I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

"It is your right to define love on your own terms."

Lang Leav weaves emotion into every word of this collection. I felt on the verge of tears for a long, long time reading this book. This was exactly the kind of poetry I love so deeply, full of love and loss, and full of sweetness.

This was my first Lang Leav book but it will not be my last.

I have come to relish every new release by Lang Leav and Love Looks Pretty on You definitely satisfies in a way that I've come to expect from Leav's poetry.

Love is a common topic on which Leav chooses to weave her poetic prowess. Here, in contrast with her more recent previous works The Universe of Us and <Sea of Strangers where I, respectively, had an overwhelming sense of omnipotent vastness with the former and a moodier sense of flowing with the latter in regards to the topic of love.

With Love Looks Pretty on You, there was this fierceness I felt in many of the poems. It's wasn't love making you weaker, it was love making you stronger, and if it's not making you stronger, then be done with it. There's still plenty of rumination on the loss of love, and what it feels when a love / relationship doesn't work out, but I didn't feel as much a pang of sadness as I felt in Sea of Strangers. While the poems reach out to the reader, I felt like they were more self-contained. I felt like the "voice" of the poems was more general than speaking directly, or connecting directly, with the reader.

Overall, I enjoyed this collection a lot, and as always my favorites are the brief one-liners that always pack an emotional punch.

This collection was so moving and beautiful and each and every poem was such a delight to read. I loved the different styles of poems and prose throughout and how well they worked together. This is only the second Lang Leav collection I've read, and I honestly loved it so much <3

"In the wrong hands, your past is a weapon."

---

To be honest, I haven't read much poetry before, but I've heard a lot about Lang Leav, so I wanted to give this work a try. The prose itself was beautiful and her prose and poetry on misogyny was well done, but overall I thought it was a bit shallow and contradictory. Perhaps I'm just not the right audience for this sort of work. I've never had an all encompassing love (sadly) so I couldn't truly relate.

However, I will say that some of Leav's poems really touched me. 'Anxiety' was one of them, I instantly recognized myself in her work at that moment.

Although this wasn't my cup of tea, I can understand why people praise Leav's poetry.

Poetry collections are always a hit and miss for me. However, this one sort of fell in the middle of it. Some of the poems were so open and honest I can see many readers empathize and find themselves in Leav's words. Others, however, felt almost recycled from various poetry collection I've had the pleasure of reading this year. Then again, poetry (as all literature) is highly subjective, so the ones I didn't connect with might be just what some readers need to hear.
I did love Leav's writing style and the empowering messages especially geared towards young women.
All in all, this was a pleasant and quick read

I've read and enjoyed a couple of Lang Leav's poetry bundles in the past, so I was drawn to her newest poetry bundle coming out next year as well. I know I don't read a lot of poetry, but I like to step out of my comfort zone every once in a while and read something different. Unfortunately, I can't say Love Looks Pretty On You turned out to be an entirely positive experience. There was just something about the writing style and tone this time around that didn't manage to convince me completely. I found that the poems in Love Looks Pretty On You lacked proper cohesion between them and there was no absolute theme and obvious connection between all of them. Instead of the positive tone I was expecting from the title, there were a lot of negative feelings portrayed in the poems. Not bad perse, but not what I expected and somehow I wasn't able to connect to most of the poems. I wasn't too sure about the style and form of most of the poems and thoughts included. It wasn't a bad read, but by no means her strongest bundle either.

This was my first collection by Lang Leav, and I am certainly going to read her other work.

I loved that this was a collection of both poetry and prose, and also that multiple types of poetry were represented, as it’s very common for poets to find a certain style and stick to it.

Lang Leav’s writing is very moving, and I bookmarked a good third of the book to go back and reread. I felt connected to the writing as soon as I read the first page. Every piece in this collection felt direct, yet delicate, and deeply honest.

This collection of poems was exactly what I expected it to be: a quick, easy read that filled my soul and calmed my brain.

What to call this book? Poetry, guide, reminiscence? Some poems were painfully adequate for me, others I could relate to with my past self (selves?). The poet actually does a lot of talking to her old self. What's more, there's even a poem she wrote when she was only 12! And it completely matched the book, too!

The poems are mostly written from a young woman's perspective, and they deal with things we all feel sometimes in our lives. They're so obvious things and sentiments, but it feels so good to see them plainly written down. It's nice to feel others go through the similar little (and not so little) experiences that you do!

The wording is very simple and easy to understand, and at first I thought it's... well, not very poetic - then I realized I'm only through like half of the collection, and I highlighted a crazy amount of lines! And that's right because it's so simple. It's beautiful in its simplicity.

The greatest personal experience I had with this collection was the universal feeling of not being alone. Some poems I could more relate to, there were also some I couldn't as much, but all in all that warmth was running through me that meant all people, all women has some experiences, feelings, phases in common. Reading these books I didn't feel like the poet tried to be cleverer than me, it was all about being simple and relatable.

This book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When I studied poetry at university, one thing that my lecturer told us was to avoid overloading your poetry with abstract nouns, such as ‘love’ and ‘hate’. Knowing this, I thought that having a whole collection that’s sole subject is love a rather risky move.

Unfortunately, I found that the poems didn’t respond to the subject in a new or innovative way. The imagery was rather cliché. The word choices could have been stronger. I found many weak enjambments and plenty of alternatives within the poems that could have heightened tension.

I think that having the subject of this collection as love weakened it as a whole. Poems felt familiar and repetitive and this might not have been as obvious if the collection was broken up by different subjects, but still had an overall theme.

My favourite poem in the collection was Twenty-Seven. I thought that it proved Leav has talent as a writer and can go on to write many more sophisticated and technically clever poems.

I’ll be honest that I had been avoiding reading any of Lang Leav’s books after reading a few poor reviews and snippets from her first two poetry collections. Since it has been a few years and I’ve been greatly enjoying poetry, I decided to give this author a chance once I spotted the ARC and I was actually pleasantly surprised. Love Looks Pretty on You is Leav’s seventh published work and it’s clear that she has grown as a writer.

The issue that I had previously seen in some of Leav’s old poems was that they were overly simple, full of silly rhymes and meaningless purple prose. In this new collection I was pleased to find a great deal of maturity in Leav’s words as a young woman that has grown up learning the joy of love, the pain of loss, the anger that comes with betrayal, and the subtle regret over missed opportunities. Many of her poems still contained rhymes, but they had an easy flow to them while still discussing some very grown up themes. I particularly enjoyed the longer more meditative pieces such as Letter to the Past. Many of them were insightful and were like snippets of the author’s life.

Now there is still patches of pesky purple prose that spend a good deal of time describing flowery scenes of nature or light and I really don’t care for these types of empty passages. I know that it’s trying to paint a picture for the reader, but I really find the overabundance of physical descriptors to be meaningless and boring, so I had to take a star off off of my rating for that. Relying too heavily on flowery descriptions to make a sentence more interesting seems to be a bad habit of many modern young poets.

Overall, it’s good to see Leav coming into her own and developing a style that is uniquely her. I enjoyed this collection and will be looking into more of her other work in the future.

This book had such beautiful, powerful and moving poetry. You couldn't help but relate to at least on of the poems in this book!

I received an advance copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I really liked this newest collection of poetry from Lang Leav. It had a lot of great poetry and prose and is another one I would recommend if you like this author.

Another amazing book of poetry by Lang Leav. Heartbreaking and beautiful. I don't know how she writes as beautiful as she does.

I received a copy of this novel via NetGalley by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I approached this collection cautiously, having previously read Lang Leav's 'Love and Misadventure' and being very disappointed. I am happy to say that 'Love Looks Pretty on You' was a completely different experience. Leav presents a collection of love, heartache and acceptance. Touching and comforting at the same time, a worthwhile read for all those lover's of poetry.

3.5 stars
I really liked this poetry collection, it was tender and very touching. I adored the themes in this one, how falling in love was represented here.
It's probably my favorite book from Lang Leav after Love & Misadventures, it restored my faith in the author and her writing.

Thanks to Andrews McMeel Publishing for the ARC!

I love her poems so much. I've read her previous books too and I think this one just became my new favorite. She talks about love in such a beautiful way. Her words are not just about romantic love, but also about self-love, love for life, for our dreams and all things that matter to us. Very nice read, I totally recommend it.

This book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first Lang Leav's book and I think I’m going to read all her previous work.

There are poems that are empowering and others that are sweet and tender. But there are also poems about lost love.

She can capture our minds and break our heart in just a few simple words.

★★★★★

<i>The e-ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. </i>

This isn't my first rodeo with Lang Leav. I've read her Memories and gave it one star. I didn't bother to read the rest of her books because it just didn't resonate with me. So imagine my suprise when I read Love Looks Pretty on You and found some gems inside.

Love Looks Pretty on You caught me by its title. It is truly pretty and everyone who's in the first stage of falling in love can vouch for that.

Her writings are, tbh, not really moving imo. It's there and barely there, not so much carrying something deeper.

But of course, I have to share few favourites, such as:
<i>The novelist strusrtuggles.
The poet suffers.</i>

alsoo this part from This was The Year
<i>Told the moon I was sorry, but this is now my time in the sun.</i>

All in all, the book restore my appreciation to Lang Leav. And perhaps, after some time, I'd be able to read more from her.

3.5 stars

This was not my first Lang Leav's book, I think I read all her previous poetry collections before this. Every time it's a nice surprise to find some of myself in her works. This book was no exception. There are poems that are empowering and others that are sweet and tender. But there are also poems about lost love.
If you enjoy poetry I highly recommend this collection.