Bookworms!! Guess what?! I have another review for you. But before I jump into that, I have some news to share with you. I have been reaching out to different Canadian Publishers to see if they wanted to do some collaborations and a couple have responded and wish to do so! You will be seeing some fantastic work from these publishers when I get to working on our collaborations but for right now, I am just super excited that they want to work with me 🙂
For the review, this one is called The Cosmic Hello: Lessons in Co-Dependency by C. Alexander.
Book Synopsis: “Couples therapy sessions slowly morphed into solitary therapy sessions. My therapist kept coming back to the question of my passions, and where I was headed. I knew it was writing. So I wrote. I wrote my pain of loss. I wrote my confusion about the existential questions that plagued me as someone who grew up in the bible belt, but had a hard time swallowing the bigotry I saw. I wrote my struggle through heartbreak and single life. I wrote my triumphs in self-confidence, and ultimately I wrote a new love story, with a new person. Ultimately, it’s not about meeting the right person; instead, it is about finding out that you are quite capable of loving yourself, and anyone else loving you is just a wonderful sprinkle on top.”
Ok, so this book was too short. I want more! It is another poetry collection but I loved the intensity with which this author talked about his past love life. It is simply beautiful and poetic and real. Oh so real.
“It’s in our nature to destroy in order to create.”
They connect with their reader in a way that sticks with you. The hopeless romantic in me is loving the progression of vulgar, bitter-sweet poems to remembrances of love and hope for a future with it in it. I resonate with the author’s feeling of never fully being ok after a breakup. Feeling like a part of yourself is broken and can’t be fixed. This comes with the territory of serious committed relationships. But eventually, we get to a point where the scars that the last person left are washed away like names written in sand and you can feel love and be loved again.
I will not settle for less than shared sunsets unaccountable, but always to few.
I want to type out one of the poems from the back of the book because I found it so enlightening and I couldn’t help but share it.
The Things We Make With Our Hands
I want to grow a tree out of my chest
gnarled roots as veins, ventricles.
I want to brew my coffee with soil,
French Press, not those drip machines.
I want to bear fruit
that children suck between their teeth
when they take a 5-minute break
from playing hide and see.
I want you to build a home in me
With leaves and twigs and broken things
I want you to feel secure
on clear starry nights
or when the storms threaten to topple me over,
“Case baby I won’t break,
Won’t be destroyed by happenstance”.
And when this is done,
you can chop me down,
count the rings and stories I made for
myself and for you.
Pour the sap in syrup bottles
so you have something sweet with your breakfast.
Build foundations with me
and let every knot that splinters your
front porch, every imperfection,
be understood in the way only you can.
You can knock on me to ward off bad luck
and I’ll always be your cool shade in summer.
Isn’t that just beautiful? I strongly recommend this book to poetry fans who like the brutal honesty of relationships and how to survive when one comes to an end.
Book Rating: 4.5/5 (Lost .5 because it was too short :P)
You can find this book on Amazon and Goodreads!
Disclaimer: This book was sent to us in physical format to read and give an honest review.
There is also another book on the block that you should check out if you haven’t heard of it yet. It is called Addicted To Hate by Lucia Mann and it is a great one! You can find it on Amazon or on her website: www.luciamann.com!
