If there are no Cash haters, I'm dead. (And I mean the man)

Possessive, controlling, alpha males are just not my thing. So many things that he said and thought (especially in the second half) had me grimacing and cringing. All he ever seemed to care about were her good looks, fantasizing about her at every possible moment, and dreaming about putting a baby in her.

I was genuinely having a decent time with this book before that, but it was neverending after about 60%. Mollie deserves better, I'm so sorry.

On the other hand, I liked Mollie for the most part. I just wish we had maybe spent more time in her head instead. She and her mother had a very interesting (if awful) dynamic, but even that seemed to get swept under the rug at the end.

No thanks, next please.

this collection truly reveres nature, and it always pulses at the center of each piece, or leaves a whisper of it. i love how throughout Part I we’re led to deeply appreciate how she views nature and why it is so important to her, while beginning to open a window into her own struggles, concerns, and ideas surrounding the universe. and “I Remember the Carrots” is also scwindhow into the title she’s selected, about how it’s meant to exemplify all the things we hunger for and try to reach before it’s time for us to have them or experience.

all this sets a solid foundation for Part II, in which she takes this lens to understand her own grief over her late stepmother, but also the other kinds of grief she experiences, and how her understanding of death has continued to evolve. she departs from this in Part III, choosing to focus on love, which is deeply interconnected with death, and the fall out from relationships and how they have also shaped her. and still, nature remains threaded through many of these pieces.

Part IV felt the most abstract, but i kind of love the conglomeration of ideas she has touched on briefly in the collection converging here. and most importantly, hope resounds in these pieces.

overall, i loved this one, and i love her connection to nature and the way some of these poems move and sway. and though it was hard to read at times, writing questions, rereading poems, and reading all the thoughtful comments and feedback from all of you definitely enriched my understanding and appreciation of the poems. it was such a unique approach to reading, and as much as it was a lot of work, i loved it!!

to close off, here are some of my favorite poems/lines: I Remember the Carrots Someplace Like Montana (!!!!!!) “but then even more sky comes and more days,
and there is so much to remember and swallow” What Remains Grows Ravenous Long Ago and the Cow Comes Back The Whale and the Waltz Inside of It