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culpeppper's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This is bursting with feeling, and I loved everything I heard in the author's voice as she read from this. The cementing of the speaker is established very early on, in this home, before switching to other places and times, exploring the violence inflicted on black women, trans women, marginalized women, women by other women— and yet finding love, sensitivity, and care to balance out the oscillations of theme. It's not all violence, hatred, but many of the poems focus on a sense of belonging or not belonging, feeling tugged from and to things, and being questioned on who, or what, you are the entire time. It's moving, visceral, upsetting while peaceful, loving in it's care for speaker, subject, and readers alike. It offers real vulnerability that I crave in poetry. I would rate the audio book version itself a 4.75 due to having trouble discerning the poems from one another, or what their titles were, as the breaks between poetry and title were too short to pick up sometimes. I will definitely need to see these all in a printed format, because although the author's voice added much more personal depth and allowed for some really interesting readings of the poems (like "Missing Girls"), I think I need to really sit with these and read at my own pace again soon!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Pregnancy, Slavery, Lesbophobia, Death, Ableism, Murder, Torture, Medical trauma, Rape, Violence, Grief, Child death, Transphobia, Sexual violence, Misogyny, Hate crime, Toxic relationship, and Confinement
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Classism, Bullying, Gun violence, Religious bigotry, Drug use, Blood, Kidnapping, Trafficking, Medical content, Racial slurs, and Domestic abuse
Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Cancer
anniereads221's review against another edition
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Rape, Violence, Racial slurs, Grief, Police brutality, Blood, Sexual violence, Lesbophobia, Gun violence, and Racism
Moderate: Cancer and Death
Minor: Slavery and Transphobia
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