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

This was a lovely collection of poetry that left me feeling complete in a way few other poets or even novels have left me with. It is relatable and realistic, I loved this collection.

Bending the universe is a poetry collection divided into five sections untitled society, love, life, personal and nature.
In society, Justin Wetch is basically pointing out the problems we are facing nowadays in our society such as racism, inequality, how women are portrayed in conventional media but also on social media. He also dives into politics which I normally don’t really like to read about, but I guess the format did help me appreciated. My favorite one was definitely “Welcome to America” which draw a pretty grim portray of the USA.

The poems of the love and life section were a little cliche, especially the love poems, the theme and images are overused but I’m starting to think that at that point, all love poems are cliche and nothing is really new.

Overall, I really liked the poems about society but the rest was just flat for me and nothing grip my attention.

I must admit that I forgot to review this arc oops I'll do it now. There were some ideas that I really enjoyed, especially regarding the American society and the importance of movements such as BLM; however, the writing style wasn't necessarily my cup of tea. I was also shocked with the similarity of some of these poems with stuff I've written before. The book wasn't bad at all, it just wasn't what I usually like to read when it comes to poetry.

I absolutely loved everything about this. Incredibly unique, and got me back into reading poetry collections. Definitely looking forward to anything the author publishes next.

This was very inspirational but a bit over the board. Could have been better. The theme felt similar

Felt refreshing seeing this life and in person in a bookstore. This book is an experience, and everyone should read it at least once.

I have to confess that I did not appreciate the speaker's tone or his outlook on life in most of the poems in this volume.

Poetry has been recently experience resurgence in popularity, however I find this one doesn't work for me. The writing style leaves no interpretation of the meaning and the tone felt pessimistic and ranting.

I was trying to get more poetry into this reading year. I was quite eager to do it and the good people at NetGalley were kind enough to help me along. But, in all honesty, this was a mistake.

I feel like this book is basically shouting in my face what I am supposed to believe in. Which is weird considering I agree with a lot of points made in here. It felt like a dry rant, a self-righteous, egocentric millennial preaching to the choir. For me, it lacked depth, true relevance and feeling. I am not passing any judgments on Mr. Wetch himself, it is not like I know him, I am just saying that is what it felt like reading his words.That said, I am still curious to check out future works, I do believe there is room for improvement here, perhaps through allowing the writing to become more spontaneous and less cerebral.
This might not be the kindest of reviews, but it is an honest review. And I think that is fair enough.

Bending the Universe is a collection of poetry by Justin A. Wetch that touches five different topics such as Society, Love, Life, Personal, and Nature. Each poem in each section touches various topics within that specific theme. The poems are relatively straightforward with a hint of floral elements (if that makes sense).
A few of the poems can rhyme but it's not used throughout the entire collection (which can throw someone off). Besides being straightforward, the poems are also very thought provoking, especially in the first section (Society). However, there are some poems that are not intended for the easily offended. Some poems can be heavy and really pack a punch to those who are more sensitive to certain topics (i.e. politics, relationships). That being said, these poems can be brutally honest, which is not something I have seen a lot in poetry (personally speaking). Although it did take me aback the first time, I really liked that aspect. it is nice to read poetry that doesn't sugarcoat the harsh truth.

“Love is Dead
We've started accepting
A shadow of love
As the real thing;
We've started being content
With the shallows
And never learning to swim.

Making love has become ‘Netflix and Chill`
While smoking green and popping pills

Sending flowers
Has become sexting emojis
Nobody remembers ‘taking it slowly’

Quality time
Is a thing of the distant past
We love for a night and nothing lasts

Ballroom dancing
Has become dance floor grinding
O-faces have replaced smiling
We don't connect, we hook up, we
Don't get together, we ‘get lucky.’

Kissing in the rain
Is now making out at a beach party
While crossfaded on booze and Molly

True intimacy
Before honesty required whiskey
Is only glimpsed when tipsy

Love is Dead
And we are each to blame
When we took lighters over wild flame.

Rest in peace
To love, once indescribable,
Now nothing desirable

Love was never perfect
And the past is no golden age
But I can't help but feel
We could do better.”

To finish off, some of these poems seemed rather personal in the good sense that it feels as if it was tailored for the reader, which is something I really enjoy. Overall, I did really enjoy this and I have already started recommending it to close friends.

4.5 poetic stars.
Review to come.

Thanks for Netgalley and respective publisher for sending me this copy.

Wonderful poetry wrinkled into Extravagant poetic phrase with deeper perception.
Such poetry can melt any rock, Glittering of spectacular simple words knitted very expertly with visionary aspects.

"Ancestors fought for freedom,
but these kids ain't free,
Decades of debt for a
piece of paper that says degree."

"Oh, but that's the way it goes
Growing up means growing old
We change seasons change
Leaves turns to gold."

"Global warming is cooking us
but we don't care
We didn't start the fire
but it's our fault it's still here."

"Saying we truly know someone
Is like claiming to be able
To recite a book by memory
Having only seen the cover. "


"Growing up in a world we didn't ask for
Growing up with a low ceiling and no floor
Growing up when dreaming means declaring war
Maybe if we don't grow up we can learn to live more. "


"As artists, we create the beauty
We are too afraid to live out
And search, but always fall just shy
Of finding what life is about."


....
"Fear of our differences drive us to action,
We could have peace, but choose overreaction.
Our differences are as minor as Pepsi versus Coke,
But they get stronger over time like a piece of oak.
......

Ignorance is a cancer slowly killing our conscience
Eating away at fading chances of gaining tolerance.
I envision a utopia where people are free;
Where nobody is judged based on beliefs or creed."

I thought I’d start this book to fill time during waiting, but I ended up dedicating time to turning its pages. I loved it!

I enjoyed the play of ideas, the play of words. Maybe rhythm is not the strongest suit here, but the imagery is original and relevant. The themes spoke to me as well.

This collection is divided in five sections: "Society", "Love", "Life", "Personal" and "Nature". Initially, I thought that this collection had a pretty average start with poems which could be understood by anyone, however, as it progressed the sections got weaker. Society in general was average yet strongest amongst the five portions of the book for me. Although, some of the pieces in "Society" were my favourites and I loved them, at times, I felt that it dealt with very first-world issues rather than the whole world and I couldn't relate as much as I wanted to. Moreover, even though I could completely connect with "are all the great stories already lived out?" perspective, the constant gloomy picture of our society which is so very true was rehashed so many times with different words that it made the whole thing repetitive and like made me want to go 'oh get over it, it's the way the world works now' which is so unlike my attitude towards poetry. I could also see some pieces in all the portions working better as spoken word poetry rather than written.

My main problem with this collection was I easily could have made all the poems in the collection my favourite but there were just parts in them which I loved as opposed to their entirety which was just plain disappointing, e.g. the second halves of some two-paged poems were really good but I still couldn't call them my favourite because their first halves were weak. Some poems with creative themes/topics could've been just better worded in my opinion as well. Wetch also sometimes used mindless rhymes and failed to elegantly transition between two far-fetched themes/things within poems which further weakened them; some experiments just didn't go in the right direction for this collection.

As aforementioned, there are five sections in this collection and after the first one, "Society", the collection kind of went downhill. "Love" as a section wasn't strong, like there were average poems and then really poor ones and some were well-written but didn't induce the feelings that they should have. Some pieces in "Life" and "Personal" in particular could very well have been simple prose rather than poetry if it weren't for the spaces between the lines and that bugged me. I think this collection could've done without the "Personal" portion even though I know that the respective portion must have taken much more introspection than all other portions combined. The last portion, "Nature", was my second favourite; I felt that Wetch was able to communicate about the atmosphere and its intricacies saliently and as indicated by the pictures at the end of the book, the immersing yourself in the surrounding of what you're writing about method did work!

Overall, if I do a quantitative measurement of how much I liked this book, only 27 out of 120 poems managed to be my favourite which is quite disappointing and is indicated by my rating. However, I do feel like as a young poet Wetch has the potential do write much better and hopefully he won't fail to impress in his future collections!

WOW!! I really enjoyed this.
The collection of poems are arranged in five sections, Society, Love, Life, Personal and Nature.

The first section of poems being Society is probably my favourite out of all the other topics,
just because it deals with an arrange of issues that is happening right now from Social Media to diversity and politics.

"140 characters is the most this generation reads"

I actually saw one of the poems on twitter a year ago called "Growing up"( I know, I know goddamn twitter) and i had to stop everything and just reevaluate my life.

"Growing up"
I remember when hands were for comforting
Before they started going up skirts
I remember when lips were for compliments
Before we kissed until being alone didn't hurt.

Overall I would definitely recommend

I did quite enjoy that the poems aren't the typical short jarring stanzas we so often see in contemporary free form poetry. Not only that, but most of the poems actually rhyme and I found that made the poems have a really nice flow. It's easier for me to slip into poems that have some type of rhyme scheme, because the words are lyrical. I also liked many of the topics Wetch covered, especially those about nature and about the expectations society places on us to achieve certain life 'goals': college, steady job, marriage, etc. whether it truly makes us happy or not. The very first poem, "Diversity" is one of the best in the collection.

However, where the collection started to lose me was with the poems that criticized millennials. Now, I'm a millennial (and so is the author). While it's true each generation has its weaknesses, I felt that Wetch romanticized the past to the point of being blind to the strengths of our generation. He seems to believe that millennials don't care about anything, not culture, politics, or love. That is completely untrue. A lot of millennials travel, go to museums, keep up with world events and politics, and we are definitely much accepting of love (love is love). I feel like he often shortchanges the generation. In a later poem, he does admit each generation has its issues, but that only comes after multiple poems which criticize millennials. To include multiple poems like this is to alienate a huge audience. Indeed, many of the poems seem to express a jaded view.

There's also a poem called "Femme", which is meant to be feminist and address the sexism women face. One lines says that a woman applies makeup because society says she needs it in order to e considered beautiful. While I do see the partial truth in this, makeup is a much more complex topic. It cannot be boiled down to this. What about the women who enjoy wearing makeup? What about the women who wear makeup not only because they like it, but because they find it fun, a way to express themselves, even a form of art? I understand what Wetch was trying to do, saying that society has these standards for women that are set by one 'ideal' body type, photoshop, and impossible expectations. That women are often valued based on how 'traditionally attractive' they are considered. My issue lately with men writing about sexism is that they don't understand the complexities of each topic in relation to sexism. And to me, that makes such poems almost problematic.

"Bending The Universe" is a decent poetry collection, which starts strong and has good themes. However, most of the poems didn't speak to me, or I found off-putting or over-simplified. The section on nature, in which nature is personified, was a good ending. I love reading about nature personified. But that wasn't enough to save the collection for me.

I actually found this book really hard to get into, and I couldn't bring myself to finish it. It's not to say that it wasn't written well, but it just wasn't the type of poetry which I enjoy reading. I prefer something which pulls on emotions. These poems were long and detailed, where I prefer short and sharp.

I like poetry, a dinosaur, I know, but there it is. And so when I sit down with a book of poetry, I look forward to the images and phrases that are about to be presented to me. I know that you're not meant to like every poem, or even necessarily enjoy them. But they should speak to you, touch you.

Bending the Universe is more like having someone rant at you, about everything, in your face, and you can't get them to stop, because they like to hear themselves talk/rant. AUGHHH!!! Who needs that? Most of the poems reflect a person with a jaded, angry, pessimistic view of the world. His philosophy seems to be summed up in the title of one poem 'Life is Profoundly Sad' and in lines from other poems: "maybe happiness isn't for me", "disabused of all these notions of hope, what can you attain when your spirit's broke?".

In Honesty in Writing, he says "I've shown beauty, but held back the darkness". I find that immensely ironic, as this book is by far full of depressing, sad poems.

As in anything, there are exceptions: To Love is to Live; Choice; Clearing the Scoreboard; and A Hundred Billion Stars are among them. But in a book of 100 poems (gleaned from his 400 poems), four non-depressing, pessimistic poems is not enough to make this work for me.

At the end of the book, we learn that these poems were written when the author was 19 years old. How sad that one so young should be so unhappy and jaded.

The illustrations by Malachi Paulock (done at age 16) are amazing! This young man has a bright future. Unless Justin Wetch changes his outlook on life, he will not have a happy one.

Thanks to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for providing me with an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are strictly my own.

Whenever a collection of poetry hits on such a variety of topics and themes-- in this case, sociopolitical poetry, love, nature, and self-- it can be hard to pin down feelings for the collection as a whole. I'm giving this 3 stars because some of the poetry was very good, some of the poetry was so-so but had some great lines that really stuck out, and some really failed to catch my interest at all. I'm not really into nature poetry-- it feels very samey to me-- so I didn't really care for any of those poems. The love poems had some great lines but the poems themselves were just already. The poetry dealing with issues of self and sociopolitical stuff were a mixture of good and meh, the problem in the weaker poems usually being that they felt too constrained when they should have really dug in to raw emotional imagery.

There were a few poems in this collection that I enjoyed, but most of them were lackluster. I couldn't quite grasp the meaning of each poem because it was all over the place. Overall it did what it said it would do in the synopsis, but it just wasn't for me.

Thank you netgalley for letting me read this for an honest review.