Whispers From the Moon by Lee Broda
My Rating: 2/5 TARDISes
Series: Standalone
Date Published: November 22nd, 2018
Publisher: LB Entertainment LLC
Pages: 128 pages
Source: Publisher
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository
Synopsis: Whispers From The Moon is a collection of poetry about
love
loss
grief
heartache
and the empowering of oneself, triumphing over all to celebrate the beauty of life.
It is divided into four chapters corresponding to the phases of the moon: full, waning, eclipse, waxing.
Lee Broda’s poetry is raw and evoking, sometimes dark and painful, while always searching to understand.
With her poetry having already touched thousands, Lee wishes for the reader to know she is never alone in her suffering or in joy. Her wish for him is that he explores the deep, hidden edges of his heart between the wandering words of her soul.
Whispers From The Moon is a companion to all of us in our life’s journeys, encouraging us to live authentically with passion, acceptance, forgiveness, and ultimately, love.
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*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review*
Broda’s collection of poetry displays a wide range of very relatable emotions centering around both the joy and pain that makes up the fabric of love. The collection is broken up into four different phases of the moon: full, waning, eclipse, and waxing. It is very obvious that she delved quite deeply into her own heart and life experience in order to produce these poems. Unfortunately, this collection just did not appeal to me. One of the main issues I had with it was the fact that I completely failed to connect to much of it. There were many times where I was unable to understand her imagery and what she was going for with a poem’s meaning.
Another issue was that I could not understand why certain poems were connected with the name of the section they fell under, or how they related to any of the other poems within that section. Though she made a big point of breaking the collection up into four phases of the moon, I personally could not find any correlation among the poems within each section. I came away not knowing why exactly she had done this, due to the fact that there did not seem to be a specific theme that linked the poems together.
To me, things felt jumbled and unorganized so it was challenging to follow along. This pulled me out of the reading experience and tore away any connection to the words for me. Overall, it is not a poorly written collection by any means. It was just simply not for me and I’m sure many other readers will take away much more than I did. I applaud Broda for writing down such personal details and emotions and putting them out there for others to read.
The Mermaid’s Voice Returns in This One by Amanda Lovelace
My Rating: 4/5 TARDISes
Series: Women Are Some Kind of Magic #3
Date Published: March 5th, 2019
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Pages: 208 pages
Source: Publisher
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository
Synopsis: Goodreads Choice Award-winning poet and USA TODAY bestselling author Amanda Lovelace presents the mermaid’s voice returns in this one — the third and final installment in her “women are some kind of magic” series, featuring a foreword from Lang Leav and 13 guest poems from leading voices in poetry such as Nikita Gill, KY Robinson, and Orion Carloto.
The mermaid is known for her siren song, luring bedroom-eyed sailors to their demise. However, beneath these misguided myths are tales of escapism and healing, which Lovelace weaves throughout this empowering collection of poetry, taking you on a journey from the sea to the stars. They tried to silence her once and for all, but the mermaid’s voice returns in this one.
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*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review*
This collection is the third and final installment in a series of poetry collections. Each one tells a story of the strength and resilience of women in a world that does not allow them the equality they deserve. Lovelace uses her own life experience and her personal story throughout the course of the collection. She truly weaves her words and themes together into a tale that is captivating and threaded with raw emotion. Out of the three collections, this one fell in the middle for me in terms of my enjoyment of it.
I absolutely adored the first one and felt such a deep connection to it. She primarily focused on her own life journey, which I found fascinating to read. In the second one, she strayed away from this and, while she did include personal stories, is felt much more general. It was a bit more difficult to connect to on a personal level. This one is a great blend of the two, mixing poems about her experiences with poems that give a broader look at women’s rights and their strength. In all three, she does a beautiful job of demonstrating these themes in a passionate and inspiring way. I really enjoy her work and I cannot wait to read more in the future.
The Quirky Book Nerd 