Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads De raaf.
Me reviewing bird non-fiction. Because while I love birds I really do know very little about them (even my favorites) and I'm always up to learning more!
In this book we learn a lot of facts about ravens, such as their behavior, how they nest, what they eat, how they grow and mature, their relationship with other species, how people from various cultures view the raven, etc.
It's all pretty neat and I like that we learned a lot of things about these birds. The author is clearly very knowledgeable at the subject and has even traveled to some locations in order to (among others) watch/study the ravens there. Which is all cool. It shows that the author cares and isn't just regurgitating facts they read elsewhere.
My problem with this book? It felt boring. And dry. I don't know what it is, but despite how much the author clearly knows about ravens I just could not for the life of me get into the author's writing voice. I had a hard time keeping my attention what I was reading and no, before you ask, I wasn't distracted by any outside factors. I do have it sometimes with books that I tend to lose a little bit of my attention span for a while after reading for an X amount of time, usually about 30-60 minutes or so but it can also take a few hours if I'm doing a long reading session.
But here? I consistently felt a disconnect from the book. I know for a fact that the author has a lot of knowledge and passion for ravens, but I just didn't feel the passion here at all. It just felt like a dry non-fiction book to me which sucks because I know the author really does care. So it just sucks that that doesn't come across in the writing voice of the author at all and it instead made me want to put down the book quite a few times.
Another thing in the book is the author frequently using the outdated names/slurs for various indigenous peoples of North America. It's okay, you can just call them (the Dutch equivalent of) Native Americans, First Nations and Inuit, you don't have to use the outdated terms and especially not the slurs. Heck, at several occasions he uses the right terminology but then at the same time also uses the outdated terms/slurs? Why not do it right all the time instead of this weird half-and-half thing?
So yeah, a book with good contents but it felt so stale due to the writing voice that I couldn't get into it. I appreciate the things I learned here, but I wish I felt more while reading it.
Rating: 3/5
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