Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History

by Caroline Tracey

An acclaimed nature writer’s dazzling love letter to a strange ecosystem and a moving odyssey into her own identity.


More than a hundred salt lakes dot Earth’s surface, most of them hidden away in remote desert valleys. But today nearly all of them are at risk of drying up. Their death is a harbinger of rising sea levels, life-threatening dust storms, and environmental collapse.


Writer and geographer Caroline Tracey didn’t know this when she began crossing paths with salt lakes during her early twenties. From the Great Salt Lake to the Aral Sea, across the American West and around the world, the unusual beauty of these shimmering, uncanny bodies of water captured her imagination. In Salt Lakes, Tracey travels across four continents to seek out and describe these extraordinary vanishing lakes and the people dedicated to saving them. She takes readers along on her adventures by train in Kazakhstan and on an inflatable raft in California, on her encounter with Mormon environmentalists in Utah and an Australian Aboriginal painter seeking to capture her country for her children. In evocative prose, she traces shorebirds’ seasonal migration and the history of water law.


As Tracey chronicles the decline of the lakes, she also experiences dramatic changes in her own life and conception of self. Running parallel to Tracey’s environmental journey is an intimate, human her story of finding queer love and building a home in a world fast being remade by ecological crises. By the end of Salt Lakes, she shows us how seeing the environment through a queer lens could help save our water system.


An exquisite blend of travel writing, memoir, and reportage, Salt Lakes is an inspiring call to fight for all that is fragile in our lives.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Nature, Memoir, History, Environment, Audiobook

269 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 17, 2026

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Salt Lakes straddles memoir, travelogue & ecological study. Tracey writes both lyrically and easy to understand prose. I found her style to be easy to connect to and deeply moving.

This book will appeal to lovers of nature writing, queer memoirs and hard ecological science. You need to be open to Tracey’s winding journey both through her life and her research. You can’t sit down to read this with preconceptions about what type of book it is. I enjoyed Salt Lakes most when I sat back and allowed Tracey to lead!

[Me, My Shelf, & I]

DNF @ 57%

Some of this is interesting, even learning about ranch hands (as opposed to science, ecosystems, and native american land rights)... but then it's interspersed with So. Much. personal memoir about her college life and dating and journey to queerness.

I really just wanted a geography/science novel, not to read about some lady I'd never heard of, sorry.

[Zee Ahmad · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always enjoy books that are willing to be experimental, and this one certainly was. This was a fascinating mix of environmental history, natural science, travel writing, memoir, queer identity, and ecological study all rolled into one. Some sections worked better for me than others, but I admired the authors ambition and passion for ecosystems that may seem lifeless at first glance yet are built around highly specialized forms of life (not to mention birds.) I also found their comparison between identity and salt lakes surprisingly effective. The main takeaway is that salt lakes are temporary just like everything else: species disappear, relationships change, and landscapes transform, but that doesn’t make these saline ecosystems any less important. 3.5/5

*Two Pride books back to back (and it’s only the 5th.) 🤔

[JL · Rating 3 out of 5]

About half of “Salt Lakes” is what the title and blurbs promise: an engaging and informative description of the ecology, geology, history and ethnography of a number of salt lakes in North America and beyond. While the coverage is somewhat spotty and corresponds only with the author’s seemingly random personal travels (e.g., no mention of the Dead Sea?), this part of the book is a credible general interest account of an interesting geological phenomenon ala Simon Winchester or John McPhee.

The other half of the book, however, interspersed liberally within the first, is a tedious, pretentious and wholly unnecessary personal memoir of the author’s journey of self-discovery and sexual awakening, interspersed with endless details of domestic life and the immigration journey of her partner. While most authors of popular science/history/enthnography share a few personal anecdotes regarding their travels and perspectives on the subject, the soul-searching essays in “Salt Lakes” have little or nothing to do with salt lakes and offer no meaningful insight or perspective on the subject. Rather, they read like undergraduate reflection papers that have been plunked wholesale into an otherwise factual narrative, complete with tedious references to obscure scholarly texts (Russian Literature, Queer Theory, etc.). We read far too much about the author’s interpersonal difficulties with roommates and traveling companions, the gory details of calf birthing (James Herriot with an excess of vaginal references), and the uninteresting middle class upbringing that brought the author to the West. Not surprisingly, she elevates her own experience to that of the literary — frequently quoting Wallace Stegner (she is no Wallace Stegner) and other Western writers in adjective-laden prose that is, at times, embarrassing to read (e.g., the author reflecting on her own “strong, sinewy body”). Admittedly, the author tries to tie this material to the ecology of salt lakes (applying queer theory to the lakes themselves, their bird life, etc.), but these attempts are largely unconvincing and, at times, strained beyond credibility.

In short, “Salt Lakes” is a book with a split personality — one that is an informative read, but interrupted too often by irrelevancies and pretensions that a good editor should have insisted on deleting.

[Angi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a blend of autobiography and nonfiction (science, history, politics) in a way that defies easy categorization, but makes the info-dumping more interesting than it might be in a standard textbook or pop-science format.

I picked it up thinking it would be mostly science around salt lakes, and was surprised at the many times the author elaborated on her (often terrible*) relationships. At first I was almost annoyed by those inclusions (plus the fact that she didn't immediately dump those partners), then realized it kept me more engaged than other non-fiction books do. It also added coherence and a storyline around the various lakes she visits, as she connected them to her personal experiences. Once I had settled into the format, I was surprised how often she quoted reference materials or interview subjects, but that does make sense given her graduate degree and the many nonfiction angles of the book. Tracey covers a wide breadth of material related to the lakes - the history of what's happened to them, the life that thrives (or is going extinct) within them, the barriers to preservation, local politics, etc. It's in no way comprehensive, but I appreciated the periodic deep dives, and ultimately found the writing style kept me engaged in a way that more conventional science books sometimes don't. Ultimately the book is hopeful (both for some of the lakes she discusses and her personal relationships). And she does draw parallels between her personal life and the lakes in a way that feels cohesive by the end.

Random side note: The book is generally well written and engaging, although the author occasionally could benefit from a thesaurus. If I don't hear the word "quotidian" again in the next 15 books I read I'll be happy, and I wish she had capped herself at using that word 5 times per chapter. She overuses "ephemeral" as well, but that one is often (not always) used for technical accuracy, so many of those are forgivable. This is a minor editing quibble, but would have helped.

*not abusive, so no worries about a trigger warning. But I was surprised she didn't dump some of them much, much sooner

-----
NOTE: I received a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for a review expressing my personal opinions.
-----

[Elsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
-
I love reading non-fiction books about nature and expanding my knowledge as a nature enthusiast. I have never seen or heard of a book that covers salt lakes, so I was really excited when I learnt of this book.
However, my hopes of learning a lot about salt lakes in a scientific sense were not fully fulfilled.
It started really well, but then the book went from salt lakes to the author's personal life. And that is not a bad thing per se, it simply was not why I was there. I believe I learnt more about the author's life rather than Salt Lake's.

I think the narrator saved it for me. This narrator was one of those people who you can listen to no matter what they are talking about. If there were another narrator or I read a physical copy, I'm not sure I would've finished the book.

Overall, it wasn't bad, it just wasn't the best. I came for the Salt Lakes, stayed for the narrator.

This is a review of the audiobook.

[Dodi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should've learned more about this book before I decided to read it for a Goodreads "pride pick" challenge. Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History blends Caroline Tracey's self-discovery of sexual identity along with the ecology of saline lakes. If I had time to burn, I would tally the number of times the word "queer" appears in this book. Not only does Tracey use the term to describe her personal journey, but also to analyze ecological systems through a "queer ecology" framework. Tracey is a good writer, and I really enjoyed her descriptions of the landscapes she visits.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Under the Umbrella Bookstore that allowed me to read and review this as an ARC!

Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History takes you through an emotional journey of salt lakes throughout the world while the author explores her queerness. Tracey strikes a balance of discussing relevant history, nature, and her own story which makes the book interesting and informative. She further highlights the continued plight of the salt lakes due to human interference, and how to move forward towards saving these beloved lakes. This is an important read for anyone who lives near a salt lake. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys nature, especially those who have visited any of the salt lakes across the world.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll start by saying that I, in general, can appreciate the trend of women and femmes writing their own experiences into nonfiction science/history/non-memoir books. When it's done well, it can bolster the narrative of the "subject" while making it personal and human. I think it's also important to indigenize and queer subjects like ecology. Unfortunately, I felt like this missed the mark. A number of the personal stories seemed disconnected from the larger narrative, which was really a bummer. There was a lot of connection back to indigenous traditions, which I very much appreciated.
I can appreciate the experiences the author had which made her shift her view on aspects of the environment, but I think this book would have been better served by situating the salt lakes at the center and occasionally adding in autobiographical material as it more directly related. I don't feel that the author's experience with an irritating and invasive travel mate helped me learn the character of the Aral Sea or the author; rather, I appreciated when she talked about how hard it was to get there and the experiences she had in that town. It doesn't mean that she can't include personal info: the story about the author meeting her wife and learning about her father-in-law's connection to Mexico City's lake-related infrastructure is interesting and furthers the narrative. The author recounting how she figured out her first few sapphic experiences and having a flaky girlfriend seemed to take resources away from the story of the lake, though.

Although I mostly listened to this, I did see a physical copy of the book and was disappointed by the maps in it. I can appreciate the map of the Western US lakes and how they are spread out, but the foreign lakes are zoomed in on only the lakes, but have only basic details and no key. I am assuming that the dashed lines imply parts of the lake that are dry, but I don't know for sure, and I also have very little context as to what is around these lakes and where they are in their countries (there is a basic world map provided, but it doesn't help much).

I think this author can be compelling and interesting, and I would absolutely read somrthing by her again, but I would prefer if it stayed a little closer to the advertised topic.

[Natalie Walker]

Listened on audio. Be gay and save the great salt lake… and other salt lakes, obviously.

[MEJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Just as queer ecology teaches us to celebrate the ugly and the unruly of the world, the scorned and the sacred, it also prepares us for these losses. The presence of the ephemeral in queer life is many-hued. It trains us to grasp the flashes of utopian pleasure on the horizon, but also to mourn the kin unjustly taken away. ‘Queer and trans peoples experiences of grieving premature death,’ writes the hydrologist Cleo Woelfe Hazard in Underflows, ‘can stoke collective action on extinction and repair.’ We have to mourn to recognize the gravity of the losses that surround us, and to feel how important it is to keep fighting to staunch them.”

…

“We saw phalaropes only from a distance, stationed on the opposite shore in large groups, then passing us in the air like big clouds, glinting gray and white as they opened and closed their wings. The way they moved as a collective reminded me of the fluttering ascendance of the predatory wasp song, where the feeling of sacred warmth came from the unexpected match between queer desire and natural beauty. They're queer birds, the butches of the bird world, tough women who refuse to follow the rules. When they fly past you, though, they just look synchronized and delicate. It's that kind of unimaginable match that makes queer love so powerful. It defies common wisdom about what's correct, overwhelming you with something so beautiful that it turns the whole landscape sacred.”

***

So stunning and beautiful. I loved every page of this.

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

From what I can tell, this book has some polarizing reviews. I think that in order to enjoy this book, you have to let it be what it is, and not what you think it should be. It is not strictly an encyclopedia of salt lakes around the world; rather, the analysis of salt lake ecosystems around the world is interspersed with the author's own discovery of self.

There are some times that the comparisons between ecology and queer culture get a bit out-there, but ultimately I think that in reading a book like this, you choose to see the world through that author's lens. I do think it was interesting how her unique experiences, from childhood through adulthood, shape the way in which she interprets the significance of and her own connection to salt lake ecosystems.

The author does do some deep dives on the cultural, political, and ecological backgrounds of many salt lake ecosystems around the world, so this is definitely not solely a memoir either. I do commend the author on her incorporation of indigenous historians in telling the stories of these lakes.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Different from what I usually grab, but I was curious about the salt lake connection and how much UT would be featured (which was kinda a lot tbh, but not always in a great light… :/ ) I tuned in and out just a bit but overall it was worth it.

-“It was the first of salt lakes’ many lessons for me: places that seem ugly or desolate are vital and complex in ways you don’t notice until you give them a chance…it’s possible, and even in the world we live in, necessary, to make a home in an environment that is inhospitable, toxic, and mundane.”

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this blend of memoir and nature nonfiction. Although the more technical parts about salt lake biology and the judicial aspect of salt lake protection were a little dry, the personal stories were a joy to read. I wish there was even more information about the cultural history of salt lakes, also in other parts of the world than America, because those stories were very interesting to hear.

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was genuinely not expecting to enjoy that as much as I did.
I struggled to find my flow with it but once I did it was beautiful to read.
Ecology and humanity, queer and indigenous and religious social histories, personal anecdotes and historical facts.
It was so good

[Maddie Fuchs · Rating 4 out of 5]

good listen i liked this more than i thought i would

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted information about salt lakes; I didn’t want the author’s dating history.

[Damian · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author is trying to cover 2 subjects (LGBT+ and environmentalism) and, instead of writing 2 good books ends up writing a single mediocre one that covers neither well. Sometimes goes roo.personal and on others too scientifically. It fails.

[CatReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Caroline Tracey is an American writer with a PhD in geology from the University of California, Berkeley. Contrary to the title, her 2026 book Salt Lakes is probably 2/3rds memoir, 1/3rd geology of salt lakes across the globe.

I picked this book up as I spent four years living in Salt Lake City, Utah, during which time I was fascinated by the area's geology, and was saddened to hear about the diminishing state of the city's eponymous lake in the years following my departure (though with an eye to history, I'd also explored the Bonneville Salt Flats -- the remnants of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville -- and made many visits to the Utah Natural History Museum to recognize the ebbs and flows of geological history of the area).

Tracey does explore the state of the Great Salt Lake, as well as other salt lakes across the world, which I found very interesting. She also discusses her own academic and personal journey, which largely focus on her exploration of sexuality and gender throughout her teens, twenties, and thirties. While I appreciated her personal journey and growth, it did appear to color her perspective of the narrative quite a bit, as she described the geology of salt lakes and their native inhabitants as queer in the same way that many humans experience gender and sexuality.

My statistics:
Book 88 for 2026
Book 2394 cumulatively

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://theutahmonthly.substack.com/p...

[OvercommuniKate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I strongly dislike this trend of memoir mixed with nonfiction. I had the same problems with this book as last year's Jane Austen's Bookshelf; I wanted more memoir (especially on her Mormon background) or more nonfiction (for instance, history details were left out about the Salton Sea formation). Unlike Jane Austen's Bookshelf, this was not a bait-and-switch. The marketing shows it's clearly a memoir element. I just thought because I enjoyed Everything is Tuberculosis, I would like this genre more. There's a sweet spot where memoir-nonfiction hits, so mileage will vary for each reader. I think John Green hit it right with the structure where the memoir was in separate sections while this is more weaved in. Also, slight nitpick but the prologue should have been chapter 1 as it was a separate essay and not really a prologue.

[Mirela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Salt Lakes has an intriguing premise, but for me it struggled under the weight of its own structure. The blend of environmental reporting and personal memoir never fully coheres, with the narrative often pulled in competing directions rather than feeling meaningfully integrated. I found the personal anecdotes in particular to be too bizarre and distracting, taking me out of what could have been a more compelling exploration of fragile ecosystems. At the same time, the book’s wide geographic scope comes at the expense of depth—each location and issue is touched on, but rarely explored with the level of nuance or analytical rigor that would make it truly resonate. Overall, while I appreciated the ambition, this one didn’t quite land for me.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Once I got past the beautiful cover, I found a book that just never came together into anything I liked. I don't have an issue with the premise or structure-- basically, memoir nominally built around certain salt lakes and their history-- because I thought it would be like The Library Book or Optic Nerve, personal meditations on narrow aspects of a big general topic the author cares about. Many books like that have worked for me, but this one was a struggle to finish. The (mostly indigenous) history hit me as preachy and inauthentic to a degree I almost can't believe, centering as it does Caroline Tracey's personal biography rather than any of the people she's actually talking about; and, probably relatedly, long long passages felt like diaphanously-veiled bragging. There is no humor whatsoever. Most of the book's politics are predictable, absolute, and substantially unexamined, leading to statements like "the only ethical position is x"-- all of which is pretty much the opposite of what I like to read.

During the Fulbright section-- after explaining how she won this scholarship with her cool research plan and got to study abroad in Central Asia-- Tracey seems to shame a female friend of hers for trying to add too much "intimacy" to their friendship. Examples given include telling Tracey about her own sex life and asking if Tracey is "religious," shocking breaches of friend boundaries for sure; by the end of the chapter I was cheering for the girl when she decided to break off the relationship. Nobody needs the kind of friend who judges her for jokingly referring to herself as a "fallen woman." Then, when Tracey talks about working "as a cowboy," she has to let us know that despite the physical, seemingly unprestigious job, she is reading queer theory (complete with lengthy info dump), pondering "colonial domination," and memorizing fancy poetry. I am by no means anti-elitist, but this is all a bit much. When she describes her first lesbian relationship in I think her 30s?, her attempts to make her girlfriend a villain for things like taking as much as an hour to return her texts (the emotional cruelty!) also did not impress me. She never admits to doing anything wrong herself in any relationships, ever. She travels the world and studies in Mexico and learns other languages and gets a Ph.D. and becomes a professor, etc., and at every stage I felt like I was reading some kind of excruciating combination of a dating profile and a CV. The more Tracey told me about herself, the more convinced I became that I don't know anything real about her (except that she sure loves the words "quotidian" and "ephemeral"). She isn't running for president, so she didn't have to write a memoir; and I'm honestly not sure why you would frame such superficial biography this way.

Goodreads pushed this book as part of their Pride Picks challenge for June, which is how I heard of it. I bought it because the cover was pretty and, again, the premise seemed like it could work. But there is so much name-dropping and lists of Things Tracey Knows, firm opinions about cultures that aren't hers, and a self-portrayal suggesting not only a lack of true self-scrutiny but also (sorry) a very, very smooth and easy life path. Sitting at what sure sounds like the top of Maslow's pyramid, Tracey doesn't describe anything that feels raw or recognizable to me. In memoirs, I'm drawn to heart and mess and laughter, and I didn't find those here. I would have much preferred if she cut the book down to a pure history of the lakes.

[Emilie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Writer and geographer Caroline Tracey describes salt lakes throughout the world, exploring their history, biodiversity, ephemeral nature, and uncertain future. Running parallel to Tracey's environmental journey is an intimate human one—her story of finding queer love and building a home in a world being rapidly remade by ecological crises. Throughout Salt Lakes, she explains how, in her opinion, seeing the environment through a queer lens could help save our water systems.

As an ecologist and amateur birder with a keen interest in all water features (including rivers, streams, ponds, and salt lakes), I found the sections focusing on the history of their creation, water rights, and biodiversity absolutely captivating. I learned a great deal about the Great Salt Lakes in the American West and Mexico—regions I have never visited. These scientific sections were my primary reason for selecting this book.

I found myself strongly aligned with the author's vision regarding the need to avoid "manicuring" spaces and the importance of protecting all species. I fully understand the inter- and intra-species relationships essential for a balanced ecosystem and agree that engineering interventions often benefit one side at the expense of another. However, I did not fully embrace the author’s stance that "queer ecology" provides a unique perspective on biodiversity. In my view, the author presents a more philosophical and academic approach to ecology, whereas my perspective is rooted in my professional experience as an ecologist. In my opinion as a non-queer woman, the desire to protect nature’s wildness is a universal goal shared by all ecologists, regardless of their personal identity.

While I can see how this 'braided' style might appeal to fans of creative non-fiction, as a scientist, I found the jumping between facts and memoir a bit jarring. The frequent transitions between scientific facts and personal memoir created a disjointed flow that I found difficult to track. I personally struggled to connect with the narrative regarding the author’s memories of Salt Lake City and her LGBTQ+ journey. Furthermore, given my lack of familiarity with the geography of the American West and Mexico, I believe a physical copy—ideally including maps and figures—would have been more beneficial than the audiobook. Being able to visualize these locations would have made the experience much more enjoyable. I found the narration by Cassandra Campbell a bit too clinical for such a personal story, which made it difficult to stay engaged.

Thank you to Tantor Media, Caroline Tracey and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in advance of publication.

[Adrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.3 stars
Thanks to NetGalley for the early preview of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This is, at its core, a book about salt lakes around the world — which, by nature, isn’t always the most riveting subject. That said, there were definitely parts I found interesting, especially when the focus was closer to home.

I live in Utah, so I really enjoyed the sections on the Great Salt Lake. It was fun hearing familiar names and places mentioned, including Ben Abbott, who the author clearly holds in high regard. Those local connections made those chapters stand out more for me. I also particularly liked the chapters on Mono Lake and Zuni Salt Lake. The history of the Zuni people and their efforts to protect their lake was especially compelling and added an important cultural layer to the book.

The author weaves in quite a bit of personal narrative throughout. At times, this made the book feel a bit longer than necessary, but in other places it helped humanize the story and gave more context to why these environments matter. It’s a bit of a tradeoff depending on the chapter.

A consistent theme throughout the book is how fragile and threatened salt lake ecosystems are around the world. That message comes through clearly, and it’s hard not to come away with a sense of concern about their future and the broader environmental impacts tied to their decline.

I will say, after finishing the book and discussing it with others more familiar with water and environmental issues, it does feel like some perspectives may be presented with a certain level of bias or generalization. That’s not entirely unexpected in a narrative nonfiction book like this, and it doesn’t invalidate the overall message, but it’s something readers may want to keep in mind.

Overall, while I didn’t find every chapter equally engaging, there were enough interesting sections to keep me listening, particularly when the focus was on specific lakes with strong historical or cultural stories behind them.

Audiobook narrator Cassandra Campbell rating: 3.2 stars
Cassandra Campbell does a solid job narrating. As with most nonfiction, there isn’t a ton of room for performance, but she keeps things clear and steady. There were a few pronunciations that stood out to me — especially for places where locals tend to say them differently (Mono Lake should be pronounced moan-oh, Nevada has the soft a, and Weber State is pronounced wee-bur), but that’s a minor thing and probably more noticeable if you’re familiar with those areas.

[Lizzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Salt lakes are something I knew absolutely nothing about going into this book, and I was excited and intrigued to learn about this whole ecosystem that is unlike anything I’ve come across.

Caroline Tracey delivers a wide-reaching history of salt lakes, discussing not only their geography and biology, but also their role in American history. It’s clear that salt lakes were essential to the settler colonialism of the American west, and Tracey lays out the way that water supplies were and are weaponised by those in power. She also discusses the impact this has had on the lakes, and the knock-on effect this has had on their biodiversity and on the people who rely on the lakes.

📚Blog📖YouTube📖Instagram📚

It was absolutely fascinating and eye-opening to learn more about this topic, which isn’t something I’d ever come across. I was especially interested in learning about the specialised life forms that live by the lakes, and although I wasn’t expecting as much information on the human geography, I still found it really interesting.

Although I did enjoy some of the more personal aspects of the book, I think blending the whole book with a memoir was a bit much. There does seem to be a trend across popular science books written by women lately, that there needs to be a memoir aspect, as if publishers don’t trust that people might want to read what they have to say for the actual science content. Although sometimes the personal touches worked well with the information about the salt lakes, sometimes it was a big distraction. I just want to learn about cool lakes! Is that so wrong?

The book was well-narrated by Cassandra Campbell, although I did find that the sound quality wasn’t particularly good. It was quite muffled, and I often had to turn it up to a very high volume to make out what was being said.

Although there were things I didn’t enjoy so much about this book, I do still feel like I learned a lot, and I have a renewed appreciation for the importance salt water lakes.

I received a free copy for an honest review.

[Jen G · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m always excited to read geography themed creative non-fiction. The premise of this book sounded great. I’m really glad to see others enjoyed it. However, I promised NetGalley an honest review and rating, so here it is:

This book did not resonate with me the way it did for others, and I suspect that this stems from my close proximity to the subject, having written papers on the microbiology and geochemistry of some of these lakes, and that I’ve been reading creative non-fiction since the ‘90s, and it’s easy to be overly critical of creative writing about subject matter that is deeply familiar to oneself.

My main quibble is that the book rushes through too many lakes without giving a single one sufficient coverage for the readers to develop a relationship with the lake as a character. The prototype of such a book is Terry Tempest Williams' Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, which the author cites several times as providing inspiration for this book and from which it borrows part of its title. It’s an incredibly tall ask for a debut to outshine “Refuge”, so it’s not fair to compare the two, and yet I often found myself doing so because a memoir that integrates the natural history of salt lakes is immediately going to take readers who have been gobbling creative non-fiction for decades back to “Refuge”, in which Williams so brilliantly interwove her personal story with the ecology of the Great Salt Lake.

My other quibble is that I did not recognize an authentic connection between the personal story and the lake stories. There is a exciting new field of research on queer ecology, but the sections on each lake did not fully encapsulate their queerness and the extent to which discoveries from each lake has changed their field, instead reading more as Wikipedia synopses of each lake. There are many more fascinating stories to pull from each lake (Ronald Oremland’s self-published memoirs contain many stories of studying Sierra Nevada lakes, including Mono Lake, though sadly the arsenic-life story has left an infamous stain on that research…).

Moral of the story: if this book inspires the next generation to find a meaningful connection with these fascinating ecosystems, it has done its job. I hope other readers enjoy it and I hope the author keeps writing.

[Jeimy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caroline Tracey’s Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History is a remarkable blend of memoir and natural science, weaving together ecological investigation with a deeply personal coming-of-age narrative. As Tracey travels across the American West and beyond, she introduces readers to salt lakes around the world—their strange beauty, their ecological importance, and the alarming rate at which many of them are disappearing.

Along the way, the book becomes something more intimate. As Tracey documents these fragile ecosystems, she is also documenting her own life: discovering her identity, falling in love, and building a home with her partner. The interplay between environmental loss and personal growth gives the book a quiet emotional depth that elevates it beyond traditional nature writing.

I found myself learning about queer ecology, ephemeral salt lakes, and the waterways that sustain them. The book also highlights the destructive consequences of settler colonial approaches to land management, reinforcing my growing belief that attempts to “tame” nature in order to suit human needs often come at devastating ecological cost.

Tracey’s writing is also filled with memorable language. I fell in love with the phrase “quotidian ephemera,” and several lines stayed with me long after I finished reading. “Some of the most beautiful, sacred parts of love are the banal ones.” “The joy of queerness is in the richness of the quotidian.” “Queer ecology teaches us to love the ugly, unruly in this world; the scorned and the sacred.” These reflections, alongside the sobering reality that we may already be past the tipping point for saving many of these lakes, make the book both beautiful and unsettling.

This is an extraordinary work of nature writing—thoughtful, personal, and quietly urgent.

[Angela G · Rating 5 out of 5]

June 2026 Pride Month Reading Challenge - Book 4! I am challenging myself to read LGBTQ books during June.

I chose this book because it was described as a LGBT memoir and because I was interested in what it had to say about the Great Salt Lake, which I knew a bit about from to my time in Utah and LDS culture. There is some mention of the LDS church (in politics and environmental policy), but this book offers so much more.

To call Salt Lakes merely a memoir is a disservice; it is a deeply researched, scientific exploration into the history and ecology of several salt lakes, and Tracey's experience with them through the lens of her life at the time. It takes some serious talent to combine history, science, and a queer awakening in one creatively organized and beautifully shared collection of ideas. I think she's a talented writer and what she has done here is masterful; it feels very Bill Bryson-ish.

Some may look upon a salt lake and only see a smelly peculiar place with weird bugs and birds, but what Tracey teaches us is that these locations have infinite value in the global landscape, with rich histories and delicate ecosystems. Queer stories and indigenous stories have similarly been minimized. At one point, Tracey shares a quote that says, I paraphrase, attention can be just like a prayer. By learning about these things, we give them importance and advocacy.

This book made me feel something. I felt for the birds, I felt for the lakes, I felt for those whose journeys of self discovery have been messy, I felt for environmentalists who have protested and fought. I wished I had a dozen other lives to live so I could experience some of all this for myself and be an expert on something that mattered.

Well done.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first moved to California almost fifty years ago, I was struck by how arid it is. Before then I had never been west of the Mississippi and in my mind the world was green, except in winter when it was white and gray. My first reaction was that the west was barren, that aridity equated with an impoverished environment, an absence of life. It didn't take me long to see it differently and to come to appreciate that the west teems with life, not just in the sagebrush hills around Los Angeles, but even the starker terrain of California's deserts.

But I needed an extra push to be able to appreciate the unique and bountiful ecologies of salt lakes. Salt lakes feel like death zones - no fish, few plants, toxic mineral stench. But, of course, you just have to pause and look to see the life, which Ms. Tracey does very nicely. And once you see the salt lakes this way, you can better appreciate the tragedy of their shrinkage around the world - The Aral Sea, the Great Salt Lake, the Salton Sea, Mono Lake and more.

I liked the way that Ms. Tracey ties the salt lakes to Queer Ecology, which helps us to appreciate the special and unique qualities of niche environments and to see that they are a vital part of the larger world. But it worked less well to me when she tied it back into her personal quest to uncover her sexual orientation and to build a queer world for herself and her wife. I might have enjoyed that story more as a separate book because Ms. Tracey is certainly an interesting person, but using Queer Ecology and Queer Theory as the bridges between the salt lakes and her own story felt a little forced and made me like the book less.