t is very rare to find poetry books that do not make me cringe and I relate to mostly. This is one of those rare ones. Amanda Lovelace and her feminist poetry collections is one of my favorite collections ever to had stumbled upon. They were easy to read for me and easy to understand, but they really sunk deep. There is not much to say aside from this was also my favorite out of her Women Are Some Kind of Magic series. This was the least cliche, it was cohesive, and ultimately the one that made me feel the most nostalgic while sticking to me long after I have read the passage.

I have always enjoyed Amanda Lovelace and her amazing writing. This book falls in perfectly with all of her previous books. Something that was very special about this book is that there were many other poets that contributed to this book. This was amazing because the poems fit flawlessly in the books but also because this exposed the reader to even more wonderful poets. I love how Lovelace writes poems that make woman feel strong. She gives them strength in any situation. Thank you to NetGalley and Amanda Lovelace for the chance to read this wonderful book.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
***
I like Amanda Lovelace. I enjoyed her second book and when I finished that I grabbed her first off my shelf and read that too. I thought, I really enjoy her writing. After finishing the mermaid’s voice returns in this one I need to amend my statement to I love Amanda Lovelace’s writing.
Mermaid’s voice is a very personal collection, all of her writing has been personal, and I have always felt it in reading her work but I really felt it in this one. I find her to be incredibly brave to write the things she does and share that part of herself with her readers.
The poetry isn’t for everyone, I know there are some people who don’t enjoy the style in which has become quite popular the last several years and don’t think of it as poetry still. I love it though, I think it allows a different form of expression and I love how it gets played with.
The work that makes up mermaid’s voice is short, sweet, beautiful, painful, and just so incredible. It tells a story of healing, overcoming, and surviving. I love the use of fairytales and othe stories inside the poems, and the last section of the book that includes other writers work that helps further highlight what this collection is about is wonderful. I recognized some names but others I wasn’t sure about but you can bet I want to see if they have more out there.
I’m sad that this will conclude Amanda’s Women Are Some Kind Of Magic series but I can’t see what else she comes up with and shares in the future.

This was such a powerful, compelling read that puts words to Lovelace's deeply personal and traumatic experiences. As a reader unfamiliar with Lovelace's earlier work, this collection definitely made me want to read the first two in her "Women Are Some Kind of Magic" series. I so admire and respect the way that she chose to share her stories with this work and believe it will resonate with any woman who has ever felt that her voice or her agency was taken away. I particularly loved one of the poems in which Lovelace said that her experience is not mine, and mine is not hers, but we can pull out shared pieces from each other to make a sort of stained glass pattern. I found that to be a good depiction of the many stories of the #metoo era and how each is unique and different yet there is still a sense of community found in the sharing. I will definitely recommend this book to all of the poetry fans and women in my life.

• Title: The Mermaid’s Voice Returns In This One
• Author: Amanda Lovelace with guest poets
• Series: Women Are Some Kind of Magic Book #3
• Pages: 210
• Genre: Poetry
• Rating Out of 5 Stars: 3

“You’re the kind of intriguing that inspired thousand-page epics.”

My Thoughts:

I’ve had a hit or miss relationship with Lovelace’s work. This particular collection I liked far more than other’s that I’ve read. There were still pieces that I didn’t connect with but there were far more I did.

Lovelace takes the pain of her past experiences and presents to us a message of strength. That though we may be broken and bruised we are still beautiful and can rise from the ashes of the fire we’ve been put through. Her unique prose can lend to this effect but it can also cause it to lose momentum in places.

I really liked the feature of other poets as well. It was a nice addition to the overall effect of the collection.

I have become a massive fan of Lovelace’s work. I enjoyed this title the most from her Women Are Some Kind Of Magic series. It’s darker than the other two books which is probably why it’s my favourite. I like dark poetry. These poems use domestic abuse and violence as themes and are raw and brutal at times. This collection is certainly not light-hearted. I enjoyed every poem and enjoyed the fact that the lengths varied. I also enjoyed the poems included by other poets that tackled similar themes.

Lovelace's third and final book in her "Women are Some Kind of Magic" collection serves as a satisfying ending, overall improving my opinion of the collection as a whole. I enjoyed the first book immensely and found the second somewhat lacking. "The Mermaid's Voice Returns in This One" seemed to fill in those gaps.

Short poetry books like this basically deliver what you expect, and there were as many poems that landed for me as poems that decidedly did not. Overall, it was a quick read. I breezed through it, but the poems that ended up getting me had me holding my breath.

Lovelace's depiction of various harsh issues wrapped in fairy tales and hope hits hard when it does manage to hit. She writes candidly about various issues, such as abuse, eating disorders, and self-harm. The format depicts growth in parts, moving away from abuse and towards hope. Empathy and simple human experience made me ache while reading, in a good way.

The book includes poems by several different guest authors, and while the poetry itself was fine. I didn't particularly enjoy it. I felt there was a bit of dissonance between Lovelace's voice and the voices of the other writers involved. However, there were some guest poems that I enjoyed.

Overall, this is poetry about healing, hope, and survivorship. Even if things aren't okay right now, it will leave you feeling like they will be someday.

Thank you for the early copy.

It is hard for me to assign a star rating or review poetry because it can be viewed differently with each reader. It was a solid collection.

I liked the imagery especially at the beginning, the escaping and story-telling. But as it went on, especially the last section, it did not flow as well with the various poems from other authors. I understand the idea of sharing everyone's unique experience, but it made it feel a little stilted. I think I enjoyed the others a little better, but still was a beautiful collection to read.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Mermaid's voice returns in this one by Amanda lovelace

*thanks to Netgalley and the publisher, I received a e-arc in exchange for my honest review*

I didn't read this series of collections in order. Which I don't really think is a big deal. I liked The Witch Doesn't Burn in this One. And the more I thought about it, the more I loved it. And I have The Princess Saves Herself in this One sitting on my shelf, waiting for me to read it.

The Mermaid however is one I was so excited for. But I just don't think it was for me. It is considerably softer than the other two. I find it lacks spark though. I do think it is the weakest of the three. But I'm thinking that is due to the fact that I have no connection to the type of trauma that the author has faced. Which is me just not connecting to the topics.

The writing as always is lovely. Amanda Lovelace has a wonderful style of writing. I always take a bit to adjust to the lack of capitalizations, but I get over it. It's a style that works well for this collection specifically. It is softer to look at it. And flows differently.

I'm going to give this a 3.5.

I want to enjoy Amanda Lovelace's poetry because it seems like it should be my jam. So I keep picking her collections up, but so far none has really touched me. Her poetry just doesn't seem to mesh with me. Part of that might be the fairytale references - I don't love fairytales and am not interested in retellings at all, so this is very much a "me" thing and not a "book" thing. On the other hand, the mermaid theme was much less present than the princess or the witch were before, which is definitely a plus in my books and makes me curious what the author will do with other poems that aren't so closely referring to fairytale imagery.

I do appreciate the overall message, but I just don't gel with the execution and the structure of the collection. I'm sure lots of people feel differently, but I find it very hard to relate to so many of these poems because especially in the first half of the collection, most of the poems are so filled with bitterness and pessimism, which is just not me at all. I understand the anger and where it comes from - and it definitely is justified - but sometimes it just feels like shouting at an empty wall and wondering why there is no feedback. While the second part of the collection takes a more positive turn (as the collections in the Women Are Some Kind of Magic series tend to do), it just takes too long to get there for my taste. For that reason, part iii ("the song") was also by far my favorite section - there are a few poems that I am sure will stick with me.

I think my favorite thing was when the author played around with the formatting of the poem and the words on the page. Experimental formats are something I always like and with this style of poetry - where most lines are just one to three words - it's so nice if there is something to break up the usual flow of the words on the page.

I appreciated that other poets were included in the last section, however it did make the collection feel a bit disjointed toward the end. Still, this was a great opportunity to read some other poets that I might be looking into more in the future!

The third book in the poetry collection by Amanda Lovelace is written in the vein of modern poetry. Personally, the final section of survival was the best part of the collection.

A solid follow up to her other poetry, This is a quick and thoughtful read. It made me think. I love her approach to twisting fairy tales into feminist messages

Thanks to Andrews McMeel Publishing for the ARC!

First of all, I wanna thank the publisher for including a trigger warning.
It's the final poetry collection of the “Women are some kind of magic” series.

It's a good book, that hopefully will encourage victims to speak about their experiences with sexual violence.

I have absolutely loved these poetry collections and I’m sad this is the final one! Beautiful poetry. Definitely a future reread.

What I have loved about Lovelace's poetry since day one is the way that she finds ways to write about some of the ugliest and most awful parts of life in ways that are so beautiful and inspiring.  She genuinely finds a way to turn what has happened to her into words and pure feelings to be shared among readers.  That, in itself, is a true talent.  There was never a moment when reading the mermaid's voice returns in this one where I was bored or over it.  The pieces are so engaging and packed with emotion that it is hard to turn away or leave it. 

Something that I really enjoyed was the short letter at the end to the readers that described the journey of this series of poetry and connected the pieces together.  The fact that this poetry collection, while it has its own parts and pieces, fits into a larger storyline is so much fun to read.  I admired that she put this letter at the end of the book to make this connection clear.  One thing that I would have liked better is if this was at the front of the book.  I know that putting it at the end probably helps to leave the poetry collection without preconceived notions about the larger storyline between the three pieces, but for me, it would have helped me see the connection in the beginning.  At first, I was slightly confused because I was expecting mermaids, but there were a few of them.  Because of this, the beginning and first section were a little confusing.  It wasn't until getting into later sections that I realized that this collection is broken into its own story of hurt, healing, and becoming.  This set up is brilliant! 

Along with this, the final section, which is about finding your voice, is even better because between poems written by Lovelace are poems written by others!  It truly works as it shows the transformation of the author from the beginning of the book and then her later transformation and discovery of not just her voice, but of others who have overcome some ugly hand being dealt to them in life.  It is in this final section that the mermaid allusion is clear; it is not about leaving the water and being human, but about finding your voice after it has been taken from you.          

Speaking of pure aesthetics, I really like the plain cover with just the text and then the back cover.  I think that, while it is plain, it makes a strong statement as there is nothing else to look at besides reading the words.  The message is clear, there are no frilly pieces of art or pops of color.  This text is about poetry and its messages.  The writing inside is very colorful and imagery is rich and lush.  Lovelace has honed the ability to use such strong adjectives and nouns to describe intangible things.  Being able to paint these poems with your mind is a work of genius and creates a bond between writer and reader.  In the end, there were several short poems that I literally wanted to copy or rip out and tape all over the walls to make sure that I read the words every day.  Words can be powerful, especially when written like these.          

On Goodreads, I gave this one four stars just because the beginning could have been a little more clear about what was happening and I really think that for me, perhaps reading the back letter in the beginning or having something up there first would have helped tie the piece together more quickly for me.  I did love reading this and falling back into Lovelace's world of beautiful writing, strong imagery, and connections to the soft and beautiful places from fairytales and childhood.

This is a beautiful conclusion to the Women Are Some Kind of Magic Series. The style is the same as her previous works. I appreciate that Lovelace's poems aren't wordy. Her power lies in the exact words she chooses to use, since there aren't many. The tone here is slightly different from the other two in that it's a bit calmer, there's more focus on healing and moving forward. Also, in the last section, there are poems from other poets which fit the theme of recovery.

As I've I said about Lovelace's previous two books in this series: To witness any form of art which is so obviously part of the creator's healing process is a gift. Any reader will likely find something in each of these books aide in healing and foster a sense of belonging.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Andrews McMeel Publishing through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
The Mermaid’s Voice Returns in This One is the last book in Amanda Lovelace’s poetry collection. This book deals with very difficult topics and also includes guest poems from other poetry writers. This book was definitely a page turner. I have not read the first two books because I didn’t know it was the last book in the series, but after reading this copy, I can’t wait to read the others.

I've read the author's previous books in this series and having read the final book I feel like now I can form a better opinion. The three books are obviously connected being inspired by the author's real life, just transformed into narratives featuring a princess, a witch, and a mermaid.

I like the message the author writes with, I like the inclusion of trigger warnings, but ultimately this kind of poetry feels void to me. It feels very superficial and it doesn't evoke strong feelings. The topics included are important and hard, and some have even impacted my own personal life, but it feels weird to read poetry about it and not feel anything. The words just didn't affect me and I feel like the strength of poetry - expressing feelings through short and metaphorical narratives, is lost here.

Out of the three books, I personally liked the second one best.

*I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

Rating: 3.5 stars

First impression:
… I feel quiet….

Let me start by saying I liked this book. The poetry felt gentle, comforting. Water after the fire Lovelace displayed in book two. While I like both fire and water, I seem to prefer the latter. The Mermaid felt like a song, both of love and mourning. Most of the poems in this book were enjoyable, I even loved some of them and I quite liked the collaborative aspect. There are a few poems by other authors woven into this narrative and while some worked better than others, I did appreciate the idea behind it.
Onto the ‘bad’ stuff. I liked this book. It was nice, I’m not mad at it, but it did not do for me what the Princess did. The first book in Lovelace’s trilogy was so raw and powerful. I re-read parts of it, found myself caught in the emotion of the poetry. This book did not do that, and maybe it was unrealistic to expect it.

Pros:
Gentle poetry, great collaboration, some poems hit a few cords

Cons:
The majority of poems didn’t do anything for me. It was nice to read, but it didn’t make me feel anything.