I received an advance copy of this book through netgalley and I was more than honored to leave a review for this beautiful collection.

This is the author's first poetry collection and I was completely blown away. This collection is raw and intimate. With the poems in this book you are reading lines of trauma, intimacy, love, resilience, and self-discovery while balancing between delicateness and toughness. J.J. Celi has let us into her soul while being vulnerable and staying unfiltered (which is the best part of this collection). The openness and reflection within the writing is painfully beautiful. A lot like love, gentle embraces but sharp sometimes. I appreciate the honesty that is found within this collection. Even though this collection is told from a queer perspective, I feel many readers can take something from this book and find their own voice if they have found themselves in similar experiences, and be brave to speak their own truth, when they are ready. This is one of the few books that I have read recently and find myself able to feel the emotions.

A few of my favorites from this collection are: Gone Mad, Angel, Closed Fist, Have Been, and Through My Walls, Whisper.

For readers: Love Letters and Pocket Knives contains content warning for assault, IPV (intimate partner violence), alcohol and drug abuse.

A beautiful queer book of poetry that gave me chills! I can see why this poet is so popular in the spoken word circles. I'll be looking for more of this author's poetry and rereading this book.

I got this as an arc on Netgalley and it will come out in May. A lot of stunning poetry of which most dive deep into domestic abuse, which isn't talked about a lot as it comes to same sex partnerships. I loved a lot, the emotions heavy. A few of the other themed poems were less to my liking and felt less fitting and a bit judgmental. But it's a good first poetry book.

This was an utterly stunning collection of poetry, the fact that this is a debut collection absolutely blows my mind. Every poem made me think about something and more importantly it made me feel something. Absolutely fantastic

Arc review

I liked most of the poems in here.
You can read & feel the emotions of the author.
Some were a bit hard to follow for me personally but I still wanted to read more of them.
As a debut this is amazing!

I'd give it a 4,5 out of 5.

Thank you so much for everyone involved for the arc!

"A longing so deep I dare it not to end"

These were so painfully honest that reading them almost felt like an intrusion. Each word was thoughtfully put after the one before it every step of the way. I really enjoyed this - poetry is a fairly new thing for me to read so I never quite know what to expect. But so much of this felt like it had stolen some thoughts from my mind and put them to paper. Really, really enjoyed this.