To Make Monsters Out Of Girls

I do not like poetry, with the sole exception of Emily Dickinson. But this was alright.

Lovelace creates a very compelling storyline about her own personal history in so few words and such a small space. I’m not sure how to write a summary, beyond that she takes a very personal matter and decides to share it with the general public.

I’m not terribly great at critically reading poetry, and I was terrible at critiquing it in my creative writing courses. I suppose it’s because I‘m not super familiar with it, as I don’t write it myself, so I’m not sure how to tell the good from the bad, just what I like from what I dislike.

For the formatting, I appreciated the two part poems that were separated from the pages, and several others that used page breaks to their advantage. I also liked that the titles came after the bodies of the poems, because then they could be used in the poem. It was clever, and I liked it.

The illustrations added a lot too. There was an atmosphere with them that was neat. The teeth one was my favorite, but that’s just because I’m #quirky.

Trigger warnings: domestic abuse, emotional abuse, toxic relationship, eating disorder, infidelity, self harm, cursing, death, gore

Did I like it? Yes

Recommend? Yes, especially to people who like visual poetry, or are healing from a domestic abuse situation

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