This book surprised me in the best possible way. At first, I thought it would be boring and full of clichés, but I was wrong. I've never read anything like this before. Her poems are so beautiful. I also love the short stories and her writing style. I think these words found me at the perfect time, cause everything made a lot of sense to me. I could totally feel her emotions too.

Many thanks to Urbane Publications for providing an ARC via NetGalley!

I received a copy of this publication in exchange for an honest review.

Oh, thank goodness it’s over. After the first third of the book, this got painful to finish. I read the description over and over: “This is a raw and visceral insight into how women and men desire, need, want and ultimately love each other in the most beautiful, passionate and honest ways.” How on earth did anybody take that impression away from this collection of poems and short stories?!

First off, I’m not even really going to touch on the poetry. The thing with poetry is that there are so many different styles and formats, and I feel like everyone has their own little niche when it comes to poetry. This was just not the kind of like. It personally felt like poorly written prose rather than poetry.

The short stories themselves weren’t necessarily bad, not all of them, but they weren’t always particularly interesting either. I did kind of like the one concerning the young man and his typewriter, but again, I don’t see how they really fell into the theme I was lead to believe was being portrayed. While I can appreciate some tragedy within written work, this was downright grim for most of the collection. I feel like the author was trying to portray a more realistic perception by focusing not purely on the positive, but also on the negative. But it just came off way too gloomy for me. A lot of “what the fuck?” moments for me as well, so I suppose the author is at least good for a surprise.

I wish I had more positivity to shine on this work, but I just did not enjoy it. Perhaps the messages the author was trying to portray are just going right over my head, I won’t put it past me, but I just don’t get it.

Considered a new powerful voice in American literature, Tess Rosa released a collection of poetry and short stories on love, lust and everything in between.

*Short Review*

Again, if you didn't know then I will sat it again short stories are not my favorite. But in this book, I liked the short stories better than the poetry.

The poetry was too blunt and for me it didn't display the class I expect from poetry. I didn't feel the imagination was within the poetry because I had no issue with the topics; that was actually my most favorite thing within this book. But this is not to say that I hated the poetry because the first few after the initial shock shook off was pretty good.

The short stories, which in my eyes were better than the poetry, showed so much talent and structure. Rosa was able to create a story and write it beautifully and her bluntness was more fitting in this type of writing.

I want her to write a novel now. I do not care what it is about but I think she can handle it.

I apologize for the short review in regards to this novel but I can't give much about the book. It is one of those you will read and understand type books.

2.5 Pickles