I'm a nerd who grew up speaking two languages (both of which I'm still fluent in now as an adult), brought up in a household that speaks three (one of which I know the grammatical conventions of intuitively, but not as confident writing or speaking at length); I also like learning different languages, and though I wouldn't consider myself fluent in any of these new ones I can say that I have a deep love for languages and the different music they produce across countries and cultures. that said, i really really thought I would like reading this book.
 
this review was going to start on a positive note, i was sure of it, until i reached the part about the argument about a conservative and a liberal making meanings.

information is neutral. it's the telling of it that gets charged with political bias, and i regret to note that political bias is very much blatant here. i for one don't generally associate with myself with either label, finding both of them lacking in nuance (the extremes of either one is vomit-inducing for me for their inaccuracy in reflecting my personal beliefs) but Sedivy is apparently conservative-leaning, at least according to that one paragraph that attempts to describe the difference between the thinking processes of the two.

moving forward, i started scrutinizing each sentence for other things that would make me squint dubiously. the rest of this review will be written with this aforementioned knowledge in mind, just a fair warning.

it does consistently use the words "poetry" and "music" interchangeably, important to note if you're a poet and/or a musician and would like to contend with the syntactical choice.

some subsequent sections address the author's Mother which is a lovely tribute imo.

there are assertions about children that feel under-researched, or otherwise are probably drawing more from personal experience than fact, such as the assertion about children's beliefs (which, would've been presented better if a disclaimer about it were present, as in, if the author labeled such statements as reflection of personal experience rather than a generalization derived from peer-reviewed scientific research.) i think i got this impression from the distinct lack of specific experiences narrated to illustrate the assertions.

If you can enjoy a nonfiction book written with "lyrical" prose (not the adjective I would use, but I'll borrow that word from the book's description) without asking for more information, you'll probably be okay enjoying this book for what it is, but if you're like me and go "Like what? According to whom, specifically? In which contexts are these supposed to be true, and what are the exceptions to the rule? What are these generalizing statements supposed to illustrate, and why should I trust the information you're giving me?" then it's not going to be a pleasant experience here.

i enjoy creative ways to impart knowledge. nice-sounding paragraphs and ample use of fresh metaphors and other figures of speech make nonfiction fun for the reader, of course. but too much of this and too little of concrete, factual evidence takes away from the pleasure of reading nonfiction, at least for someone who expected much more. this may as well have been a prose poetry collection instead. re: my expectations of much more, it's because this book is being sold as "part memoir, part scientific exploration, and part cultural commentary," (quoted verbatim from its description) but imo it should be sold purely as memoir instead, as in, "things i found out about language from MY experience in a lab, and as someone who grew up learning to speak multiple languages." that way i wouldn't have set my own expectations about this in the way that i did.

tl;dr i am not this book's target audience which i would've figured out right away had the description for it been written differently, but i'm sure its target audience is out there aplenty.

Thank you to FSG Publishing and NetGalley for giving temporary access to an eARC in exchange for an honest review.