Reviews

Mixed Feelings by Abraham Rodriguez

happily_undignified's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Mixed Feelings by Abraham Rodriguez was a tense, emotional collection of poems that were punctuated with stirring photos. This book expressed the difficulties of an on-again off-again relationship and the baby steps it takes to recover from a breakup. As the author found himself his voice became more confident and his emotions more clear. I enjoyed the progression of the poems and I'm sure they will be therapeutic for anyone experiencing heartbreak.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

smizock's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

tanishajade_'s review

3.0

i thoroughly enjoyed reading this poetry book, i found the writing to be beautiful and brutally honest. i could feel the emotions coming from each poem, it was written in a way that made it feel so emotional and raw, yet also had me sympathising for the poet. i enjoyed how certain poems were written in spanish first, with the english translation following, i felt that this added to the originality of the book whilst also paying tribute to spanish poetry! this poetry collection definitely has the power to make you feel certain emotions, and i’m very grateful to netgally, Abraham Rodriguez and publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this before the release date!

dorothysbookshelf's review against another edition

1.75

AD/ gifted from Netgalley. 

i just wanted to clarify that i have nothing against modern minimalist poetry. however, i don’t think this collection is good on a technical or poetic level. there are no language devices, no deeper meaning, everything felt surface level and ‘shown’ not told

this was just the  thought or phrase stated with line breaks, with the occasional photo

i’m all for people using art to work through their trauma, hell, i do the exact same thing, so i don’t mean to disregard or disrespect the author or their motives but i just don’t think this is a good set of poetry. some of these feel like tweets or notes app rants than poems. some were just individual words like
“i don’t know
and that’s okay”
like that was one poem, directly quoted from the collection 

‘this is
a review
of this book’
if that sentence i just wrote about is a poem, this is a poetry collection. if not, i don’t know what to tell you. 

laurxndxx's review

emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

3.75

Thank you to Netgalley, Abraham Rodriguez and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book, in exchange for an honest review!
 
Beautiful poetry and I loved the incorporation of Spanish poetry.

dahliaf1aff's review

hopeful reflective medium-paced

3.5

A first love/ first heartbreak 

kenfoxley's review

emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Absolutely heartbroken. This beautiful work of poetry nearly brought me to tears, opened my eyes and it was like looking in a mirror of despair of my past self. This book absolutely shattered me and shook me to my core. 

This work of poetry is seeing the ups and downs of a relationship, a very hard and emotional relationship at its very core and feeling the tense emotion and sadness that fills the page. Abraham Rodriguez poured his heart out onto the page when he wrote this book and I found myself reading the words on the page as if they were written for me. 

The raw feelings put into this book almost had me in tears because I related to it so much in the things that he talked about and the way the photographs in the book reflected on what he was saying in verse. The black and white photos really did something to the book as well, it was almost as if you could just see his broken heart in these photos as you read along. 

I did not post this part in with my Goodreads review because it’s a little too heavy for your average review, but the words Rodriguez wrote in this book made me open my eyes to the trauma and abuse I was put through at such a young age. I highlighted several quotes because like I said before, it really felt like this book was written for me or about me, as unimportant as I am. It makes me feel less alone, that I’m not the only one who’s been through things like this, that another person’s actions affected them so deeply that they are scarred forever. 

One quote that stood out to me above the rest was:

“You blame your mistakes and failures on the way you were brought up. You try to convince yourself that your daddy issues are the reason you’re so messed up.” 

I read this quote and immediately my mind started buzzing back to the past. I will not go into deep depths of what this meant to me, I don’t want to talk too much about my personal life here, but I’ve basically said this exact thing before in conversation to what happened to me at a very young age. People make excuses for the way they are, and sometimes, yeah it does make sense that certain issues like childhood trauma/generational trauma can cause you to make some not so nice mistakes or say some not so nice things. But that still does not excuse your actions. They may be the cause of your actions, but only you are responsible for ending generational trauma through help like therapy and counseling. You don’t mess up another person because that’s just how you were raised, you commit to changing yourself and trying to be better than those before you and better than how you were raised.

This book is so deserving of five stars because the power of the emotion on the page is astronomical, I get choked up by poetry anyway, but as I said, this was personal. I got an advanced readers copy through NetGalley but I absolutely want to buy this book when it hits the shelves, that’s how much it meant to me.