Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Milk and Honey

A beautiful collection of poetry about a south Asian women, her resilience, strength and stories. I loved listening to the audio it had such power and emotion with the author reading it. This book is so important, especially right now. Talking about women's experience more importantly poc women and their experience with sexual assault, trauma, and the world are things we need to listen to and raise up. There are so many amazing quotes from this here are a few of my favorites. I also highly suggest listening to this. The author reads in spoken word, and imo it makes it so powerful.

“Other women’s bodies are not our battle grounds.”

“How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.”

“Your love is the love that makes all other loves irrelevant”

“I am hopelessly a lover and a dreamer, and that will be the death of me”

“The abused and the abuser, I have been both.”

“Do not beg for what does not want to stay.”

“It is a part of the human experience to feel pain, do not be afraid. Open yourself to it.”

“Who tricked you into believing you need another person to complete you?”

“To be soft is to be powerful.”

Cw/tw

Genocide,

loss,

refugees,

rape,

torture

alcoholic,

abusive parent,

under age rape,

toxic relationship,

toxic family,

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itsmeyseniab's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

4.0

how you love yourself is
how you teach others
to love you

I loved how this first collection by Rupi Kaur was split into four chapters: "the hurting," "the loving," "the breaking," and "the healing" - it added another layer to the storytelling as well as showing Rupi's personal growth (that I very much connected with personally). The first chapter was extremely difficult to read and I would not recommend this collection to anyone who may be triggered by topics including assault, toxic relationships and abuse. That being said, the final two chapters (the breaking and the healing) are what made this a four star read for me - ultimately this collection tells the story of a young woman learning to love herself and to never make herself feel small for the sake of others, a sentiment that I think needs to be more prominent in media today.

Although I enjoyed the overall purpose of this collection, I will say the writing itself was just okay. There were some poems that were very heavy and thought-provoking, while others came off as being "filler". I would've liked to see the collection a little bit shorter, but overall I think this is a good collection for anyone looking to get into poetry for the first time.

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lizziertaft's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

3.75

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mothfaun's review against another edition

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dark hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

3.25

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uvsrdg's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

2.75

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savvyrosereads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

Updated review (2022): This didn’t resonate with me quite the same (likely because of the audiobook format, but also because of where I am in life) as it did when I first read it, but it is still a delightful way to spend an hour.

Original review (2017): It took me an hour to read this. That should say it all.

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sometimes_samantha_reads's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

5.0

I've had this book on my shelf for years. I haven't picked it up because poetry isn't always for my current mood and because there has been so much parody and satire around Kaur's poetry that I was kind of turned away from it. Well, having read it, I'm kicking myself for waiting! So many poems resonated with me. Made heart race and think "hm, maybe I'm not as over that as I thought". It was a reflective experience. I felt both seen and heard, and by the end I felt confident. I don't often mark the pages of my books but I added tabs to all the poems I thought I would like to revisit in the future.

I really enjoyed Milk and Honey.

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