Synopsis:
Milk and honey’ is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity. It is split into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. ‘milk and honey’ takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.
My Thoughts:
Let’s talk about the hype surrounding this book first…
This used to super popular, I used to see it everywhere on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr. I wasn’t a poetry fan back when this first came out (still not really). I saw plenty of glowing reviews and still do occasionally. I, however, cannot fathom how anyone can like this ‘poetry’ collection.
So, I’ve been trying to get into poetry for a while and this became available at my library as an audiobook and since it was super short, I decided to borrow it. That was my first mistake.
The next mistake was expecting poetry…
Whatever this book was… was not poetry. I’ve read poetry and studied it (English Lit student) but this… I don’t even know where to begin. I’m no poet myself and couldn’t write poetry myself but this didn’t feel like poetry to me.
It was like reading/listening to a series of quotes/thoughts. It was sort of like listening to someone’s thoughts on certain topics or reading someone’s notebook. I just didn’t like the form.
I originally gave this 2 stars on Goodreads but the more I think about it the worse it gets.
It really wasn’t my thing. But, it did discuss/deal with some important and deep topics – just not in any way, shape or form was it poetry. Or even remotely poetic. It was very minimal and vague but it says a little and has little substance, it isn’t like standard poetry where it says a lot in few words.
Topic wise – I didn’t connect to it in anyway, therefore, it wasn’t really an enjoyable read. I didn’t really take away anything from it. It’s pretty unmemorable and I have already forgotten the majority of the content. It doesn’t do anything poetry is supposed to do, I wasn’t moved or touched. It provoked no thoughts or feelings. I felt absolutely nothing as a read it and nothing after it. Therefore, I will be changing my rating to 1 star.
If you somehow wish to purchase this, consider using *Blackwells UK
Literary Leisha 