Over on my booktube channel (Hannah's Books), I shared this book in my description of exciting books forthcoming in May. Link to the particular discussion: https://youtu.be/4zoXuMKGD2A?si=kykTAvPFYhrIOOi5&t=924

This is a fascinating and accessible introduction to queer ecology. The diversity in thought and cultural perspectives brought to the table by the author bring a richness to the information not seen elsewhere.

This is an interesting meditation on plants, animals, and fungi (which are neither plants nor animals), from a person who identifies as neither male nor female. (s)he describes many living beings which are bisexual or asexual---anything can be considered 'normal' depending on the living being. (s)he is a knowledgeable professor of mycology in New York, and describes her fascination with living beings from an early age that lead to research and a degree in mycology. This describes her musings about life as well as descriptions of various fungi. This book will appeal to both biologists and philosophers.

Thank you to Netgalley and Spiegel & Grau for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I thought this was the strangest book I have ever read. I did read it in one day, cause I just had to finish it. I am not sure if I would recommend this book.

Forest Euphoria is a luminous, genre-blurring blend of memoir, natural science, and queer theory that invites readers to rediscover the strangeness and beauty of the natural world—and themselves. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian writes with tenderness and wonder as she traces her journey from an out-of-place child in the Hudson Valley to a mycologist attuned to the overlooked and misunderstood. Through intimate storytelling and fascinating insights—from the polysexual lives of fungi to the mysteries of glass eels—Kaishian dismantles rigid ideas of normalcy and instead celebrates complexity, fluidity, and kinship across species. It’s a revelatory reminder that nature is not just queer—it’s expansive, affirming, and deeply alive.

An interesting interweaving of personal memoir and natural history primer.

Patricia Onoiwu Kaishian grew up feelings most at home in the swamps and culverts around her house in the Hudson Valley. As she came to understand her developing identities as a queer, neurodivergent person, she often felt most comfortable around the beings and fungi of nature. This book intersperses personal memoir on the making of a scientist with an introduction to the queerness of all life around us.

First off, seeing parts of nature that seem to be often overlooked and discussing the inherent interconnectedness of everyone and everything is beautiful and also a powerful framework to explore, especially as Western society so often separates humanity from nature as if they're juxtaposed. Reading these stories of parts of nature (fungi, glass eels, forest sit spots, etc.) definitely makes me want to go out into the forest somewhere and see what I can find.

I think the most challenging part of this book is that it's written in a very stream-of-consciousness style. While I can understand why this is, shifting between science and memoir, it still made for a slightly more challenging read that was not always fully immersive.

Overall, I definitely recommend giving this book a read, particularly if you're curious about nature or science in any way. It's a quick read that makes you interested and creates a desire to read more about topics that spark your interest as you go through the chapters.

Patricia Onoiwu Kaishian has a fluid writing style that weaves together memoir, stories of nature and historical events that all support Forest Euphoria. As a queer microbiologist I knew this book was going to be for me and knew I would love it by the first 20 pages. I am so excited for folks to get their hands on this book. With having a science background the science details and scientific names enriched the story, but I can't tell if that would feel like a barrier for non-science folks. I really enjoyed the queerness in nature examples woven into the memoir and I have a new appreciation for eels and corvids. Since reading Forest Euphoria, I have a greater appreciation to observe and witness the nature around me. Something that was incredibly interesting to me was when Patricia talks about colonization and how historical events have shaped nature and changed the course for some of our landscapes. I also was very interested in the course that Robin Wall Kimmerer founded and directed that looks at science with two lenses, both with a scientific lens and Traditional Ecological Knowledge lens. This book is in conversation with Braiding Sweetgrass, How Far The Light Reaches and Hijab Butch Blues, so if you enjoyed any of these books, I think you would love this one! I want to thank Spiegel & Grau and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. This book is out May 27, 2025 pre-order now.

In an era when the President of the United States is attacking the beautiful diversity of life at every turn, it was wonderful to read Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian.

Kaishian is an academic specialising in the study of fungi, and this memoir explores her fascination with fungi and other forms of life that make a mockery of Trump’s outdated belief in rigid binaries and hierarchies. In nature, Kaishian says, queerness is everywhere. In Forest Euphoria, she takes us through a series of examples showing how fluid the boundaries are between genders, species and any other categorisation that humans might choose to impose.

Slipper snails, for example, all start out as male, and then at some point in their life cycle, they all pile on top of each other and their sex is determined by their position in the mound, with some remaining male and others transitioning to female.

Then there’s the cassowary bird, which many Indigenous peoples of Australia and Papua New Guinea consider to be a sacred creature because of its blending of sexual traits. Modern scientists have confirmed that although cassowary males have a phallus, it is turned inward like a vagina except during mating. And females also have a phallus that is smaller but otherwise identical to the male’s. So there’s no clear binary.

In the world of fungi, things get even more complicated.

“It is common for a fungus to have more than two biological sexes, and some fungi, such as Schizophyllum commune, have as many as twenty-three thousand mating types.”

Forest Euphoria itself resists easy definition. I’ve called it a memoir, but it’s far from traditional in form or structure. It takes us swiftly from the personal to the scientific, from the deeply individual to the political, from the smallest scope of a single forest ‘sit spot’ to the widest scope of the planetary ecosystem.

Kaishian starts by exploring her early fascination with swamps and forests. As a kid who didn’t feel as if she fitted into any of the dominant categories of human life, she found refuge in these places. They gave her “a chance to move amphibiously, to shape-shift, to creep, to oscillate like algae in a riffle, to be neither a boy nor a girl and have no particular identity at all.”

Later, we discover how she discovered mycology and became an academic, and the story broadens out to include politics, race, colonisation, the climate crisis, and so much more.

I appreciated the insight that as we navigate the climate crisis today, we already have postapocalyptic peoples among us—those who have survived genocides, the destruction of their whole way of life, and can perhaps teach us how to deal with what’s coming. I also liked the use of “Plantationocene” to describe our epoch, making it clear that climate change is not just caused by humans but by a particularly exploitative, extractive form of human activity that began with plantation slavery.

And through all the personal stories and political investigations, the fascinating examples keep coming. Eels spend nearly their entire lives as intersex beings, only acquiring a particular sex determination in their last year of life. Jack-in-the-pulpit flowers start off asexual, then develop male flowers, then acquire both male and female structures, and finally transition to being entirely female.

Kaishian also broadens the idea of ‘queerness’ beyond sex and gender, using it as a way of demolishing all kinds of categories and boundaries, upending the human-centric narrative that we often live by, exploring different ways of looking at time, nature and a lot more aspects of life.

“Ultimately, queerness invites us all, regardless of our identities, to be more undefined, unclear, transitional, merging, interdependent, cooperative, and nonhierarchical—a very fungal way of being.”

It’s a surprising argument to come from a scientist, since science is usually about finding clarity and relies heavily on establishing categories with clear definitions. But I found it very refreshing, especially in these times when we’re being asked more and more to pick sides, to entrench ourselves in one group or another, to shed our compassion and empathy for others.

Now more than ever, we need a lot more merging, a lot more cooperation, a lot more undermining of hierarchies. The rigid, hierarchical way of thinking has brought us to a desperate place of political division and ecological catastrophe, so I’m happy to give a fungal way of being a try.

It's been a while since I finished reading this book, and ever since, I've been thinking about how to write a review that properly pays tribute to all that deserves it. In terms of genre, it's a combination of nonfiction supported by scholarly evidence and a memoir containing personal life stories. It's written by an American mycologist, Patricia Kaishian, who is of Armenian and Irish descent, and identifies as queer and neurodivergent. (All of these identities should be mentioned because they inform the narrative in important ways.)

Readers can learn a lot about specific species here, especially those that human knowledge traditionally relegates to the murky spaces of "weird": slugs, fungi, cicadas, and moths in old cemeteries. From the disciplinary perspectives I was previously aware of, I would say this text is informed by environmental history (the history of human interaction with the environment) and the history of knowledge, in addition to the author's degrees in biology. However, Kaishian suggests an additional critical paradigm that I only learned about from this book: queer ecology.

"Queer ecology not only helps us identify faulty narratives around sex and reproduction but also encourages us to document the numerous ways in which human biases have entered science. Queer ecology challenges scientists to ask what boxes exist in our fields, who made them, and what we could learn if we broke them down."


However much I found information about individual themes in the book fascinating, what I appreciated the most is the general outlook and understanding of nature that informs it all. The euphoria at the exuberance of nature and the interconnectedness of every life form that we start to notice especially after we dare to break down those epistemic boundaries. (And the grief for its loss, which goes well beyond the monetary equivalent of human-centric "ecosystem services.")

"Our bodies are ancient communal swamps. The swamp is never any one thing on its own; nothing in the swamp can be isolated and understood fully."

"When people live together, their microbiomes are brought into contact, like several rivers meeting in an alluvial plain and creating a swamp."


I am very grateful that someone wrote this because it hits so close to home for me. Yet, it's even more valuable to read this from someone with a scientific background in biology rather than solely from one's own esoteric experiences:

"I see my relationship to nature, to other species, to landscapes, as queer. Not as an expression of my sexuality but because these relationships challenge what has been established as normal. In them, I found what I needed to survive in this world, a world in which I always, somehow, felt like an outsider."


I could quote even more to persuade you to read this ASAP for all the reasons, including its rigorous scholarly background, paradigm-shifting intent, and beautiful prose. But I will stop with just this one:

"[certain location] was ideal for noticing my kin— squirrels, deer, a fellow student dozing in a hammock, the crows."


Publication date May 27, 2025.

Thanks to the publisher from providing me with an eARC through NetGalley. The opinion above is my own.

A very unique and unusual book - this is a blend of memoir, philosophy and scientific information.

The author takes us on the journey of her life, as she comes to understand her place in the queerness of the world, while sharing and explaining the joys of nature and its variations around her. As she discovered snakes, snails, eels, and especially fungi and the many ways in which there are more than two sexes, or sexes that are fluid, she followed a path that led to her understanding herself and also led her down the path of being a mycologist and immersed in the science of nature.

I enjoyed the scientific facts and all the wonderful and fascinating information about many different species, a lot of them ones that typically do not get attention. I loved the concept of a 'sit spot' and slowing down to appreciate the changes in nature that happen all around us.

To be honest, I enjoyed the scientific side of the book a little more than the memoir.

This is a beautifully written memoir that fundamentally shifted how I view nature. I’ve always been troubled by hegemonic ideals of human dominion over animals - I grew up as an only child in a house full of animals with whom I developed a deep relationship throughout my childhood. Simply put, the idea that humans are somehow more advanced than our animal friends never rang true. As a mycologist, Kaishian takes this to the next level, arguing for the profound beauty of beings only visible using specialized microscopes. Her ode to our planet presents a foundational challenge to existing survival of the fittest frameworks designed to perpetuate a patriarchal, capitalist status quo.

Forest Euphoria isn’t structured how I anticipated a “science book” would be, with discrete chapters dedicated to different species. Rather, it reads like a walk through a forest, spiraling through the micro and macro organisms present alongside us. Although informative, the book lacks a didactic tone and falls more into the memoir class rather than traditional pop science literature.

To say Kaishian is passionate about the topic feels like an understatement - her love of our planet oozes through the pages. To be clear, this is a very “woke” book that frequently calls out colonialism, whiteness, etc. I do wonder if some readers less familiar with these discourses may not fully appreciate the connections between social discord and the natural phenomena the book cites. In other words, I don’t know if every reader will “buy” into her ideas. Nevertheless, I’m confident readers of all stripes will leave this book feeling far richer for it.

Thank you to Spiegel & Grau and NetGalley for this ARC. It is a treasure.

I loved this work of memoir/natural history/mycology/queer theory...yeah, it's all of them and more. Kaishian covers an astonishingly broad range of events, creatures, and environments, but makes it seem effortless to connect it all and, what's more, to make it so deeply personal AND relatable. This is going to be a favorite recommendation for queer book clubs. The appeal won't end there though--any readers of environmental science, memoir, or decolonization will find it engaging.

An excellent read! A blend of natural science, personal narrative and philosophy.

Pick this up if you want:
- an affirmation that nature is full of queerness
- a passionate defense of community, companionship, cohabitation and cooperation
- a critique of biased science based on competition and hierarchy (with humans on top)
- a soothing guide how to be present in nature and notice more of life around you
- a wealth of fascinating facts about fungi, snakes, corvids, insects and other often overlooked animals
- a relatable memoir of a queer mycologist

I hope it will be also available as an audiobook, it would be a lovely companion for walks.

Thank you to Netgalley for the eARC!

Forest Euphoria is a memoir that covers the experience of the author as a queer person from childhood to adulthood and work as a mycologist. The format is 50% memoir and 50% biology and history textbook. It was fun to learn some new facts and it kept my interest as an environmental science major!

This books feels like a journal in that the topics bounce from one to the other. One minute the author is discussing their graduate work then switches to a history lesson on crows and then how it all relates to queer culture. I wish there was a little more structure to the chapters and topics covered.

TW: childhood sexual assault

This is a unique and beautiful memoir crossed with science and nature writing. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian focuses on exploring culture, queerness, and the interconnected and interdependent nature of… well, everything. She artfully blends story and science throughout the book, making for an intriguing read.

Forest Euphoria is meandering in the best way possible, almost as if we’re taking a walk or drive across the nation and time together. We discover cicadas, eels, crows, fungi, and others that have been maligned, feared, or misunderstood throughout history. I loved it and highly recommend it!

Forest Euphoria is a beautiful, strange, and deeply personal book that blends science, memoir, and queer ecology in a way that’s totally unique. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, a queer mycologist, invites readers into her world. A world where fungi have thousands of sexes, slugs stab each other with “love darts,” and queerness isn’t an exception in nature, but a rule.

What makes this book stand out is how it zooms in on the often-overlooked, slimy, or “weird” parts of the natural world and treats them with so much respect and care. One moment that stuck with me was Kaishian describing glass eels, creatures that don’t even settle on a sex until the end of their lives. Another was her reflection on “sit spots” which is choosing one place in nature to visit again and again, and letting your relationship with it deepen over time. It’s simple, grounding, and oddly moving.

Some chapters meander a bit, and the structure is more fluid than linear, but that actually fits with the book’s overall theme: resisting tidy boxes and binaries. This isn’t just about fungi or queerness. It’s about connection, transformation, and letting things be wild, weird, and wondrous. Definitely worth the read.

I enjoyed the mix of mycology and memoir with this book, but struggled to fully immerse myself in it. I felt there wasn’t much structure or narrative to follow, and a lack of illustration meant I kept pausing to look up what particular specimens looked like to fully appreciate the context, which took me out of the reading experience. I enjoyed the writing but perhaps not the format.

DNF @ 25%.

I tried, I really did. I liked the concept of this book but it was way more memoir than I expected. The problem for me was when the author unexpectedly brought up the story of their childhood sexual assault at the doctor's office. As a sexual assault survivor, I was unprepared and this was unwelcome. I tried to move on, but because this book is half memoir, I couldn't really just skip the personal stuff. Tonight I am DNF'ing it because I'm tired and life is too short to push myself to read a book that I find myself dreading.

With a TW for childhood sexual abuse, I think that this book would be fine for the right reader. I was looking for more science, less memoir, and this was not what I wanted.

Thanks to Netgalley and Spiegel & Grau for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley, Patricia Kaishian, and Spiegel & Grau for the Advanced Reader Copy of this book!

Wow, I loved this book SO MUCH. As I was reading it I kept repeating to myself, "I'll be reading this book again" or "I need to own a physical copy so I can underline everything." This is exactly the book I needed to read as a neurodivergent, queer, justice-oriented lover of nature and ecology. It's a wonderful blend of memoir, science, and nature writing. It's a tough time to love the earth and all its inhabitants right now but this book gave me much-needed hope and a framework for living.

I do hope the final copy of the text includes a content warning for assault and I would caution sensitive readers to be prepared when reading.

Immediately adding this title to my list of favorite books!

Forest Euphoria by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, thanks to the summary I was led to believe this book was about homosexual and multi gendered species in nature but what we got instead is a biography of a queer scientist who grew up in New York State. her love for nature started at a young age even snakes were like neighbors she didn’t know but saw frequently enough she waived at them on her way to school. She swam with nature and that is where she got to know herself something that would be an evolving process throughout her life until today. she told us about transgender fungi mushrooms eels and so much more. Although this wasn’t the book I thought I would be reading and I am not a big fan of autobiographies or biographies this one was OK. I am no way shape or form believe she swam with the very deadly copperhead snakes as she stated in her book and found some of what she wrote to be a little woo woo but everything about the germs and the fungus and other things we’re very interesting. I’m not saying she isn’t a reliable narrator I just think anyone who feels comfortable enough to swim in a lake with copperhead snakes may need psychiatric assistance. I think if you like biographies in autobiographies mixed with the little scientific fact then you will definitely enjoy this book I thought it was OK and totally worth recommending.#NetGalley, #SpiegelAndGrowl, #TheBlindReviewer, #MyHonestReview,#PatriciaOnoniwuKaishian , #ForestEuphoria,