This three (and a half) star rating is entirely personal preference. I just would prefer that this book was in prose instead of verse. I would nearly always prefer a work be in verse if it is possible. Obviously if your aim is to write poems, individually crafted ones with like, a poetic aim or whatever (I have no idea why poets do what they do) that’s not gonna work. But here, this is a memoir, and while there were several “poems” that worked as individual pieces of art, and were so effective I would want to keep them in verse, most of this book would have worked just as well for me, if not better, in good old fashioned non-poetically crafted verbiage.
The problem for me, I think, is that there’s a certain mindset when you approach poetry where your focus is not so much on what is happening or being literally said, but on the craft of it, and the hidden underbellies. When you come to a memoir, you are wanting events and thoughts, and you want them mostly straight up. Those two approaches just don’t mix for me. I’m certain I read this book entirely too fast because I wanted to know what she was saying and what would happen next, and I did not care so much how she was saying it.
Awarding the extra half star because, again, this is mostly a preference issue, and I’m not entirely sure other people would feel the same as me. People like poetry, I guess.
[3.5 stars]
Read Harder Challenge 2020: Read a YA nonfiction book.
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