Amanda Lovelace

I really enjoyed Lovelace's first collection of poetry, and was very eager to read her second. She's noticeably grown in this one. She's still building on the themes from the first book, of feminism, moving beyond pain, and learning to love herself. There's also a lot of anger here, and I suspect much of the poetry was written post November 2016. But she takes that anger and uses it as fuel, and it surges throughout the entire collection. Whereas the first book felt very cathartic and show more reflective, this one felt like a call to arms.

Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley. show less

What I love about poetry is that you can read it quickly. You can read it slowly. But regardless of how you read it, it continues to haunt you long after you've finished reading it.

fairy godmother says:

despite what you have heard, being alone is not
this great tragedy everyone makes it out to be.
if nothing else, see it as an opportunity to
reintroduce yourself to yourself. to relearn who
you are today. to dream up all the people you
would like to be for every tomorrow to come.
above all, find the show more value that lies in becoming
your own best friend.

Amanda's writing is haunting. Her wisdom is simple, and yet I can see where it can also be lifegiving to those who haven't yet learned these things for themselves. And in her retelling of the Cinderella story, she both takes from the fairy tale and gives back to it its power. Also, the art is simply lovely.

I enjoyed a free copy of this book from NetGalley and have reviewed it willingly. show less

This was beautifully sad, heart-wrenching, disquieting, mind-opening, hopeful, and encouraging.

I felt so much while reading this book of poetry. The author bared her soul for the world to see and gave zero effs.

I love it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for a free copy for review,
and to Goodreads, who put this on my radar when it won the top book in the poetry genre for 2016.


This book blew me away -- socks, hair, heart and soul -- from nearly the very first words dedicating it to The Boy Who Lived from The Girl Who Survived. I was hooked. I cried and choked, and saw myself in almost all of her poems. I saw the relationships with my mother, and my sisters, and food, and smoking and show more cancer. I saw the complicated way love and hurt are twined forever in a dance that exists both during the lives of those people and long after the parting from them.

I saw my own relationships with my dragons -- boys who loved me, but not enough or well enough, and girl friends who did not understand the friend part of that word the way I thought I did, or we did. I loved the discovery of self. Confused and faltering, fledging and demanding. The whole of love for the self, claimed slowly, and always with the ghosts of yesterday's which never leave entirely.

I nearly wept when she turned to the last chapter, the 'you', and she spoke out to all the people who have been hurt, marginalized and told so many things that are not true. I want to buy five hundred copies of this book and give it out to all my girlfriends on Galentines Day. I want to keep handing it out forever. This was gorgeous and it deserved every accolade laid at its feet and a million more on top of it. My heart now rests on that pile, with no regrets. show less