Review copy provided by the publisher.
This is basically a memoir of a queer mycologist’s journey. If you read it as a memoir, it is a really lovely example of the thing, lots of beautiful details of the natural world and personal growth, some interesting facts learned along the way. If you go in thinking that it is going to be a more technical or even pop-sci book that is largely about reproduction and sexuality in the non-human natural world, you will probably be disappointed, because that’s not the focus.
And I think Kaishian is making the case fairly clearly, for those who need to hear it, that queerness is not just about who has what bits for the sex. If you’re not someone who needed to hear it, there’s still enough heart and personal detail to keep things interesting; if you are, maybe a great point of view to pick up and contemplate. But the fact that it’s not a technical book of that sort is not an accident, it was not the goal, a broader sense of possibility is the goal.
Who doesn’t want that, these days?