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linnylionheart's review
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Gun violence, Xenophobia, Mass/school shootings, Colonisation, Racism, and Hate crime
Moderate: Grief, Mental illness, and Antisemitism
Minor: Addiction, Cultural appropriation, Slavery, Pregnancy, and Misogyny
ashlightgrayson's review
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
5.0
This is one of the best modern poetry collections I have found. The theme of the poetry collection is something that made me feel seen as someone who is of a mixed racial/ethnic background. There is a lot of commentary on racism, interracial relationships, cultural appropriation, police brutality, etc. There is one poem that really hit home for me as someone who is racially ambiguous. It pertains to a speaker who white passing who has their experience as a mixed person erased because of how they are perceived racially. I have had people try to erase my identity because of my ethnic/racial ambiguity. I think that as our society becomes more mixed racially and ethnically this will become a more common issue and I think it is a topic addressed beautifully here.
The poetry flows very well greatly due to Jogia's efforts to have consistent rhyme patterns within each of his poems. They all tell a story, some inspired by other people's stories, and some inspired by his own life. The book feels incredibly personal with photographs of Jogia with his family and at various points in his childhood. There are also intermittent paragraphs of prose that add context to some of the poems both from Jogia's perspective and that of others with similar experiences to him. This book felt like a labor of love and I feel it warrants owning a physical copy because it reads like an art piece. I'm hoping that he publishes more books in the future because he is a very talented poet.
The poetry flows very well greatly due to Jogia's efforts to have consistent rhyme patterns within each of his poems. They all tell a story, some inspired by other people's stories, and some inspired by his own life. The book feels incredibly personal with photographs of Jogia with his family and at various points in his childhood. There are also intermittent paragraphs of prose that add context to some of the poems both from Jogia's perspective and that of others with similar experiences to him. This book felt like a labor of love and I feel it warrants owning a physical copy because it reads like an art piece. I'm hoping that he publishes more books in the future because he is a very talented poet.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Police brutality, Racism, and Sexual harassment
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