Cover Image: mixed feelings

mixed feelings

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Member Reviews

There is a vulnerability in sharing poetry. It is often raw and foreboding, sharing pieces of yourself in ways that can be both intrinsic and relatable. It is tough to review poetry, with it being such a singular form, having different impacts and meanings based on the individual reader. It also becomes challenging when it comes to critiquing the experiences of the writer and the ways they choose to express them.

I will start with the Pros of this collection. The accompanying imagery is an excellent addition, adding visual presentations adjacent to the writing, which is blunt, easily interpretable, and relatable. It leaves the emotions of the writer plain and bare for the reader to understand, and is that not the point of poetry? The connection it forms?

However, nothing stands out about the writing, with the theme running through the book consistently but also running dry, with each piece sounding like the one before it, like the one after it. There lacks the versatility to bring life to these poems. Bluntly, it gets boring.

The companion imagery relates little to anything, often being similar to each other. There was nothing unique in this voice; these words made me want to divulge my time into these poems, reading like prose structured to look like poetry with none of the structuring aspects of poetry to make it pleasant.

It is always commendable to put yourself out there and share personal experiences through this medium, but this is not one I would recommend.

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My first poetry collection this 2022, and all I can say is that this collection gave its readers a chance to be vulnerable. It's easy to read, compelling, and very transparent.

When you get a chance to read this one, you'll be impressed because there are poems written upside down, and in Spanish. The feelings that were poured in to this book made me cry. It has the power to stir up my emotions.

A collection of heartbreak, healing, confessions, and love.

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Poetry is a genre I am relatively new to. I have just started diving into it, and I'm so glad I was able to read the arc of this book! I thought that it was beautifully written, and I loved the style. The book is very emotional, and and I loved the story that was told throughout. I felt connected to the story in a way. I would definitely recommend this book. It was beautiful!

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Rating: 5 🌟
First and foremost, I'd like to express my gratitude to Netgalley for providing me with an e-ARC of this poetry book.

what if commitment isn't for me?
why would anyone want me for more than just one night

This poetry collection is utterly heartbreaking. Every single phrase is profound, and I highly urge everyone to read it.

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I really enjoyed reading this book. Abraham's poetry is very beautiful, easy to read and honest. It shows so much vulnerability. One of the most original things about this book is that you can find poems written Spanish, and also poems written upside down. Rating: 3/5 stars.

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Okay this book was so good.. This is the kind of poetry that i love the ones that have messages behind it when the author is putting all the vulnerability into the work of their poems. This book was so vulnerable and i loved the poems in this book. The pictures were also so great i literally LOVED it.

The take i got from it was basically how people can hurt us and tell us what we want to hear but in reality its all bs because the other party is struggling with other stuff. And sometimes us as humans just think we will be the person to change that person but we cant change everyone. PEOPLE need to be willing to change themselves we can only help for so long i could be wrong but thats the vibes i got.

And i just love the vulnerability this book showed. The rhymes alot of the poems had and just the heart this book had was just so strong. It touches down on heartbreak, Healing, Love and just everything alot of go through when we fall in love. The bad the good.

Thank you netgalley for this arc this poetry book was beautiful.

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I could say I have mixed feelings about this one.
The poems were easy to read and honest. I really liked the ones written in Spanish. I like the way the author is telling us about his feelings towards this person, about how this love was in the end not good for him, but what can we say? Love makes us blind. We always want to try and hope to get the love we always dreamed of.
The collection didn't work for me, even though I like the way the author talks openly about his heartbreak and the emotions he felt because of this person. I felt like the poems were repetitive, like I was reading the same thing over again with other words. Like I read a few good sentences, but no poem I could really remember. We can all relate to these, to the pain and to the healing after our first heartbreak. I get what the author was feeling and that's why is a bit hard for me to give this rating.
It was not a that bad collection, just not for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Central Avenue Publishing for the free ARC!

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Absolutely heartbroken. This beautiful work of poetry nearly brought me to tears, opened my eyes and it was like looking in a mirror of despair of my past self. This book absolutely shattered me and shook me to my core.

This work of poetry is seeing the ups and downs of a relationship, a very hard and emotional relationship at its very core and feeling the tense emotion and sadness that fills the page. Abraham Rodriguez poured his heart out onto the page when he wrote this book and I found myself reading the words on the page as if they were written for me.

The raw feelings put into this book almost had me in tears because I related to it so much in the things that he talked about and the way the photographs in the book reflected on what he was saying in verse. The black and white photos really did something to the book as well, it was almost as if you could just see his broken heart in these photos as you read along.

This book is so deserving of five stars because the power of the emotion on the page is astronomical, I get choked up by poetry anyway, but as I said, this was personal. I got an advanced readers copy through NetGalley but I absolutely want to buy this book when it hits the shelves, that's how much it meant to me.

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