Book Review:

Wild Embers was a book that if I am honest I attracted by the cover let's face it, it's beautiful. But I didn't expect the inside to be as beautiful. Wild Embers was a beautiful poetry read that is such an important read for today.

Nikita Gill links to other poetry at the time often speaking about beauty, relationships but these often have an out of world feel that translates so wonderfully on the page. Gill is such a great writer and I think that I did connect to this on a deeper level than say bone which I just mentioned. I feel like this is a book that I connected to on an emotional level and I will come back to in years to come. It is a must read.

The Verdict:

Wild Embers is an important poetry book in the vain of Milk and Honey and should be read by everyone.

I really enjoyed this poetry collection. Poems about Disney princesses and Goddesses, told with a female empowerment slant. Poems about recovering and healing from trauma. Poems encouraging self-love and self-care. It's like much of this book was tailor written for me.

I'm really exploring and figuring out what my personal taste in poetry is and while I don't think any one collection is going to be an absolute home run, this one came pretty close. Written in the style I'm learning that I prefer and written about subjects I'm interested in or have personally experienced, I found a lot to love in here.

The problem I had with this book were that there were a few poems that seemed to dwell on the writer's assertion that men in general cannot be trusted, that only women care about women's issues and struggles and that we must unite against men. While I understand that this may very well be the writer's experience, it is not mine. Personally I have never been made to feel lacking or victimized by a man purely because of my gender, but I do realise that I am very lucky that this is my experienxe. I truly believe there is a place for the male voice in female empowerment and I was sad to see that view slightly implied to be invalid. In saying that though I find most of this book does not generalize and the issues I had were really only with a few lines of a few poems.

Standout poems: Toxic People, Snow White, The Epiphany, Precipice of Loss.

These poems were simply beautiful, but a little out of my depth which I struggled with. To someone else this would be divine to read, just maybe not for me

I have been a fan of Nikita Gill for so long and i was thrilled to read her latest work. She is an amazing poet and i'm blown away by her talent. She evokes such powerful emotions in just a few sentences and it one of favorite poets.

From one of our greatest modern day poets, we get a complete new set of poems about love, trauma and mental illness as well as the magic and wonder of the world being thought about through these works too we also see a spin on the idea of self worth with a back and forth narrative in some poems on the idea of arguing and disagreeing with how we see ourselves and the male vs female divide in the world around attitudes surrounding modern life.

The poetry addresses many topics from abuse to love in varying forms which will make you feel moved as we read on through these accounts and hear a spin on Disney princesses stories too which was pleasant and unexpected.

A fantastic new collection by Nikita Gill once again!

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

So.

When I first begun reading this I did think it was a bit cliche, to a point where I was thought it was a little bit, cheesy, however I was very very wrong.

I think this is the first poetry book that has made me cry.

The words are so powerful and so real throughout this book, they get into your head and they make for incredible reads. A poem that makes me think of that genuineness is Secret Language - a poem that makes me think of my best friend whom I tell to text me when she gets home just to make sure she’s safe and Dragon’s Breath - which is just such a powerful but short poem that will make you feel like a khaleesi.

The poems about the Fairy Tale princesses are what I live for. I need someone to write empowering Fairy Tales and I am totally okay with Nikita Gill taking and running with them if these poems are anything to go by. Particularly Sleeping Beauty, we need a empowering version of that story and the seed of a great new tale is in this book.

Wild Embers lives up to its subtitle to perfection in this book, rebellion and fire and beauty exude from this book and I consider it a must-read book for anyone who is ready to burn a little bit brighter now.

The latest release by Nikita Gill has been getting rave reviews, a collection focusing on passion, identity, the universe and femininity. I was thankful to receive a copy of Wild Embers for review by Netgalley. This is my first encounter with Gill’s work.

This is a collection of both poetry and prose, which I haven’t come across before. I’m used to collections being one or the other, therefore felt the flow was slightly interrupted and at times hard to get into. That said, Gill clearly has a talent for both. In fact, I would gladly read a collection of short prose, something that I don’t believe Gill has released before.

There is, however, a strong female message behind the majority of her work. Poems such as ‘Witches’ and ‘Dragons Breath’ uses fantasy elements to reiterate the strength of women and their capabilities of being powerful in their own right, challenging how women are seen in traditional fairy tales.

Dismissing traditional ideas of femininity takes centre stage the prose pieces, as Disney Princesses get rewritten into feminist heroes with their own thoughts and agendas, not waiting for a prince to save them. We’re also introduced to Greek Goddesses, wise and intelligent. In this instance it reminded me of Carol Ann Duffy’s, The Worlds Wife, a wonderful collection. I would love to see what else Gill could do with these characters in further collections of prose or poetry.

I gave Gill’s collection 3 stars. I enjoyed experiencing a new poet and felt that there was huge potential in what Gill was writing about. That said, I struggled with the layout and, at times, felt that there could have been more of a structure to the way that the collection was presented. I did have times where I wasn’t as enthusiastic as I wanted to be. Despite this I’d really like to try out some more of Gill’s work to experience her work.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this opportunity.

A stunning collection of poetry that ignites, unites and inspires from Instagram sensation Nikita Gill.
Full of wonderful words dealing with pain,love, loss, feeling overwhelmed or powerless, and so much more. It's a celebration of strength and how much a human spirit can endure. Ideal for fans of Maya Angelou, Clarissa Pinkola Estés and Rupi Kaur. I would love to be given this as a gift and hope to pass it on to others who need it.

5 Words: Being, power, understanding, strength, femininity.

5 More Words: Beauty, art, control, feminism, fairytales.

This was absolutely incredible. Breathtaking. Captivating. Haunting.

I don't often read poetry. When I do it tends to be Romantic classics like The Lyrical Ballads. But there was something about Wild Embers that piqued my interest.

And I am glad I gave something so different a chance.

I loved the ideas explored, from the universe to fairytales, domestic abuse to survival. There was so much passion in the writing. I was almost breathless just from reading. I was physically shaking at times, I had goosebumps up my arms. I got so easily lost in the writing, caught up in the narrative, the way the themes led into one another.

The style is pretty open, not rigidly structured. The way the words flow reminds me of my own way of thinking. It was like Nikita Gill was inside my head.

Every time I thought I had found my favourite poem from the collection, I'd go to the next page and find another that touched my heart and soul, blew my mind.

Each piece hit home, each piece inspired.

She will ascend,
like a battle cry
from a war you thought you had won.

This is such an empowering collection. It made my heart sing. It was both comforting and confronting to read.

This is a beautiful collection of poems reflecting on life and its impermanence and how that makes it precious. Strangely I connected more with the themes than the verse which in plays felt a little clunky and like it could be trimmed down. This may be personal preference. I did enjoy the allusions to the cosmos - don't think I've ever seen physics displayed in poetry before and I loved it. Adding to my restored faith in contemporary poetry.