So before you go into reading this review, I just want to point out that there are two sections: the main review, and then at the end, there’s an update. I read this poetry collection for the first time in January 2019 and my feelings about it were ‘so so’. I read it for a second time in November 2020 and found it a little bit more enjoyable to read. The ‘update’ section at the end of the review are my thoughts after reading it for a second time!

She Must be Mad explores coming-of-age: the pain and beauty of love, the relief and the agony of turning from girl to woman, the isolation of an untethered mind and the power and subjugation of the body.

Charly captures the formative experiences of today’s young women from the poignant to the prosaic in writing that is at once witty, wry and heartfelt. Wayward nights out that don’t go as planned; the righteous anger at those men with no talent or skill or smarts who occupy the most powerful positions in the world; the strange banality of madness and, of course, the hurt and indecision of unrequited love.

For every woman surviving and thriving in today’s world, for every girl who feels too much; this is a call for communion, and you are not alone.

Honestly? I don’t know why I do this to myself. After reading the Women are Some Kind of Magic collection by Amanda Lovelace, I realised that contemporary poetry isn’t for me. I mean, yeah, I can relate to the poems on an emotional level, but the poems themselves never really grasped me. The same goes for She Must Be Mad.

I admire Charly Cox and her talent for putting her feelings onto paper, to showing the world these raw feelings. but when I finished reading the poetry collection, I just felt… ‘meh.’ There is a mix of prose and poems, detailing different events of life, and different feelings that women (or people in general) can go through and feel, and don’t get me wrong, some of the poems such as ‘All I Wanted Was Some Toast’, and ‘Kindness’ are ones that I really felt, and really relate to.



“Find the contented without the contention of giving away half of yourself
And see that letting go isn’t giving in…”
– Charly Cox, She Must Be Mad: Mesh of Kisses



There are four sections to this collection: love, mind, body, and age. I think I related to the ‘mind’ section more than anything else because Cox spoke of depression and anxiety, which are two things that I go through personally daily. I felt myself nodding along to what I was reading and agreeing with what she was saying. Sometimes, you just need other people to put into words what you’re feeling, I guess.

I think the main reason why this book is rated 3 stars and not any higher is because the rhyming sometimes seemed quite messy, and forced, which then took away from what would be a positive reading experience. I also that the prose style of writing didn’t really add anything to the collection, and that Cox should have just kept to the poetry style of writing.



“And now all I want
Is for the history before us
To erase in diluted drops…”
– Charly Cox, She Must Be Mad: Doubletree by Hilton



After I had finished reading this collection, I looked at some other reviews on Goodreads, and many people had said that they thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook version and maybe that was my problem,? Maybe I should have listened to this instead.

UPDATE:
Okay, so it’s November 2020 and I’m turning 25 in two days. I don’t know what made me do this, but I was looking over all of the poetry books that I had, just wanting to find something that I could connect to. I saw my copy of She Must Be Mad – remembered I hadn’t been a fan – and picked it up, sifting through the pages looking for a poem that would attract my attention. I got annoyed at myself for not taking the time to read it properly, so I turned to the beginning of the poetry collection and started reading it. Slowly. With a purpose. And I noticed that I could relate to a lot more poems (albeit still in the mind, body, and age sections, not so much the love section).



“you care so deeply that when you are full you feel you have no choice but to spit everything out. To excel in purging all that you are and all that you hate …”
– Charly Cox, She Must Be Mad: Hospital Visits



I don’t know whether this experience came with the fact that I was nearly two years older than when I first read it, or whether I was just in a better mind space. Either way, instead of giving this book 3 stars, I’ve decided to up the rating to 3.75.

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

I listened to this on audiobook in the end and it really enhanced the reading experience. Many of Charly's experiences are very different to my own but I felt that there were some, particularly on the theme of mental health that I really connected to and appreciated.
Poetry isn't usually my medium of choice but this is definitely an author I would reach for again and would recommend to others.

I liked 'She Must Be Mad' a lot - it took me a while to get into the voice, but once I did, I found it an enjoyable read, and highlighted a number of the poems within it to return to and reread in future.

This is an interesting contemporary poetry collection. The poems are about a range of topics relatable to the modern women from heartbreak to body image. Some of the styles of the poems were not my favourite but I really enjoyed the collection nonetheless.

Overall opinion of the book:


As you may know from reading my previous blog posts, I enjoy reading poetry. When I was browsing NetGalley a few months ago, She Must Be Mad caught my attention and I was so glad to be accepted to review it. If you're familiar with the poetry of Rupi Kaur and enjoy her work, then I'm sure you'll love this book. It had a similar vibe to it, but instead of discussing themes of abuse and overcoming it, She Must Be Mad focuses on mental health and recovery.


Overall, I enjoyed Cox's poetry. You can clearly feel her emotions and struggles throughout the book and it was deeply moving. Many of her poems are powerful and unlike any others I've read. Each poem was completely different to the others and easily distinguishable even though they all discuss the topic of mental health. Some of the poems were quick and easy to read and others were more complex and required dissecting and more thought. The balance between these two styles was great.


Being only 200 pages long this was a fairly quick book to read, but as with all poetry it's one you can read time and time again, and still find new aspects to each poem. I will very likely reread She Must Be Mad in the future. The spelling, punctuation and grammar was flawless and the descriptive language used was really moving and descriptive. Though I did enjoy the majority of the poems, there were some I didn't connect to on an emotional level as much as the others. On times, a few of the poems and the language used did feel a little repetitive, but overall they were emotion driven and interesting.


I would say to be aware that She Must Be Mad does discuss mental health and the upsetting reality of it in significant detail. At times it's very raw and a little upsetting to read. The author doesn't sugar coat depression and other mental illnesses at all. I think this is a positive thing as it helps to raise awareness and allows those who don't suffer from any mental health problems to perhaps understand some scenarios many people go through. Given this, if you are currently struggling with your mental health, it may be wise to give this book a miss until you're in a better place, as you may find some of the content triggering and upsetting.



Final thoughts:


I would definitely recommend She Must Be Mad. It was a raw and compelling read, that discusses the importance of being aware mental health. It was a greatly written, moving book and discusses depression in a realistic manner. If you enjoy poetry similar to the style of Rupi Kaur's, then this is definitely the book for you; but even if you don't typically read poetry it's still worth a read.

Book Review:

She Must Be Mad has been getting more buzz from people including one of my favourite YA authors, Holly Bourne. I was therefore excited to read it especially as she has been compared to Carol Ann Duffy who I have enjoyed in the past. She Must Be Mad is a great read for anyone and everyone.

I really enjoy that Charly Cox dealt with her own mental health in the book. This was something that I haven't really read in poetry and prose like this before. I again think that Cox is a good writer and conveys her emotions really well. I also connected to her story and poetry a lot, especially in her social media. The way that she also dealt with mental health and overcoming this was great. I read must of this in one sitting before YALC and I now am anxious to get my own copy so I can reread it and get more people to love it as much as I do.

The Verdict:

She Must be Mad mixes poetry and prose for a wonderful book that is so important in the age of social media.

Fascinating and stunningly beautiful, but also witty, exploration of what it means to be a girl, a woman, at any stage of life. Honest and intimate and lovely.

Being able to recognise versions of yourself in the account of another person is often difficult, but here every page was familiar to the extent that if I were a poet, this would be how I would have voiced my experiences of growing up and of being a girl. Simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking, this is what life is like in the C.21st - this is how it feels to wake up in the morning and not know how to get up, this is how it feels to have your heartbroken without even knowing it was breaking. These fragments piece together to make the overall whole and once you have reached the end, you will turn back the page and you will look again to see what you have missed in message having believed the whole time you were speaking in your own voice.

An interesting poetry collection I will be recommending to friends with mental health issues and enjoys YA.

One word review: Balanced

Rambling review: A concise but heavy hitting collection of writings and poems.

This is a voice for the younger millennials, and I specify young simply because of the experience Cox writes from. She writes beautifully and masters the language well, but she lacks the life experience which comes in your mid-to-late twenties to say she is a voice of the millennial generation (just yet anyway). The career confusion and angst, the loss of long term partners, your friends migrating to different life stages (i.e. having babies and getting married at "socially acceptable" ages). Compare her work with Dolly Alderton's for example - they both speak truthfully and incisively for the same generation, just at different stages in their lives. 

Her passages which overtly addressed mental health and feminism were (unsurprisingly) my favourites. These two threads run throughout all of the work, but were more overt in some pieces than others. My favourite quotes relating to each were:

"Your mind is biased / And your brain is blind / There's still a store of strength / Left in you to find"

and

"If I don't shout louder I'll be met with a future daughter / Who will feel a pressure on her worth to shrink shorter"

Notably, Cox walks a delicate line with her humour. It is laughable but without being self deprecating, without laughing at her expense, without making light of her mental health to its detriment. This is a very difficult balance to strike which is commendable.

It was published last week, go buy it for the young woman in your life.

P.S. I can't wait to read her inevitable next book, which will undoubtedly address the mid-twenties angst.

I really wasn’t a fan of this poetry collection, sadly. Although it was covering topics I’m interested in and connected to I just couldn’t get used to her writing style and I probably wouldn’t recommend it to friends.

The synopsis hits the description of this book just right when it says that this book is for every women surviving and thriving in today's world. This book is for more than just them though, this book is definitely for us!

This book is a mixture of poetry and prose and just comments on everything we are thinking and feeling in today's society right now. I love how honest this writers is and how she really picks up on those little insecurities we all have, those dark thoughts in the deepest corners of our minds and lays them out on paper here, opening them up right there for everyone to see.

I love the balance of poetry and prose as well, I read this book in one siting but will definitely be adding it to my shelf so that I can pick it back up and look at specific thoughts or feelings again as and when I need to.

There were moments in this book that were so true, it was funny and then others where it was so true it was sad and it sparked a lot of thought and discussion in my own life, some of which I shared with others and some of which I didn't. If you are put off by the pink cover of the reference to 'she' on the front, don't be. This book has so much depth and feeling and is really for everyone. I urge you to add it to your collection now too.

This is my first time reading the author. I really enjoyed this collection of fiction and poetry. I enjoyed the poetry a fraction more. Cox tackles subjects that are both Universal, feelings most people can relate to and also very personal. I have particular tastes when it comes to poems. I dislike poems about nature and the like. I love poems about human emotions and experiences, about falling in love, fucking your life up and the like. She Must Be Mad is full of the type of poems I enjoy the most. I liked the fact the poems are written in a range of styles.

A new poetry collection from Charly Cox, ‘She Must Be Mad’ is a collection of honest and captivating poems that you won’t be able to stop reading.

In two parts, one part love, one part mind, ‘She Must Be Mad’ keeps it real throughout as these words make an impact using a range of different poetry styles that make for such great reading. Poems such as ‘All I Wanted Was Some Toast’ in particular is a true reflection of the impact of depression on your life and I saw myself uncomfortably in words such as this and that’s a rare and great thing.

The diversity of emotions in this books from love, heartbreak and anger blend together beautifully next to one another. Poems such as ‘Trump’ are visceral and easy to like whereas poems such as such as ‘Love Part 2′ just strike you with honesty and that rawness of emotion that just makes for a poem that’s difficult to shake off.

A book that grows up as it goes on, ‘She Must Be Mad’ is a brilliant and thought-provoking collection.

This poetry was good, but also not my favourite style of poetry. it tackled issues such as mental health and body image. would recommend.

Charly Cox is 22. I am 40. 'She Must Be Mad' reminds me of how very difficult our twenties are - and she has the world of social media to navigate on top of figuring out who she is and what she is doing with her life. Her poetry feels so honest, her style is clean and her subject matter is murky. She has poems about sex and complicated relationships with complicated men; about her body; about depression; Instagram and a very good one called 'Hospital Visits.' Cox is not a snowflake, she is a volcano.I look forward to reading more of her work.