Book Review: Our Numbered Days; Neil Hilborn.

Yay, poetry! 2017 has very much been about me revisiting genres I never really got into before and trying new things! Poetry was on the list for quite a while. I watched the viral video of Neil Hilborn's 'OCD' and adored it, even buying this book for my fiancé because he was a big fan too. I thought it would be a great place to start! 

SOURCE: Borrowed
TYPE: Paperback

TITLE: Our Numbered Days
AUTHOR: Neil Hilborn
SERIES: --
PUBLISHER: Button Poetry
PAGES: 63
GENRE: Poetry

RATING: 3.5/5 Stars

Blurb:
In 2013, Neil Hilborn’s performance of his poem “OCD” went viral. To date, it has been watched over 10 million times. 

Our Numbered Days is Neil’s debut full-length poetry collection, containing 45 of Neil’s poems including “OCD”, “Joey”, “Future Tense”, “Liminality”, “Moving Day”, and many, many never-before-seen poems.



What I Liked:

• There really were some fantastic poems in here with lines that were very quotable and relatable for a lot of people. 'OCD' was of course one of them, and reading it proved to be just as powerful and heartbreaking as hearing it performed. Anyone who says they have OCD because they had to tidy up should read this poem and face the reality. Other great poems included 'Dust Mop' (that last line actually hurt), 'Bystander Paralysis' (I so relate), 'Little Poems' and 'Joey'.

What I Disliked:

• There were always going to be poems I didn't 'get' first time around. Neil Hilborn suffers heavily with mental illness himself, and most of these are clearly random musings that come upon him every so often. He even states in one poem that he's afraid to take medication because he feels he won't be able to write poetry under it's effects. There were poems here that were a little nonsensical, but in all honesty, that was also part of this book's charm!

Overall Conclusion:

I honestly see Button Poetry's books becoming my new favourite thing because this was really good. I only found a few of the poems really spoke to me, and the rest didn't make a whole lot of sense in the first reading (plus they had this strange sense of not quite being finished) but I still loved this book a lot and will definitely delve into it time and time again.