Reviews

Monstrum Poetica by Jezzy Wolfe

mindysbookjourney's review

dark informative tense fast-paced

4.25

tynathereader's review

dark informative mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

katkinslee's review

dark mysterious 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? N/A

3.0

It was a decent poetry collection, I enjoyed the zombies ones the most. 

avereads's review

3.0

“But eternal life demands a body count— So now I am a monster.”

This collection was really interesting! It explores common folktales involving supernatural creatures and cryptids and I found that brought a really unique concept. I thought that a few of them could have gone a bit deeper and maybe explored the lore a bit more. The author does give a little bit of insight into each topic before the poems, which I enjoyed. I would like to check out more from Jezzy Wolfe in the future!

inkychaotics's review

informative medium-paced

3.75

howlinglibraries's review

5.0

We are not meant to know
how it is to look upon ourselves—
The moment of meeting our own eyes
and seeing what is, or isn't, in their depths;
That moment when we know
the evil within,
the us outside,
is the evil that chases us through
the nightmares we wave away come dawn...

I love poetry, I love horror, and I love stories of urban legends, long-remembered beasties and folklore that carries down through generations. Monstrum Poetica contains all three of those elements and executes each one with terrifying, wicked brilliance.

This collection highlights seventeen separate creatures, from the brutal aswang to the ambiguous Mothman to the shambling zombie, with a few short poems dedicated to each. Each section begins with a very short introduction to the lore behind those beasties, where it's made evident that Jezzy Wolfe has a true passion for the subject and absolutely did her research. I loved those snippets tremendously as they were not only informative and enjoyable, but the bits of prose also broke up the poems in a way that made each piece stand clearly apart from the next one.

I literally couldn't put this collection down and ended up tearing through the entire thing in one go. There aren't many poetry books I re-read, but I know this will be one of them, because it's only been two days and I'm already itching to re-visit these little horrors!

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review!

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octavia_cade's review

dark informative mysterious medium-paced

3.0

This collection of horror poems is organised as a bestiary - each entry comprises a short introduction on the type of creature featured, followed by several poems on that creature. I happen to love bestiaries, so points for that. I did enjoy that some of the monsters were distinctly unfamiliar to me; I'd never heard of the Melon Heads before, for instance. And in general I enjoyed the poems, which were highly alliterative (to the point where I started to wonder how much alliteration was in my own poems!). However, for me, one of the reasons I like poetry and read so much of it is poetry's ability to say multiple things at once. With the really good poems, I can read them over and over again and find different meanings each time. All too frequently here, though, the poems were almost more descriptive, more lyrical recaps of their introductions, and I found myself ultimately more interested in the interplay between poem and introduction than I was in the actual poems.