poeticism.My Life in Sea Creatures] feels like a quiet tidal change in books for our community and beyond... Sabrina's bioluminescent prose stuns DIVA I think my expectations for this book of hybrid memoir / essays was a bit too high, so I ended up being disappointed. Although I enjoyed both aspects of Imbler's writing -- science journalism about interesting sea creatures and personal stories about their queer identity and experiences -- the essays felt like two alternating threads that weren't well integrated. Because whenever I meet a mixed person who looks something like me, I want to ask them The Question. I want to know what kind of Asian they are. I want to know how their parents met. I want to know what words they use to identify themselves. I want to know how close or distanced they feel to their own whiteness. I want to ask them the questions I don’t want strangers to ask me. In other words, I am also the asshat.” I really liked this book. It was funny, interesting, sad, and educational. It made me long for a world where people do not see your color, or who you are attracted to, and judge you off of it. It also made me feel bad for these creatures. As bad as we are to other humans, we are even worse to creatures we do not understand. Torturing jellyfish to make them rebirth, or using a special machine to literally shred thousands into little pieces. Ripping mothers away from their eggs, leaving all the eggs to die, because they want to study them. Polluting the rivers and causing one of the oldest existing fish to start dying out. The list goes on, why can't humans just let creatures live?

Morphing Like a Cuttlefish: kingpin cuttlefish are accused of going in drag: males will adopt female patterns to get close to the female for mating. It's a very personal piece that describes in pieces how their sexual evolution morphs. How do we place our selves in the natural world? What are the costs and gains of our attachment to it? Where would you put Sabrina Imbler's astounding book on the shelf? In a separate section, marked: Awe and Wonder PHILIP HOARE, author of Albert & the Whale As a mixed Chinese and white non-binary writer working in a largely white, male field, science journalist Sabrina Imbler has always been drawn to the mystery of life in the sea, and particularly to creatures living in hostile or remote environments. Compulsively readable, beautifully lyric, and wildly tender... A breathtaking, mesmerizing debut from a tremendous talent KRISTEN ARNETT, author of Mostly Dead ThingsThey looked like raindrops, or tears, water in a state of falling. I couldn’t tell if they were dead or alive. I held one up to the sky and its dimpled gelatin muddled light like a prism, turning sunbeams into deliriously electric blues, cherry-blossom pinks, kelpy greens. I threw handfuls of the blobs in the air above me and the droplets filled the sky, shredding sunlight into rainbows.”