We’re not going to talk about how many times I said I was going to cry while reading this book.

𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸.

4.25 stars, rounded up. I’d like to think I have a pretty good sense for how something is going to affect me. Most of the time, I can tell right after starting a book what star rating I’m going to give it, down to the decimal point. That’s why when I read the author’s preface of this book, and it struck a chord within me, I knew this was going to be worth every moment of my time. Whatever I read next would result in me leaving a glowing review. Of course, I was right. Let me outline everything I enjoyed about this book. First of all, the writing. I mean, as soon as I read the preface I was blessed with the author’s beautiful writing style. The way she wrote and structured these poems, the words just seemed to flow effortlessly. In all honesty, I think there are a good amount of poets who use big words to make their writing sound more profound, and while I get their vision, it often ends up making their work feel clunky and disingenuous. This was clearly not the case with this book. If the author used words I’d never heard of, like oneiric, it wasn’t just to make her poems 𝓈𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹 more meaningful. They 𝓌𝑒𝓇𝑒 meaningful, and they were weighted with emotion. Which leads me to the most important aspect of reading this book. How it made me feel. I always say that the true marker of a poem’s success is if it made you feel something. And believe me, these poems 𝒹𝑒𝒻𝒾𝓃𝒾𝓉𝑒𝓁𝓎 made me feel things. There is a lot of emphasis on resilience and hope. This reading experience felt like taking a walk in a forest on a sunny day. It felt like the sharp wind in your hair and hearing the birds chirp in the sky, reminding you of the world around you and how we are interconnected. The winding pathway may make you get a little lost, and at times you may not know how to find your way back yourself, but this book told you to look up and see the sun. It told you to take comfort from the fact that you have been in situations like this before, and you have survived it. It told you to focus on the proof of life around you, the people who had shaped you into the person you were now, and to have faith that you would find your way to exactly the version of yourself you need. It told you to believe. And despite my pessimistic nature, I feel inclined to believe. I’d say that’s my main takeaway from this book. The nature metaphors were beautiful, but the real function of these poems was to kindle hope. For me, at least, I’d say it succeeded in that.