theliteraryteapot's reviews
285 reviews

I'm not sure I understood the imagery well, I felt a bit lost at times but I think it's a well written poetry collection. I enjoyed some poems, such as "Rencontre".

The topics were interesting and I liked seeing the poems as an evolution of the poetess' life, like a sort of a timeline. I appreciated some poems, only a few of them. 
Unfortunately, this style of contemporary poetry is not my cup of tea. I don't think it's particularly very experimental but it's quite contemporary (having sometimes only one single sentence on a page). I'm not the biggest fan of the imagery used either.
On the other hand, I didn't mind how meta it could get though. I know many don't like this usually, but it's fine for me. Several poems were about writing poetry and I personally see this literary genre as a great powerful, impactful political tool to get your message across and let your voice be heard. The poetess' voice matters.

According to the publisher, Ceija Stojka is the first Romani woman to have talked and written about the Porajmos (the genocide during ww2). It makes me happy to see a publishing house not only publishing such an important text, a testimony of a history that has been -unfortunately still is- ignored, but also to see how deeply the publishers care about Ceija's work and memory.

As both someone who loves poetry and someone who comes from a part-Romani family, I couldn't wait to read this book. I was a bit scared I wouldn't like this style of poetic writing and it turns out I did enjoy most of the poems, as dark and emotional as they are, as contemporary as they are. I can't read German so I read only the French translation and obviously can't judge the translation work here, but I think it's quite accessible enough to understand what the poetess wanted to convey. I do think I read the collection a bit too fast but I know I'll come back to it in the future.

La poésie étrangère c'est exactement ce que j'aime et ce qui m'intéresse !
C'est donc une super anthologie pour moi, je suis ravie d'avoir découvert des poétesses et surtout de voir l'évolution de la poésie au fil des siècles. Je regrette toutefois qu'il n'y ait pas les textes dans leurs langues originales aux côtés des traductions.

Si j'ai beaucoup apprécié, j'enlève une étoile dû à l'ajout de deux poèmes de Sylvia Plath. Ces ajouts étaient un choix douteux.

dnf (or on hold I guess) for now at 16%

I'm sorry I'm really not into the romance genre these days and I don't really like the audio narration but can't find the book in another format.

C'est la magnifique couverture de Myriam et le thé du juste moment qui a d'abord attiré mon attention, puis son titre parce que le thé ma grande passion. Le livre présente des thématiques particulièrement intéressantes : le thé donc, l'écologie, la création littéraire/l'écriture (de la poésie notamment), ainsi que l'amitié, l'amour dans la jeunesse et puis également la santé mentale même si cette dernière reste un petit peu en surface.

Si le livre m'a beaucoup plu, il y avait deux trois choses qui m'ont un peu gêné. D'une part, sur le fait que la mère de Myriam ne s'inquiète pas plus que ça et laisse sa fille traîner avec une adulte même à 5h du matin ou quand il fait nuit. D'autre part, concernant le discours sur l'écologie, attention à ne pas manquer de nuance. On reste focalisé sur des personnes privilégiées, surtout quand on a cette phrase : "Elle [la mère] avait organisé un périple en voilier pour aller pique-niquer sur une île totalement déserte d'un archipel du Panama." p.169... Donc attention à ne pas avoir un ton trop moralisateur.

Je pense que le livre s'inscrit dans ce qu'on appelle en ce moment la "cosy fantasy" et j'aime beaucoup l'idée. L'ambiance est sympa, on a le salon de thé, des livres, de la poésie, des contes, même un petit chat, et beaucoup de bienveillance et de douceur. La plume de l'autrice est aussi très belle et travaillée. Ce que j'ai le plus apprécié, même si le personnage principal Myriam donne un peu des vibes de 'I'm not like the other girls', on s'attache rapidement à elle. J'aime beaucoup son évolution au cours de ce livre, notamment au niveau du rapport à l'amitié, sur l'idée de s'ouvrir aux autres. Les contes servent d'apprentissage sur l'accueil de ses émotions, ce qui est d'autant plus important pendant l'adolescence, l'enfant étant en construction de soi.

Thank you to Kensington Books and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Familia is a contemporary novel focusing on, as the title says it all, family and past tragedies through following two protagonists solving a mystery after a DNA test and matching. 

I found the premise intriguing as I never really thought much about DNA testing. The different perspectives are interesting and made me curious about this thing: what happens when you actually get your results and find out something, like a relative, a new family, or that your whole life is a lie? What do you make of it? Do you shrug and forget about it, or do you try to learn a bit about this part of yourself? You may start questioning your entire existence, have an identity crisis, etc. It can for sure be a life changing event. And I think it's nice to have a book about this topic.

I enjoyed Familia. It wasn't too long nor too short. I thought the story was told well through the structure of the book and its narration. I liked the author's prose was well; simple, not poetic but not too much dialogue. The mystery part of the novel was good, obviously you want to know. Because of the first chapter, I don't think the mystery is about the DNA test result, but clearly more about what went wrong to lead to this. I think the main theme remains family, with the classic questions: what it means, does blood only make family, are you willing to start bonding with a newly found family member, and so on. 

There were a lot of different points of vue and I have to say I sometimes got lost, in particular regarding the recurrent characters and the chapters in the past but it's fine. I personally think that Isabella's pov was the most interesting. She could be annoying at times, being a little naive and not taking into account Gabby's feelings about this whole situation they were both in. Obviously, her way of seeing things is understandable. Nevertheless, the author gives Isabella a well appreciated character development.

This book takes place for the most part in Puerto Rico. I can't really say anything about the representation of Puerto Rico and the Latino/hispanic culture as it is not my place. The only thing I will say though is how I wasn't too sure about the constant reminders that certain places were far from being safe, and the whole "drugs, crime, child traffic" thing because in my opinion it lacked nuance. I feel like I didn't get to see another side of Puerto Rico? From my small experience, Latinos and their culture are often represented as that old 'criminals' cliché. Then again, I don't know how valid my opinion is. But is there enough of a balanced, or enough of a positive, latino representation in general so these themes can still take so much space in one book? It is noted in the preface of the book that the author has origins from Puerto Rico through her grandparents and she clearly stated she wanted to give justice to the Puerto Rico of her grandparents, that she meant well. So maybe this lack of nuance comes more from her own unconscious American and western vision of Puerto Rico and Latin America in general.

If you want to read about family, DNA testing consequences in a Puerto Rico setting with a touch of mystery novel, then go for it. Be very careful with the trigger warnings.

Cozy fantasy with tea!! 

I had never heard of Louise Glück and her work before finding one of her books at the bookstore months ago. This is a bilingual (English-French) edition of Averno.
It was a pleasant read. I enjoyed this contemporary poetry book. It features mainly long poems divided into several short chapters. The poet writes about girlhood, innocence, the soul and the body, as well as the relationship between a mother and her daughter. Nature is also a very present theme with earth, flowers, winter, summer, rain, sun, the cold...
Most poems feel quite autobiographical while using Persephone as a metaphor: I don't think this could be seen as a (feminist) myth retelling, this is more the case of the writer expressing herself through the Persephone figure.
At the same time, a few poems are much more direct with the Persephone myth no longer used.
At times, maybe I'm dumb but I couldn't figure whose voice the poet was using (hers or Persephone's) because she mixed the first and third person povs within a poem. It was a bit confusing.
Altogether, I appreciated so many poems and so many lines without it necessarily speaking to me. It's just beautiful poetic writing.

'How privileged you are, to be still passionately
clinging to what you love;
the forfeit of hope has not destroyed you.' from "October".

'When you fall in love, my sister said,
it's like being struck by lightning.
[...]
I reminded her that she was repeating exactly
our mother's formula, which she and I

Had discussed in childhood, because we both felt
that what we were looking at in the adults

were the effects not of lightning
but of the electric chair.' from "Prism".