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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Grief
Minor: Infidelity, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy
I read Wild Embers as part of my continued foray into Poetry. Actually, this was the first anthology I picked up when I first got the hankering to read some poetry, but I ended up getting distracted by Andrea Gibson's, Lord of the Butterflies when the Goodreads Choice Awards were announced and ended up putting this one aside for awhile.
I do feel like my review may be a little unfair because I did really enjoy the first half of this book. I was feeling very inspired and enjoyed the feminist angle and unapolegeticness that Gill takes in her poetry. But after I set it aside to read Gibson's latest anthology, which I think is fantastic, the second half of Wild Embers felt just a little bit lacklustre. Gill's writing didn't have quite as much depth for me as Gibson's, which rings of such emotional authenticity. But I don't want to be unfair and compare the two too much, because they are totally different and I did still really enjoy Gill's poetry as well.
Gill is all about female independence and being the heroes of our own stories. She doesn't want her own children to be handed down the same themes of reliance on men that she learned from fairy tales and Disney princess movies growing up. One section of her book is actually dedicated to rewriting the stories of the Disney princesses and I really enjoyed that part. I just felt some of the themes got a little bit repetitive after awhile, although I really liked how Gill also spent time writing about mental illness and the benefits of therapy.
I do feel like my review may be a little unfair because I did really enjoy the first half of this book. I was feeling very inspired and enjoyed the feminist angle and unapolegeticness that Gill takes in her poetry. But after I set it aside to read Gibson's latest anthology, which I think is fantastic, the second half of Wild Embers felt just a little bit lacklustre. Gill's writing didn't have quite as much depth for me as Gibson's, which rings of such emotional authenticity. But I don't want to be unfair and compare the two too much, because they are totally different and I did still really enjoy Gill's poetry as well.
Gill is all about female independence and being the heroes of our own stories. She doesn't want her own children to be handed down the same themes of reliance on men that she learned from fairy tales and Disney princess movies growing up. One section of her book is actually dedicated to rewriting the stories of the Disney princesses and I really enjoyed that part. I just felt some of the themes got a little bit repetitive after awhile, although I really liked how Gill also spent time writing about mental illness and the benefits of therapy.
Possibly my favourite anthology I’ve ever read. Strong and powerful. Perfectly aids healing. Every single women needs to read this.
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
slow-paced
I'm just starting to get in to poetry and it don't really know if I really like it because I haven't yet found a collection of poetry that I truly fully liked. I don't have a problem with not like some poems but it seems in the collections that I've read I didn't like about half of the poems. Sadly that does include this one, the hopes for this collection to be good were high.
First the bad: the book has very repetitive metaphores, like about everybody having an inner wolf.
Sometimes the poems felt very preachy, very self-help bookish. Which is bad in my opinion.
The rewritten fairytales left a bad taste in my mouth and I have a love for retellings. This has to do with the fact that it didn't make any sense that suddenly Little Red Riding Hood is a suffragrette.
Like their are many ways in which this could have been made powerful but behind most of these their didn't seem to be any logic or sense why it would be that way. Like Little Red Riding Hood lives in the middle ages and it's a story about stranger-danger and it would have been great if she could have saved herself or something like that. But now she suddely is leading a group of suffragettes in the 1800 like make it make sense. Then the story about Beauty and The beast and how she should be admired beyond just her beauty but most people already do that. Most people think is already brave, heroic, smart and so on. So the rewritten fairytales didn't at anything new or just didn't make sense.
Now the good: Surpringingly to me the rewritten myth of the greek goddesses were great, especially Hera story. Unlike the fairytales the original story seemed to be understood and there was a layer layed upon. Which added depth into these short stories, just wonderful. Beyond the many poems that didn't land there were quite a lot hidden gems. Most Poems were fine and there were only a few actual bad poems. The ones without titel that seemed like quotes were fun to find shattered troughout the colletion.
So in the end it wasn't really bad but as a fairytale love and the retellings being botched does hurt my heart quite a lot. But overall it's a fine collection, with many good poems, many fine poems, some really bad ones and some hidden gems. But is does posses that repetiveness which can get irritating because sometimes that made me feel like I already had read that poem before. You should read the Collection I've it sounds like something you would read. But as a fairytale lover, bad rewritings do not go lighty over my head and thus will be rated rather harshly. Since not all poems were great and the collection did posses flaws it could not redeem itself.
First the bad: the book has very repetitive metaphores, like about everybody having an inner wolf.
Sometimes the poems felt very preachy, very self-help bookish. Which is bad in my opinion.
The rewritten fairytales left a bad taste in my mouth and I have a love for retellings. This has to do with the fact that it didn't make any sense that suddenly Little Red Riding Hood is a suffragrette.
Like their are many ways in which this could have been made powerful but behind most of these their didn't seem to be any logic or sense why it would be that way. Like Little Red Riding Hood lives in the middle ages and it's a story about stranger-danger and it would have been great if she could have saved herself or something like that. But now she suddely is leading a group of suffragettes in the 1800 like make it make sense. Then the story about Beauty and The beast and how she should be admired beyond just her beauty but most people already do that. Most people think is already brave, heroic, smart and so on. So the rewritten fairytales didn't at anything new or just didn't make sense.
Now the good: Surpringingly to me the rewritten myth of the greek goddesses were great, especially Hera story. Unlike the fairytales the original story seemed to be understood and there was a layer layed upon. Which added depth into these short stories, just wonderful. Beyond the many poems that didn't land there were quite a lot hidden gems. Most Poems were fine and there were only a few actual bad poems. The ones without titel that seemed like quotes were fun to find shattered troughout the colletion.
So in the end it wasn't really bad but as a fairytale love and the retellings being botched does hurt my heart quite a lot. But overall it's a fine collection, with many good poems, many fine poems, some really bad ones and some hidden gems. But is does posses that repetiveness which can get irritating because sometimes that made me feel like I already had read that poem before. You should read the Collection I've it sounds like something you would read. But as a fairytale lover, bad rewritings do not go lighty over my head and thus will be rated rather harshly. Since not all poems were great and the collection did posses flaws it could not redeem itself.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
emotional
inspiring
reflective
the poems about fairytales and Olympic gods made it 4 stars
There were some really good poems in here, and I especially loved ‘Lonely’ and ‘Epiphany’.
It was a really clever idea to write poems about each fairy tale princess, and changing their stories to be more empowering. I loved the poems about the Greek goddesses too, they’ve always been something which interests me so it was different and exciting to find in a poetry book.
It was a really clever idea to write poems about each fairy tale princess, and changing their stories to be more empowering. I loved the poems about the Greek goddesses too, they’ve always been something which interests me so it was different and exciting to find in a poetry book.