Reviews

Escaping the Body by Chloe N. Clark

versmonesprit's review against another edition

dark emotional sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

Chloe Clark’s pen turns the simplest of words, ideas, thoughts into inspired and inspiring darkly sentimental poetry in Escaping the Body. Among the five parts making up the book, for me the strongest was the first. I did not enjoy tech lingo, pop culture, and magic tricks being introduced into and made central in some of the featured poems. The ones I liked (surreal, mystical, dark, deeply sentimental) made every second of reading this book worth it. The lyrically political & Other Ways to Read the Dirt has become one of my all-time favourite poems, it alone is enough to give Escaping the Body a chance. 

DRC provided by NetGalley and Interstellar Flight Press.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death

tk95's review against another edition

emotional slow-paced

3.0

the writing is good, but the poetry was not fully pleasing for me. It is a good book but not amazing.

theliteraryhooker's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-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

4.0

Poetry is a genre I don't often pick up, but something about Escaping the Body called to me, and I'm so glad I gave it a shot! The poems contained in this collection deal in themes of love, loss, bodily autonomy, grief, but all with an undercurrent of hope. I found it easy to connect and find bits of my own experiences reflected back in Clark's words, and while the poems flowed easily into one another, I didn't find them to be repetitive or boring. I made liberal use of my Kindle highlights, and I could absolutely see myself coming back to this collection to revisit some of my favourite poems ("Flight" and "Error Codes" being my two huge standouts among many excellent contenders)!

tessasreads's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective 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? Yes

3.0

smizock's review against another edition

dark emotional relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

ktkeps's review against another edition

emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

criticalbooks's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-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? Yes

4.5

nicolelongstaff's review against another edition

4.0

‘Escaping the body’ immediately hits home for any modern woman. If you’re looking for readable longer form poetry look no further. Exploring women’s bodily agency and the idea of escape, this poet is able to develop ideas that pang at your heart strings wishing you yourself could find such perfect words.

mothumn's review

3.25

ARC REVIEW

I don’t often read poetry and find some poetry difficult to understand what they’re trying to say but I found this collection to be quite accessible to the average reader while still being well written. I liked the themes throughout, ‘Duolingo’ and ‘Grow Your Own Little Forest’ stood out to me the most. I did find some of them to be a bit repetitive and to flow into one another in a way that made some of them difficult to distinguish from the other. Though I wouldn’t say it was that bad of an issue or took away from it very much. Overall, I thought this was a good collection that I would recommend especially to those trying to get into poetry.

cherryactually's review against another edition

3.5

I said that poets have found death in a handful of dust or seen hell collapse behind them step by step. They do not tell me of heaven because there is no space for it.

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i am absolutely enamored by horror poetry, and wanted to get a copy of this the moment i found out of its existence. this collection did not disappoint. the poems were vivid and haunting and atmospheric. the themes discussed were tamer compared to some others, so i would recommend it to anyone looking to get into this very specific subgenre of horror/poetry.