Reviews - You Better Be Lightning

You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson

859 reviews for:

super vulnerable and broad in it's topics, from sickness to love to art to queerness. Andrea is great at placing emotions where they need to go, being serious and sad, but also revelling in the joy of life and adding a few laughs. At the end, I felt content and proud. Even though this is the only Andrea Gibson book I've read, I felt like I had seen so much that they had gone through, but also the person they have become.

readsewknit's review against another edition

5.0

Andrea Gibson first crossed my path when they came to UntitledTown several years ago; I didn't see their event (something I quickly came to regret), but I began following them on Instagram and was struck at their poetry.

You Better Be Lightning is phenomenal. I would read through the poems, struck with the wordplay. Gibson is imaginative, heart rending, honest, playful.

Some poetry I have to strive for, to work at. Gibson's I can let wash over me and pause at the lines that catch my attention at their mastery.

"When I think about why we broke up / why you flew all the way to Croatia / to let go of the juggling balls I made you / I know it's because I was a terrible juggler. / I couldn't figure out how to hold something / and set it free at the same time."

"We need so much less than we take. / We owe so much more than we give. / Squirrels plant thousands of trees every year / just from forgetting where they left / their acorns. If we aimed to be just half as good / as one of the earth's mistakes / we could turn so much around."

misswillacolynsreads's review against another edition

5.0

Andrea is just… amazing. Their words. Their emotion. I love their work so much.

ecjacobs's review against another edition

5.0

I read a page, I cry, I read another, eyes still wet and getting wetter. Tears streaming down but I can’t and won’t put down the book, ever ever ever. I could read their poems without ceasing every moment for the rest of my life and it wouldn’t be enough. What a blessing they are to the world. How lucky we are to read them.