Book Review: Milk & Honey; Rupi Kaur.

Many thanks to some recent acquaintances for introducing me to this book! I don't read a lot of poetry as I've mentioned before, but many of my blogging friends have told me to read this one and I have finally had the opportunity.

SOURCE: Borrowed
TYPE: Paperback

TITLE: Milk & Honey
AUTHOR: Rupi Kaur
SERIES: --
PUBLISHER: Andrews McMeel
PAGES: 208
GENRE: Poetry, Feminism

RATING: 3.5/5 Stars

Blurb:
Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity.

The book is divided 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.

What I Liked:

• A lot of the poems really packed a punch and were so emotive! Especially in the first section. Kaur takes a 'no holds barred' approach with tackling some pretty sensitive subjects and though for me it had a bigger impact, I would definitely put a trigger warning on this for sexual abuse and violence. My favourite section was the last because it was filled with a sense of sisterhood and hope which spoke to me.
• I really loved the drawings that accompanied a lot of the poems. They were so effortlessly beautiful, and fit the tone of the poems perfectly too! Kaur is really talented at illustration as well as poetry, and I admired them more than anything in this book.

What I Disliked:

• I almost cried for the trees that must have gone into the thousands of books this sold. Why? Because some of those poems were two lines long and took a whole page. The format for each poem grew a little tiresome too, as they were all written in the same way. While I loved the point behind each poem, I felt that it was the thought and emotion more than any kind of structure that I liked.

Overall Conclusion:

In a lot of ways this felt more like a collection of thoughts than poems. And I liked elements of that, mostly because Kaur's words were emotive and powerful. I felt myself agreeing with her sentiments and inspired by her musings. I also adored her artwork! I wish there had been more in the way of longer poems, as I tend to prefer those, but I still liked this book a lot. I don't know if I'll read her next collection, 'The Sun & Her Flowers', just yet but I certainly won't discount it.