This was a great poetry book. I always absolutely enjoy her work and I can't wait to read more in the near future. I highly recommend it.

How am I supposed to rate someone’s heartbreak? How am I supposed to comment on their painful path to healing?

honeybee is honest and open, circles back and forth, dives deep until it has you doubting that the surface was ever a thing, a possibility. It’s almost claustrophobic as you try to step away from a world that has become a triggering memory lane and you step in, back to yourself, back to the you you were before - but who was that, really? And then you look at it from the outside, you look at religion bulldozing over hearts and dropping walls where there had been nothing other than love. And then society comes in, comes up and over, stampedes with its boxes and labels and asking for justifications, for explanations, for reasons. I remember the moment when I first realised that I owed them nothing; I owed my family nothing for loving with my heart full and open. I’m grateful for the reminder.

Thank you to Central Avenue Publishing for letting me read this collection!

Good collection with lovely wording and emotional depth. It's a little volume but packs a punch with all that it includes. It sometimes amazes me how poetry novels with so little words and not many pages can evoke more emotions than a full-length novel.

Trista Mateer's "Honeybee" is a poetry collection primarily about loss. Within that, her work addresses various sub-themes such as sexuality and acceptance. Stand-outs for me include "In Which Fear Sleeps Between Us", "I Fucked Up", "A Wish", "Another Obligatory Poem Comparing A Girl To Something Consumable", "I Promised No More Poetry", "Coming Home" and "Okay". "This Is What Poems Are For" is an excellent summation of the contents within. As I read I could feel Mateer's hurt and rage and grief rippling off the page. "A Series Of Preemptive Wedding Toasts" is heartbreaking. Anyone who has ever loved and lost will be able to relate to "Honeybee".

This is was a great collection of poems that I had been thinking about things in my life that I want to change and grow from. The author was really able to capture the essence of what she was trying to convey..

These short and heartfelt poems are tender and gorgeous. For fans of modern poetry, or anyone who has experienced love and heartbreak.

This was not my favorite poetry collection.

Although I felt the passion behind the author's words, and could see where she was coming from, as I could relate to some of the topics being written about, the way in which some of the poems were formatted and structured just did not work for me. I feel as if the writing didn't flow well, and the style, while inventive, just wasn't my cup of tea, therefore, I just didn't feel connected to any of the poems.

This just wasn’t for me. I have a hard time relating to poetry and this book did not make it easier. I found it hard to stay interested and I could not become involved with the writing. There seemed to be something missing.

I so hoped that I would love this book because I love poetry, and it did not disappoint. I have never read any work by Trista Mateer before so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but this book made me cry (in a good way!). I read it really quicky because I could not put it down, I was hooked from the very first poem.
The writing style is fairly loose, almost casual, but the subject matter is so powerful. The combination is beautiful, it makes the poetry very relatable and personal and every more heart-wrenching. I’ve read a lot of collections of poetry before, mostly where it is a collection of separate poems, but the way that these tied in and told a story so beautiful was new to be and so impressive.
Honestly, it felt like Trista could have been writing about me, she managed to convey the emotions and feelings so beautiful, it was simple yet touching, and reached every emotion that I could possibly feel. There was a sense of intimacy, but not in a way that was uncomfortable or felt like oversharing, it was the perfect balance.
It talked about a lot of different topics from love, to sexuality to faith. I loved exploring her emotions and her life through her poetry, whilst also discovering the same things about myself. I think that that encompasses one of the things I love most about poetry, which is how personal it is to the reader. It is not necessarily non-fiction, there is exaggeration and creative licence, but it is not entirely fiction either.
There were so many powerful lines that I highlighted perhaps too much, and wrote out many of the quotes to keep for myself! I would definitely recommend it for people who love poetry, or even those hoping to get into it, because the casual conversational style is light and easy to read.

I loved this book so much. Really enjoyed how the author displayed real, raw emotion about her relationship and the longing she felt. I connected with this book so much that I even ordered a copy for a friend.

I read Aphrodite Made Me Do It by this author earlier this year and absolutely loved it! So I was super exicted to discover I had another poetry collection by this author in my Netgalley collection from last year that I just didn't get around to. Sadly enough, this just wasn't my cup of tea. It wasn't bad at all but I just didn't connect to the poems as much as I would want to. There were still poems that hit too close to home for me but they were few and far inbetween. For the rest there was quite a bit of jumping inbetween being over the relationship and not. It was just a bit confusing to the narrative to me. I'm still willing to read anything this author publishes.

This was beautiful. I really enjoyed Honeybee, and I look forward to reading more from Trista Mateer.

A compelling lgtbq poetry book with so much heart and heartbreak in it, that you know some pages in that this love was a real one!

I felt the heartbreak during reading like I did my last one in reality, and yet it felt so easy and flowy, that I just had to skip through the pages!

I also loved the little letters and illustrations inside :)

But sometimes it felt a bit off and as a hetero being I couldn’t really feel some of the poems sadly!

Thank you to Trista Mateer, Central Avenue Publishing, and NetGalley for allowing me the extreme pleasure of access to an advanced reader copy of “Honeybee” for an honest review.

I was so pleased when I accepted to review this newest piece by Trista Mateer (who I'd been quietly starting to follow in the vein of Amanda Lovelace, Nikita Gil, Lang Leav, and R.H. Sin). This was a soul- and gut-wrenching travel through the land of heartbreak experienced both as a common occurrence (of love) and that of a bisexual woman, skimming the surface of her place in the world, in her own life, in the eyes of her family, and in the eyes of the family of her beloved.

There is so much raw passion, pain, and beauty in this text and I will be acquiring a copy for those of my friends who are, also, aficionados of the current classic wave of confessional poetry. I am incredibly pleased with all of this and looking forward to my recently acquired Dragonhearts and her forthcoming text, Aphrodite Made Me Do It).

Thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to read this book! I appreciate the kindness. <3

It’s the third poetry collection I’m reading by Trista Mateer and it’s the one I liked the most. The reason is that I could relate to a lot of the poems since it deals with leaving/breaking up in a relationship. I also like the fact that it was about a lgbt relationship.

Stunning and personal poetry, sure to resonate with the reader. Structure, tone, word choice, and sequence of poems are all handled perfectly.

Remember first love? Being young and believing that love would last forever and ever? Remember how it felt when it didn't? Then this book is for you. It's filled with tears and yearning and heartbreak, and is really quite lovely. The journey of living through this seems to have taken a long time, and I sincerely hope the author has found love again, with someone who won't break her heart. The end speaks of coming through to the other side of heartbreak, where the pain has altered itself into something more manageable. I hope the pie was good, filled with sweetness and not one bit of bitterness.

2 out of 5 stars
I was really looking forward to loving this book. I am so disappointed that I didn’t. So, I’m going to start with the things I did like. The writer had passion in what she was writing and I could feel it jumping off the page. I loved the symmetry of some of the poems. I enjoyed the way some of the words sounded together. I really loved the artwork both the cover and in the book itself.
The things I didn’t like: I wasn’t really a fan of the subject matter of the whole book if I’m honest. I understand the struggle. I have never been in love before. I don’t know what heartbreak feels like. I didn’t like the ebook formatting either. As I was reading I became more and more frustrated with the author and her feelings she portrayed. Many of the poems were lists of items. While it is inventive I just didn’t see the connection. I will try this author again and hopefully I will love her next work.

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