3 out of 4 stars
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Perdido Bay Blues: The Struggle to Save Perdido Bay by Jacqueline Lane PhD is a non-fiction work about a particular bay in Florida and the problems it is dealing with in our modern world. I knew very little about this topic before picking up this book, and after reading it I feel that I have a clear understanding of some of the problems the bay is facing.
The book reads very cleanly and the author doesn’t do one of the major things that I have a problem with from many non-fiction authors: namely, she doesn’t talk down to the reader, nor does she use exaggerated or flowery language just to show off how smart she is. Instead, she talks directly to the reader in a very clean fashion that makes the problems facing the bay the priority of this book. I really enjoyed the fact that it was so easy to read, because it helped me analyze the material rather than decipher the wording.
The actual content of this book was incredibly interesting, and also a little bit frightening. It represents a sort of look at the modern world with global warming and invasive species that we are facing on a much more regular basis. Some of the things covered, such as when Judge Canter threw a curveball and forced them to drop all of their evidence so that it could protect companies instead of the water ways. Things like this are frustrating, but the author was able to weave a solid narrative around both the efforts the petitioners made as well as the disasters they faced entering the public sphere.
Despite how well-written the book was, it wasn’t without its problems. The biggest one was the formatting and style guide the book seemed to follow, because it made it feel more like I was reading a college term paper than an actual non-fiction book. The author does such a great job of making the book conversational that this felt like a huge mark against it and really detracted from the overall quality of the read. If the formatting issues were addressed it would be almost perfect.
All in all, I found Perdido Bay Blues: The Struggle to Save Perdido Bay by Jacqueline Lane PhD to be an interesting and cohesive read about the issues that the bay is facing and the way in which people have tried to save it. For people who enjoy non-fiction reads with a lot of life and spark to them, this book is a real win. I will rate it 3 out of 4 stars because of the aforementioned formatting issues, but with a few slight modifications I think this could be an incredible read.
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Perdido Bay Blues
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