I loved the poets idea of titling the poems by the different seasons and the subtle, but noticeable links to things that connote with that season and how it makes you feel. I like how the poem then moves on to a message or something completely different topic, but does it in a way so it flows and links together well.

I liked how the poet wrote about different mental health issues, as well as just common issues that everyone in the world feels like self-doubt, self-worth, loss of body confidence, loneliness and a want to find love and the 'right' one. I found the representation of these issues to be realistic and relatable, as well as cleverly written through metaphors and similes.

Some of my favourite lines were:
'It's an insult to the world to water yourself down'
'First time my brain scrambled like an egg.'
'I was in servitude to a master I never asked for, and he never let me rest'

Lovely poems! Highly recommend this collection.

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

I was surprised to find that when I reached the end of the book that this is Juniper's third volume of poetry.

While there are a few interesting poems, despite what the summary says, really most of the content focuses on scraps of reflections about love. Other issues, fleetingly, have to do with body issues and mental illness. There is some. But a LOT of the poems are barely a sentence. They are the opening to a poem, or a conclusion to a poem... not poems in themselves.

And that is frustrating, because if this is her third book, then she could have begun honing her craft and really focused this volume on what she said it was about at the onset. As is, I feel like it blends into the woodwork with a lot of volumes lately that fixate on vague feelings and events rather than digging into the meat of what poetry can really do.

TL;DR: I was looking for more, what was on the cover, but it didn't deliver. 2.5

I received a free galley of this volumefrom Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A beautiful book that contains beautiful language. It makes you rethink the world and I would highly recommend this!

Dieser Gedichtband ist in 5 Kapitel gegliedert und enthält sowohl sehr kurze, als auch sehr lange Gedichte. Viele von ihnen handeln vom Umgang mit einer psychischen Erkrankung (OCD), von schlechten Gefühlen oder von Liebe. Teilweise bestehen die Gedichte auch nur aus zwei Sätzen und sind eher Gedanken oder Lebensweisheiten, welche die Autorin dem Leser mitgeben will. Manche Gedichte sind tiefgründig und regen zum Nachdenken an, andere sind sehr simpel, aber deshalb nicht weniger wahr.

„Maybe the castles you build keep crumbling down because you're looking for a prince(ss) when you should be looking for yourself.“ - Emily Juniper

Insgesamt hat mir dieser Gedichtband gut gefallen. Einige Gedichte konnten mich tief berühren, haben mich innehalten lassen und sich nachhaltig eingeprägt. Andere wiederum konnte ich leider nicht so gut nachempfinden. Ich hätte mir noch ein paar mehr längere Texte gewünscht. Daher gibt es von mir empfehlenswerte 4 Sterne.


In English:

This book of poems is divided into 5 chapters and contains both very short and very long poems. Many of them are about dealing with a mental illness (OCD), bad feelings or love. Sometimes the poems consist of only two sentences and are more thoughts or wisdoms that the author wants to give along to the reader. Some poems are profound and thought-provoking, others are very simple, but therefore no less true.

Overall, I really liked this volume of poetry. Some poems could touch me deeply, made me pause and made a lasting impression. Unfortunately, I couldn't empathize others so well. I would have liked a few more longer texts. Therefore, I recommend 4 stars.

If you enjoy poetry from authors like Atticus or maybe Gabbie Hanna, you'll enjoy this collection, I think. However, it's just not my taste. I do love this cover, and there were a handful of poems I resonated with, but overall, I didnt particular enjoy reading it.

"And there she was, like the night sky, just inviting me to be inspired."

Words cannot express how much I loved this book. I had to restrain myself from quoting every single page instantly, because I loved the poems so much. The language is so simple and yet so incredible, the whole book like a warm hug or a truly beautiful spring day. This is definitely a book I want to come back to again and again, whether to flick through it or read the entire book in one sitting by accident.

This book is perfect if you love Courtney Peppernell's or Wilder's poetry books, or if you recently discovered your love for poetry and are looking for a place to start. It is heartbreaking and hopeful, and above all, beautiful. I could not recommend it more!

Beautiful writing that helps readers find themselves while also finding an understanding of the world and others around them. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful work of art.

This missed the mark for me. The best part of the collection for me was the forward where Juniper explained the meaning behind the title, her battle with OCD, and the desire to destigmatize mental illness. A majority of the poems focus on love and loss. They are raw and personal, but they aren’t what I was expecting. I thought Juniper would primarily explore mental illness. I felt a disconnect between the mission of the poems as written in her foreword and the theme woven throughout the collection. Nothing is inherently bad about her writing, but I felt a little...bamboozled. I came for a a view into the world of mental illness but left with only a glimpse. There is nothing in here that is profoundly different than any other poetry collection that centers around heartache. Thank you to Emily Juniper, Central Avenue Publishing, and Net Galley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book was provided by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Central Avenue Publishing and Netgalley!

A Strangely Wrapped Gift is a poetry collection about mental illness, heartbreak, empowerment and many more topics.

When I started reading this poetry collection, I really liked that Emily Juniper immediately explained the title, her OCD was called a strangely wrapped gift. I think it’s nice when you get to know why an author chose his/her/their title because sometimes I just don’t know why they chose a specific title. But besides that, I also really liked the poetry collection in general.

A Strangely Wrapped Gift is divided into 5 chapters: Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring and Leap Year. I don’t have a favourite chapter, because I really liked all the poems. They were so relatable and I could connect to a few of them on a really personal level. I sometimes have this feeling that poets can describe your feelings better than you can yourself, and I really had that with this collection.

I think that Emily Juniper did an amazing job with A Strangely Wrapped Gift. This was my first poetry collection by Emily Juniper, and I cannot wait to read more of her work! I think that her poetry is really beautiful and I loved that this collection talked about some different topics.

Favourite poems:
The Possibility of Forever
1 A.M.
Conditions
Fissures
An Open Letter to My Parents
Good Drugs
Drone
Listen
Rising
Heads and Hearts
Pieces
Soft
Insult
Recovery Is Not Linear
Autumn
OCD II
Turn You Into Art
Could You Love Someone Like Me
Chances
On Mental Illness
Wisdom
How To Love Me
Men I’ve Known
29
What The Dandelion Taught Me

A unique collection of poetries in mind blown and amazed. Poetry to one is unique and this one Home couple of times with me

A nice collection of modern poetry which advertises the theme of mental illness and specifically OCD, but I rarely saw glimpses of these in the words which was a shame. I can appreciate many of the poems and enjoyed them a lot, though I definitely see some as purely Instagram captions than anything deeply meaningful.

Here’s to the kids
getting high off music
and drunk off books.
Sometimes,
these good drugs
are the only thing
keeping them alive.

Many poems in this book resonated with me, many did not. I found that since I don’t suffer from OCD it was a little hard to connect with a lot of these poems. I read poetry to get that connection and I like them to be beautifully relatable. I will say that there are a lot of beautifully written poems in this collection and I’m sure that most people will find something that they relate to and really speaks to them.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

I’d never heard of the poet before. I tend to read most poetry collection released by the publisher and usually find them to be of a high standard. This was no exception. The poems explore universal themes and issues such as mental illness, sexuality and coming of age but in a very intense and personal way. I felt a real connection to the poet and her work, like she was sharing her innermost thoughts & feelings and somehow had access to mine as well. This is an impressive collection and I will read more by the poet.

"A Strangely Wrapped Gift" is an okay poetry is an enjoyable, introspective read. I how the poems were sectioned into four parts named after each season. My favorite poems were the pieces about mental illness. Unfortunately, many of the poems contained weak, simplistic language, though there were lines I enjoyed. I liked the sentiments and messages expressed.
Fans of Rupi Kaur will enjoy this poetry volume.

I was given the opportunity to read this collection of poems in return for an honest review, thanks to Central Avenue Publishing on NetGalley.
A Strangely Wrapped Gift is a collection of poems, mainly in the Instapoet short form, that is broken into 5 categories: Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring and Leap Year. It covers many different themes from love, family, mental illness, LGBTQ, and even some political references.
‘Cry for Syria. Cry for FGM in Somalia’
I found that it portrays healing from heartbreak and dealing with OCD in an empowering and uplifting manner. This could even be a helpful guide to some readers.
Although I enjoyed most of the poems, I wished for more poetry on mental health, as that is the main topic advertised. Most of the poems focused on love, which was less expected. However, the personal perspective did evoke emotions and there were poems that I could relate to.
I'd recommend reading Rupi Kaur or Makenzie Campbell’s work, if you enjoyed this one.

If you like Instagram poetry this is definitely for you. If you prefer more poems that require you to think of read between the lines this isn't for you. The collection is good and is executed well, but just not something I would read again.

3.5 stars - This was a beautifully written collection of poetry that would be beneficial to anyone going through a variety of hardships.

Going into this book, I thought the focus was going to be on mental health but found it discussed heartbreak much more frequently. There were also a few seemingly random poems that didn't seem to fit into the collection at all.

Aside from those minor issues, I was not only able to connect with the poetry but also felt inspired while reading it. Overall, I'm really happy the author wrote this and chose to share it with the world.

A Strangely Wrapped Gift caught my eye as it’s a modern day poetry book concerned with mental health and in particular OCD. It’s splits into 5 sections, each of the Seasons and then Leap Year.

This collection does some things brilliantly, especially in the Winter season I found I could resonate with some of the poems however I like collections to have a narrative and I felt too many of the poems in this collection are just empty words for filler. Not as many of them as I hoped actually discussed the topic of mental health or OCD, but the ones that do are very powerful. Much of it is coming of age and slips into the ‘Milk and Honey’ type of poetry.

Poetry is incredibly subjective however, just because I couldn’t see some poems for beauty doesn’t mean you won’t. I really wanted to love this collection but it fell short in too many ways for me.

‘A Strangely Wrapped Gift’ is a modern poetry collection, centred around the themes of love, loss, heartbreak and mental health. Split into five parts – Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Leap Year, ‘A Strangely Wrapped Gift’ explores recovery in a beautiful yet honest way.

I initially was intrigued by this title by the inclusion of mental health, having made a habit of picking up poetry collections with this theme involved. The gorgeous cover was a massive plus, yet admittedly, I was left a little disappointed.

Mental health in general is not spoken about enough, it being a fairly taboo subject, so any inclusion of such a theme is one I want to get my hands on. This collection advertised as such, however, there were only around 7-8 poems with this theme, the rest being centred around heartbreak and love – perfectly good subject matters, but not my personal preference. This hindered my enjoyment of the entire piece in general, hardly relating to many of the subject matters outside of Mental Health and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Those were the ones that felt like could have been explored more, being quite brief and skimmed over in their lengths and descriptions.

The poems themselves were okay, original and beautiful in their own ways but nothing life changing. Some were underdeveloped and a little plain, yet there was the occasional breathtaking piece. However, the layout of the poems could have been improved on, to ensure the flow of each piece gelled a little better. Rather than splitting them into the four seasons, I felt as if they could have been split into subject matter or something along those lines, not quite understanding the original intentions behind the grouping.

Overall, this collection was okay. There were highlights and I did enjoy the reading process, yet as a whole I felt it was quite basic.