Megan E. HoffmanBesprekingen

This was a pleasant read, albeit not the top poetry I've ever read. The illustrations were a nice touch, which I do appreciate, but some of the poetry could have been a bit more developed. Still, it is definitely a nice book for the right audience, and that is not something I can fault it for.

NOTE: I received a free eBook copy of this book from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers (August 2023).

"Biting Thorns Off Roses" is a poetry collection in two parts. In the introduction to this collection, Hoffman tells that the writing of "Biting Thorns Off Roses" was a form of therapy for her, as composing these poems went hand-in-hand with recovering from a failed relationship and making sense of the suffering she put herself through. These experiences are evident in Part One, which leads the reader through some dark mental landscapes and Hoffman's own personal purgatory. It is honestly drudgery to get through: though there are hidden gems of insight in places, the verses themselves are indulgent, conjuring images of a distraught adolescent journaling in fury in their bedroom. Part Two, in contrast, couldn't be more different. It takes a 180 as Hoffman reflects on the nature of life, of growing and maturing, arriving at new understandings of one's own experiences and planting hope for the future. It's tempting to propose that a different author wrote Part Two, yet something intangible about Hoffman's writing style connects its voice to Part One. Perhaps the experience of composing these poems really was transformative for Hoffman, enabling her poetic voice to grow and mature in parallel to her lived experiences. The trajectory of the collection led me through despair to eventual peace and understanding, from repulsion to empathetic wonder as I connected with elements of Hoffman's verbalized experiences.

Exceptionally insightful poetry delving into human personas -- the proverbial different hats, or masks, we wear while negotiating life. Thought provoking and very well crafted. Brava! Janice M. Frum

Poetry is so difficult to review. What speaks to one person does not necessarily speak to the next.

Or, in this case, some parts of the book stop speaking. Hah. Okay, so... I really liked the first part - it spoke to me and I believe I was following the "story". I enjoyed the decorative pages. I did not have any difficulties determining where a poem started or ended. The author uses whitespace, blank space and large gaps intentionally, for emphasis... this works.

As the book reached the midway, however, I feel I lost the thread of the "story", what is tying this collection together? The poems became more... ahhh....abstract perhaps... or ambiguous? Not sure I can put my finger on it, but they felt farther away from what I could connect to. (yeah, sorry, not much help am I)

This poetry was moving. You could feel the pain, the promise, the hope.

I got this book as part of the Early Reviewers program, and I really sat with it for the whole month, making my way through slowly. I think the collection really does do a good job of like, leading you through an entire journey. And some of the places it took me are places that I have been before, and so I really feel like I connected with the story being told in that way. If you don't like freeform poetry, or formatting as an art form, there might be some roadblocks in here for you. But I honestly love those things and for me, this was like following someone else's trail to healing, a return to self. It's so hard to review the value of that.½

This is a beautiful book of poetry. I appreciate free verse and non-traditional poetry. I was very impressed by the author's use of white space and how she formatted the text. On top of that, the subject matter is thought-provoking and insightful. One of my favorites was: "They say time heals, but in my experience / Time does nothing unless you make use of it." I was a little confused about where poems started and stopped because there weren't titles. But overall, this was a good read!

This is very nicely made and pretty, but for how lovely the introductions and presentation were the main poetry was very disappointing for me.
The author does a really good job of making it feel like she is speaking directly to the reader and a lot of the pieces have real potential. I loved the design and beginning and really had high expectations until I got to the main body of work. Cute sketchy illustrations throughout.

There are some really good sections and parts but personally I feel like a lot of the rest would need stripping back and removing to make this a good collection.
A lot of repetition and rambling without any real substance, there was no tone, rhythm or skill.

Part 2 was a lot better but still not very polished, it has a very tumblr-girl style, it gets better as it goes on but really needs work.
If this book had consisted just of the last quarter of the content I would have liked it a lot more, it’s a shame for such a nicely made and promising book so lack so much in the writing for the majority of its content.

The formatting currently does not work and is small/sideways, so I’m not sure on what is an ARC copy issue vs what is intentional or meant to be finished formatting.
As it stands it was difficult to follow and read, with very erratic sentence structure that didn’t fit well with the page. It came across as really messy and random.
It’s often hard to discern where each piece starts or ends, without clear formatting or titles, and feels sort of out of order and confusing.