854 reviews for:

You Better Be Lightning

Andrea Gibson

4.59 AVERAGE

macattack86's review against another edition

5.0

emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

evnaturtleduck's review against another edition

5.0

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad slow-paced

thatbookishwriter's review against another edition

4.0

emotional hopeful medium-paced

sophiafroehlich's review

5.0

emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

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These poems pulled me back into myself. Andrea Gibson weaves words into epiphanies that leave me a puddle of emotion. Each poem is so personal while at the same time being universal. This particular book explores love, illness, grief, the experience of queerness, and so much more. I recommend it to absolutely everyone.

theallmightyme's review against another edition

3.0

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

katharina90's review against another edition

4.0

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

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This collection includes a lot of longer poems which I enjoyed, but I often find Andrea Gibson's short poems to be the most powerful ones.

Favorites:
-Instead of Depression
-What Love Is
-Good Grief
-Constellations Rearrange Themselves into a Protest Sign

"Let your
heart break
so your spirit
doesn't."
-Good Grief

"There is no moral of this story--there us only light and sadness. There is no moral of this story. It's just a moment in my life where I did something wrong, and the earth, who has never not known what love is, held me anyway."
-What Love Is

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Chronic illness, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Suicide

Minor: Addiction, Homophobia, Transphobia

jlhensley's review

3.5

dark emotional funny slow-paced

kendragaylelee's review against another edition

5.0

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Andrea Gibson is a master in breaking my heart wide open--for my own good.

I love their work. I'm putting in the category of my holiest books:
Untamed: https://bookshop.org/a/4334/9781984801258
Tiny Beautiful Things: https://bookshop.org/a/4334/9780593685211
You Better Be Lightning: https://bookshop.org/a/4334/9781943735990

Read this one immediately. And hold on to it. So you can read it again. And again.

lonurkz's review against another edition

5.0

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

hannahrose_99's review against another edition

4.0

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andrea gibson is one of the greats, truly! this collection didn't resonate with me as much as their other ones, but still some incredible work here. i think maybe my taste in poetry has changed over the years and i might have liked this much more five years ago, but it was still incredible. i need to look up performances of some of these poems live because they're such an incredible performer.