Very raw and incredibly vulnerable. A dark and beautiful collection of poems, a few of which left me in tears. I had to stop at certain points to cry a bit.

This was an enjoyable read and I would recommend it. thanks for letting me have an advance copy. I'm new to this author.

A great collection. Very thought provoking.

I can see why this book was highly anticipated! Jared Singer does a great job in taking the reader through a journey of mental health while also making deep points on enjoying life more.
While the title did throw me off a bit as I thought it would be more of a "self help" approach, it's a great read for those looking for a book that you can really connect with when reflecting on your own life in a poetic format that will not intimidate as the wording is very understandable.

Unfortunately this one wasn't for me at all. The title made me really interested in it but most of the poems didn't seem to have real meaning and the message of them totally eluded me. Some poems had a story and they stirred some feelings in me because I either felt something similar at some point or I had strong empathic feelings for the person, but like 90% of them didn't do it for me. I'm really sad that I have to give this such a bad review because the author probably worked pretty hard on this and it's not easy to put your feelings into words and then also publish them, but I just didn't enjoy a lot of it.

Thank you #NetGalley for the review copy of #ForgiveYourselfTheseTinyActsofSelfDestruction

This collection felt less like poetry and more like prose with arbitrary line breaks. I can see how this collection would be of value to some readers and how they could connect with it. The topics themselves are about broad emotional truths of life, but personally I just didn't feel a sense of connection and some of the perspectives on the thoughts/behaviors/motivations of others (especially women) seemed so inaccurate and almost unintentionally condescending, which really rubbed me the wrong way. I also just didn't think the writing was that good in general.

Thank you to the publisher and net galley for an Arc copy for a fair and honest review.

A beautiful and thought provoking collection of poetry that will have your emotions swinging from one extreme to the other.

While there is clearly a very distinct theme to the collection, I found that it was well organised and delivered in such a way that the poems will resonate with you for days or weeks after reading.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

Jared Singer is an insanely talented poet. This book just further confirmed that.
Be warned, there are SOME poems in here that may be offensive to others. So if you are sensitive or easily triggered, this isn't the book fo ryou.

3.5 Stars ☆☆☆.5

"If there was magic in this world, we have long since scienced it into extinction."

I don't think this is the kind of book you say you enjoyed, simply because of all the dark topics it covers: from suicide to self-harm to anti-semitic beliefs. Poetry can get extremely personal, and this is a prime example of that. At times, it felt as though Jared Singer was almost laying his soul bare.

I connected a lot to some of the poems, I thought they were insightful and relatable. The poetry itself was great, I loved the writing style. However, I did think the poems got slightly too repetitive for my tastes which is why I gave it 3.5 stars.

don't read this collection if you get offended easily. A lot of his poems are funny but it can vary with your sense of humor. I liked how real this collection was. You can tell this author doesn't give a f*ck in his writing and in his life and is authentically himself which really resonated with me. This collection made me laugh at times and made me feel his experiences which I like as a reader.

This was such a powerful collection of poems on topics such as grief, suicide, love, and body image. I found so many of the pieces to be relatable and the way Singer writes gets right in there and tugs at those heartstrings. I will be getting a hard copy of this so I can go through and copy my annotations from the digital version that I have. *Advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Oooh, I enjoyed this a lot more than I initially expected, and I'm more than pleasantly surprised! While this is a very personal collection of poetry, and I did not necessarily identify with them all, each word managed to resonate with me on some level. I found myself sharing small quotes from this on Twitter, just so someone else out there could have the air punched from their lungs like I did.

An exploration of loss, of being Jewish in America, of anti-Semitism as a whole, of fatphobia both obvious and subtle, of love and all its complexities... of all those tiny acts of self-destruction we must learn to forgive.

Having read a lot of female poets work (think Rupi Kaur, Amanda Lovelace, Charly Cox), reading poetry from the perspective of a male was utterly refreshing. Whilst Singer writes about what I would define as 'insta-poet' topics (death, mental illness, love & heartbreak), he writes with a lyrical, poetic rawness that you rarely see nowadays. I particularly enjoyed reading Singer's poems on his religion, Judaism, and how growing up as (I assume from his poetry) a Jewish-American affected him.

If you're looking for a refreshing break from the cult female poets out there but still long for an easy yet meaningful read, I would highly recommend Singer.

This books description says it is a book of poetry about the ways we put ourselves into routes of self destruction. As someone who suffers anxiety, depression and much more. I was hoping this book would be something I could relate to, connect and learn from. Instead I was confused half the time what was going on and what the author was even writing about.

Raw, morbid and not my cup of tea. Deals with death and suicide, grief and loss, mental health, body image and more. Perhaps I am not in the right place to enjoy this book for I did not enjoy the writing nor could I relate to the 'poetry'.

An interesting cover and love the title as it pulls to my heartstrings screaming out to me to read. I’m not usually a poem reader but it’s struck a chord that I needed to read. I needed to read on what the poems were all about and felt that the poet was writing about me and hit the nail on the head about some of the topics. Another book to keep handy for the times I need to distress and rest.

A strong, emotive and utterly vibrant collection. Jared Singer's poetry is full of incredibly potent lines and verses. I could not stop reading from the first to the last page.

Wow , what an interesting read. Definitely an book that is entertaining. If this is the genre you like then this novel ticks all the boxes.

"Goodbyes
are exactly like that—
no matter how ready you think
you are for them,
they always leave you with so
many things you want to say."

Reading this book wasn't what I expected. I know that reading someone else's poetry you enter in a part of their soul that is not always available to anyone else. Poetry can get very personal. It's not only a writing genre where you put words together to make them rhyme, but it's also a process where you express what you can't say with your voice in a certain moment, and I feel this process is different than writing a diary because mind and heart look for the correct words or even invent them to capture them on a piece of paper to never let them go.

Jared Singer talks about different kinds of love: the one that is romantic, the one that comes from friendship, the one that comes with one's identity and culture and self-love but also about their counterparts, like a partners' loss because love is gone, the loss of friends due to suicide or hate crimes, the loss of one's self, which happens often and can involve any of the aforementioned losses and, therefore, the need of self-destruction as well as the path to acceptance.

I'd say "TOXICITY" and "I STILL MISS YOU" were poems that felt like a bunch of slaps because they reminded me of myself. And that's the thing about poetry that differs from characters in novels. Even though these aren't your words, you can find your feelings finally expressed and that you are not the only one that thinks the same.

The only one I disagreed with was "YOUR SLEEPING PILLS." Didn't I get the point of it? Maybe. But as someone that has been in treatment for months, I can't tell myself that I don't need them. Of course, my body and mind would love not to take them, that I'd be better off without them in a certain way, but taking those pills is something that I need to get used to since what I have is not something that will ever end. Still, even with those pills, I do have those moments of self-destruction (you need to read the poem to understand such moments).

(Follow @justagirlhighonbooks on Instagram for more reviews!)

"When the time finally comes to say
goodbye to me for the last time,
don't hurt yourself trying to
sum up everything you want to say.

Raise a glass, drink it down,
I'll be listening."

The first thing I have to admit about Forgive Yourself These Tiny Acts of Self-Destruction is that it was a very personal book. In every poem, in every line, in every word, you can see the Jared Singer's personal thoughts reflecting. You can see how much the book means to him. You can see why poetry is so important to him, why speaking onstage is important to him and why one should read it.

"I hope we are reborn as flies
so that we can love each other
as hard as we were meant to."

It's beautiful in every single way. The poet pens down his words in a miraculously calm manner, even though when you read them, you can feel the passion behind them. Singer talks about many of his experiences in this book. He talks about his brother's death, his friend's suicide, how being Jewish in America changed a lot of things for him and also how his "fatness" (he's just fat, nothing special about it) affected his life. All of these things he discusses in the book. He says out words that he probably hadn't been able to say before. Or maybe he had. I can't say for sure, though. And all the while, you can imagine him crying in his corner while writing or shaking his head in anger—that's the power of this book. That's how great it is.

The only thing that I didn't like about it, however, was that most of the times, it didn't seem poetry to me. Don't get me wrong, the words Singer used were poetical enough. However, they seemed more like poetic sentences broken in places than actual poetry. Yes, I felt for him. I felt the emotions he portrayed throughout the book. However, I just didn't think it was poetic enough. And that is what bothered me, majorly. This is why I'm not giving it a 5-star rating. But here's to hoping the next book is better!