#CBR11 Book 89: "Milk and Honey" by Rupi Kaur

Page count: 208 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Official book description:
milk and honey is a
collection of poetry about
love
loss
trauma
abuse
healing
and femininity
it is split into four chapters
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 the life
and finds sweetness in them
because there is sweetness everywhere
if you are just willing to look

Poetry is just one of those genres I don't really read, at all. So when the Diversify Your Reading Challenge asked me to read one or more collections of poetry in November, I was initially a bit stumped. However, one of my keywords in my Monthly Keyword Challenge (so many reading challenges, you guys!) for November was food, and this poetry collection, which is very highly rated on Goodreads, by a woman of colour I had actually heard of even before I picked up the book, fit perfectly.

Obviously, this was a very quick read. I have to be honest, and say that in the first section, which deals with sexual abuse and trauma, I mostly skimmed the poems to get through quickly, because I do not have the mental head space to deal with that right now. The other sections were nowhere near as traumatic, and some of the poems are absolutely lovely.

I can see on Goodreads that while some people have found the contents of the book rather trite and cliched and simple, a whopping 49% have rated the collection a full 5 stars. I would not quite go that far with effusive praise, but as I said, poetry just really isn't a genre that tends to do much for me. I'm glad this reading challenge made me open up to something new, but I still don't see myself reading a lot of verse in the years to come.

Judging a book by its cover: It's not exactly the most exciting of covers, but the bees make you think of honey, which is, after all, highly relevant to the title. The illustrations on the cover are in the same simple style as the ones throughout the volume, accompanying the poetry.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.