A Field Guide to Pacific Coast Fishes: North America Book

I have been enchanted by seahorses for a very long time, so much so that my parents considered buying me a couple for my birthday a few years ago. Thankfully they decided not to after considering the ethical issues I might have with it. Anyway, this book got me so excited when I found it. It's sat on my shelf calling to me for a couple of months and I finally gave in.

The text starts with a prelude completely about the author. Not exactly what I was hoping for and a bit self gratifying but OK, whatever. The main body of the book is... Ummm... Not well organised to me. The first half of the book is light on seahorse biology and ecology and heavy on seahorses in history, art and traditional Chinese medicine. Speaking of Traditional Chinese medicine, she went into it in quite a bit of detail for book that is meant to be about seahorses. Yes, context is important but she spent pages delving into the theory behind diagnosis, its origins and why the dim view the west has of it is by on large incorrect and not nearly as much highlighting the negatives of "medicines" derived from endangered species that have been scientifically proven to have zero medical benefits. The latter half of the book was better but it just couldn't claw another star out of me.

Scales' writing is fine but I was glad the book wasn't much longer as I was struggling. Oh, and get this! Wikipedia (Yup, you read correctly) is cited as a source reference no less than Seven times! SEVEN!!! Once can be written off as desperation but seven is lazy and quite frankly unnecessary. Even in an undergraduate degree you'd be seriously foolhardy to reference Wikipedia and this woman has a Ph.D. Also, some of the text notes would have fared much better in the main text body and would have added more detailed information and a better reading experience.
As my rating suggest this book is just OK. It pains me that this was my lowest rated popular science textbook. I wanted it to be magical. The next seahorse book I pick up will be written by an expert.