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serendipitysbooks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warning:Everything is a collection of poetry, much of which explores details of their life covered in their memoir and also their first novel. Seeing similar events and themes explored in different genres is intriguing. Emezi is an author whose books seem to always be in conversation with each other - each work part of a greater whole. Some poems impacted me more than others but the ones that hit, hit hard. One of the things that struck me about this collection was speculative type poems involving Biblical figures poems like What if Jesus was my Big Brother and What if Magdalene Seduced Me. While I won’t pretend I understood every poem I was captured by their raw power and emotion. Trauma and violence are definitely present - the title does not lie - but so too is resilience. I know many of us on Bookstagram gravitate to fiction far more than poetry. If you want to give contemporary poetry a try and have read some of Emezi’s previous work, particularly Freshwater and/or Dear Senthuran then I recommend giving this a go. Familiarity with those works will really help ease your way with a less familiar genre.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, and Sexual violence
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