brookeisbusyreading's reviews
343 reviews

I keep reading books like this (ake from popular poets) and hoping to find why so many people love their books. But I rarely do. This one wasn’t much different.

I did enjoy the fantasy elements between the cover, setup of the ‘story/journey’, and the illustrations. The poetry, however, is about what I expected. It read more like poetic affirmations, which is fine but not my cup of tea. There were a lot of repetitive words and phrases, and the style was just so simple. I wasn’t a fan of it. Also, am I the only one who didn’t really connect with the rhymes? 

I’ve never read screenplays before but it was pretty easy to understand the extra information and stage directions. The stories were very interesting! The ending to The Fainting Game was a twist, but a welcome one! Though I will say I didn’t understand the entire storyline of ‘Til I Get Back - it was still a good read!

I’m interested to read more of gripp’s work!

[It did throw me off a bit since Game Over Books I thought only published poetry…]

I’m sorry but I have no clue what the hell I just read…

Poetry books that include culture always so fascinating! I don’t know anything about Igbo culture (or where it’s from or what the culture’s like) but I could feel the connectedness in the author’s poems.

My favorite poem is My Middle-School-Self Took Me to Church. The reference to One Direction was cool, as was the relationship in the poem! And Poem by My Pussy Hairs was surprisingly intriguing. I mean, the title alone piqued my interest lol

I definitely connected more to the style of Nnenna than I expected. They have a curious way of looking at things that I enjoyed.

This book kept losing me. Part of it was the punctuation choices (or lack thereof) that threw me off with the pacing. And then I just felt stupid because I didn’t - and still don’t - have a clue what most of the book was about. BUT I did like the imagery and aesthetic! And the title is very intriguing and interesting!

To be honest, I have religious trauma and I wasn’t expecting this book to be so heavily focused on religion. There were so many references to the Bible that I felt a disconnect with the poems and author because I couldn’t remember/didn’t know the stories of the people mentioned.

But, that being said, there were quite a few poems that were raw and not ashamed to challenge some religious ideals or take the Bible’s stories and put them in a different context. However, I feel like I didn’t understand most of the book - and didn’t care to due to my experiences with religion - which meant I couldn’t enjoy it like I wished I could have.

I don’t want to give this book 1 star, I really don’t, but I didn’t understand it at all. Maybe it all went over my head. I don’t know. I feel a little dumb that I couldn’t understand what the author was trying to say.

Though I did like the formatting of the book!

Only giving this 4 stars because I couldn’t connect with the encouraging poems and ones that felt more like affirmations. Not really sure why. But the way Shelby writes is beautiful and fluid. I loved her other books so naturally I had to check this one out. Love the title too!

This was a roller coaster of “I like this!” and “Okay, that’s enough”. There were a bunch of poems that, to be completely honest, made me feel dumb because I didn’t understand them due to the phrasing/style Sabrina used. However, I did recognize and appreciate the different types of poetry she included. It was cool to see them.

There’s A LOT of dark emotions in this book, which I’m all for normally, but I did feel like it was a little repetitive as I neared the end. Unfortunately, I have a disconnect to the poems about Sabrina’s mother since my mother and I have a bad relationship. I’ll admit I felt envious - sometimes even jealous and sad - because I wanted that kind of relationship with my mother. Really, it just brought up some trauma I wasn’t prepared to face again while reading this book.

I’d say it’s a solid 3.5 read for me though. Maybe I just don’t get the poetry that’s popular.