Dis]Connected
Poems & Stories of Connection and Otherwise Volume 2

by Courtney Peppernell; Tyler Knott Gregson; Noah Milligan; Caitlyn Siehl; Raquel Franco; Wilder; Alicia Cook; Komal Kapoor; KY Robinson; NL Shompole

Central Avenue Publishing

General Fiction (Adult) , Poetry

Pub Date 01 Oct 2019

I am reviewing a copy of (Dis)Connected: Poems and Stories of Connection and Otherwise Volume Two:

In this highly anticipated second volume of poetry and short stories combines some of the most popular poets of 2019. (Dis) Connected is a collection of poetry and short stories dealing with connections wrapped up in a most unique exercise in creative writing. Follow along as your favorite poets connect with each other, offering their poetry to the next person who then tells a story based on the concept presented to them.

I found the poems and Short Stories in this collection to be a unique and well written and therefore worthy of five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this book.

DNF 15%

This was definitely not what I was expecting at all when I clicked download. I love poetry and some of the authors who contributed to this collection are some of my favourite poets ever. Unfortunately, this was a "me not you" situation.

I really liked the premise, but I thought this would be more poetry as opposed to short stories (which is 100% my own fault for not reading properly). I also thought this would be a contemporary collection, but the first story is sci-fi and I just don't read, or particularly understand, a lot of science fiction. The formatting of the Kindle copy is also a bit all over the place and confusing.

Overall, I really like the whole idea, but this wasn't my cup of tea, unfortunately.
(rated 3 stars on here, but I won't be leaving a rating anywhere else as I only read 15% of this and I don't think it's fair)

I don't read many anthologies, so when I went into this one, I wasn't sure what to expect. I was so pleasantly surprised. The first story really took me away to another world, and the rest of the stories after kept me there. I was so entranced by each and every story- they all had so much pain, so much emotion behind them. A couple of them felt a little too similar to me, which is why I knocked off a star, but overall it was incredibly beautiful.

I've actually never read any prose by poets whose work I've read before, so I really loved the concept for this collection. I am very familiar with many of the poets in this, so it was exciting to see their writing in another form. I definitely want to read the first volume of this now- it has really grabbed my attention.

The stories are all very dark- many are about death/grief, addiction, familial relationships, and more. I am personally a HUGE fan of books that deal with deep, emotional subject matter, but be wary when going into this. Some topics may be triggering.

Overall, if you're a fan of beautiful, flowery, poetic writing, this one is a must.

TW: loss of a child, loss of a parent, alcoholism

"Never let them see you cry. Hold your head high. Know you are the prettiest girl in the room, and if you don't feel it, fake it."

Actual rating 4.5 stars. It is really rare for me to read an anthology of poetry and short stories and absolutely fall in love with every story that is being told. I loved these stories sooo much and the concept is really cool as well. The concept is to have one person write a poem, then have another poet read it and write a short story inspired by said poem. There was just one story with some girl on girl hate that I didn't particularly like so that's why this isn't a full 5 stars.

NOTE: I was provided with a free ARC copy of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Refreshing.

This is the word that comes to mind once I have finished reading the poems and short stories contained within this book.

Are they connected? Disconnected? They are and they are not. At some point I felt like the stories I had read at that point were each so far apart from each other than possibly could be. But then, in the end, it is all about human experience, how it hits us and how we deal with it depending on where we stand, where we are coming from, where we are headed towards.

Quite a few of the short stories shared deal with grief, loss, death. They also talk about relationships, of family, mother, father, parents, siblings, lovers, grand parents, friends. There is such a wide variety of relating to each other. With quite a few of the short stories I came across life experience I never had thought about before, and that means widening my own horizon of understanding, and for that I love these stories.

As I am currently looking to find a way to read more poetry and getting into reading short stories, this book was fantastic. I loved all the poems I found there and certainly will check the authors further out, short bibliographies can be found at the end of the book. As regards the short stories, some were okay, some really gripped me and drew me right in, left me nearly breathless until I made it to the end.

This review refers to an eARC I received from the publisher via Netgalley in return of an honest review.

Editor and publisher Michelle Halket showcases work from ten poets in [Dis]Connected: Poems & Stories of Connection and Otherwise Volume 2. Each of the ten poets submitted three poems, which are interspersed between short stories from the same writers. Halket chose a specific order, then asked that the short stories reference a line or two in the poem just before them. She uses this as just one way to illustrate connection and disconnection, the collection’s main themes. It’s an interesting conceit and challenge to the writers.

There are breakups, deaths, disappearances, and families in crisis. These stories are definitely not about unicorns and rainbows, which serves to make them more powerful. And the authors each bring a unique perspective to these themes. Halo, for example, has supernatural aspects, and Strangers Tomorrow is a more science fiction take. And others, like What the Wild Gave Me, are just plain real-life difficulties.

The poetry selections are both modern poetry and prose poetry. Most of them ache with longing, rather than offering hope.

My conclusions
Most of the stories truly drew me into their milieu, with compelling premises. In The Fourth Saturday, Alicia Cook crafts a fine story about the death of a family member with addiction. Raquel Franco writes emotionally in Get Up about teenager Reese, who loses her mother’s attention and care because of addiction, if not losing her physical presence.

Family relationship realities continue with two other mother and child focused entries. They offer different slants on a universal topic. Whether it’s a child in Make Choices a Bit Crooked or a teen in Beyond the Tree Line, these stories engage the parent-child connection effectively.

I also appreciated the stories of romantic relationships lost and found, especially Stay with Me, set in fictional Willowdale, Colorado from Courtney Peppernell. The themes of mourning and morning are strong here. Plus, it has a twist that caught me unaware. I’m not much for love triangle stories, but K.Y. Robinson’s entry, Ghosted, is well-drawn and engaging.

Komal Kapoor offers Wrapped in Distance, a story of sibling connections, as well as the connection between homeland and new home cultures. Priya and her brother have different takes on being second-generation Indian immigrants. The conflicts this creates between them, and with their parents is palpable in this brief story.

I recommend these short stories and poems. They will tweak your heart and engage your brain. It’s definitely a well done contemporary collection. 3.5 stars

Acknowledgements
Many thanks to NetGalley, the authors, and Michelle Halket of Central Avenue Publishing for the opportunity to read a digital ARC of this collection, in exchange for my honest review.

I liked this collection, though I think the latter half of the short stories was superior.
“Wrapped in Distance” is the crown jewel of this anthology. The protagonist is sympathetic and learns a lesson by the end of the story.

I like the writing style of the majority of the poems and prose. I liked how the poems and stories were related to each other. Most of the protagonists are interesting. There’s a variety of genres here, from fantasy to magical realism to romance. Since part of the fun of anthology is not knowing what comes next, I won’t discuss the plot of any story in particular. But some of the themes include grief, gender roles, and disillusionment.

A few stories resemble first chapters of books. These feel incomplete because there’s no resolution or growth at the end. Interesting concepts and characters are squandered.

The weakest story of the collection is “What the Wild Gave Me.” None of the characters are interesting. Despite the short length, this story dragged because of slow pacing and pointless scenes.

Despite a few weaker offerings, the rest of the stories are of a high caliber. I recommend this anthology.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
***
[Dis]connected is chock-full of talented writers and is an interesting premise. Each of the authors writes a poem and a short story, the caveat is the short story is connected to the poem (by a different writer) before it. It’s really interesting and fun to see how each writer took the poem given to them and put their spin on what it meant or what it inspired them to write. This is such a fascinating writing experiment and I love how it turned out. I’m not familiar with all the names that were a part of this but I’ll definitely be adding them to my list of writers to keep an eye out for.
Overall I felt most of the stories had a very melancholy feel to them but the feelings were so real and deep and I may not have necessarily connected with them all I still felt them very deeply.
Definitely recommend to anyone looking to dip their toes in modern poetry and want to see what is on offer.

[Dis]Connected presents poems and short stories about connection wrapped up in a most unique exercise in creative writing. Follow along as your favorite poets connect with each other; offering their poetry to the next person who tells a story based on the concept presented to them. With poetry, stories, and art, this is a one-of-a-kind presentation of connection and collaboration by Alicia Cook, Tyler Knott Gregson, Courtney Peppernell, Noah Milligan, Komal Kapoor, N.L. Shompole, Caitlyn Siehl, K.Y. Robinson, Raquel Franco, and Wilder Poetry.

A very moving collection, overall!

*received from NetGalley in exchange for review*

A wonderful and thoughtful collection of poetry from some of the 'hottest names' in modern poetry.

The premise - one poet writes a poem, which is then given to a short fiction writer, who writes a story based on the poem. Then the story is give to another poet and so on.

Brilliant and emotional writing from talented and creative people.

Some stories I connected more than others but overall it was really enjoyable and I'm glad I got the opportunity to read this. Since this is volume 2 and I haven't read volume 1 previously, I want to get to that one.

I was not blown away by this collection, unfortunately. I love Tyler Knott Gregson and a few of the other contributing poets, but I didn't quite connect with the short stories. There are some enjoyable pieces but the collection as a whole just wasn't to my taste. However, I can still see recommending the book to some of my teens who enjoyed the first collection.

This was an engaging collection of poetry and short stories. I liked how they all connected in some way. A couple of the short stories left me wanting to know more about the people in the story. I haven't read the first book in this collection but after reading this one, I do want to.

I'm sure for some this is a great book, however for me, it just never captured my attention. I love poetry, but this just wasn't my cup of tea. I ended up DNFing this about 34 pages in.

[Dis]connected is an interesting collection of short stories and poetry by some of the bigger names in poetry today. Each is given another poet to take inspiration from. I really enjoyed the first edition, so I was thoroughly looking forward to this one. That being said, I feel this one fell a bit flat. There were definitely some good moments, however overall it was just ok.

I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest and fair review.

I'm sadly very underwhelmed with this. I enjoyed the first volume, it wasn't a favorite but a lot of the stories and just the format alone were good. It's a shame because this started off really strong with the first short story which was honestly a five stars for me, but the following two just drew me out completely. I also didn't connect with the poetry, which is pretty rare for me. I just found it very boring and pointless honestly. I really wanted to love this,but I just couldn't even finish it.

It's a rare occasion that I read an anthology of poetry and so thoroughly love the written compilation that I find it difficult to close the book for breaks. But this was, surprisingly, the case for [Dis]Connected.

A devourable read from popular poets, this collection is bursting with poems and lines that dare to explore what it means to connect, to unplug, to attempt to fill the empty space between humans. All the works shared themes of love and loss, hurt and healing, but overall, the collection is eclectic and visceral, leaving open the opportunity for it to resonate with just about anyone.

Although I'm not the biggest fan of anthologies in general, I would recommend this collection simply because the messages are so important and the works are deeply touching. Each piece is woven into the next, making this collection a cohesive compilation of everything we all need to hear/know....and more.

This was my first time reading one of these collections of short stories and poetry from different authors that was put together in this way. I completely enjoyed the premise behind this project and will need to go back and find Volume 1. There were some stories that I connected with more than others, but I think, as with any collection of stories, that is part of the point. They are meant to have a general them but not necessarily speak to each person in the same way.
And that new cover is gorgeous!
Thank you for the early copy. I recommend this to anyone that enjoys short story collections.
#Disconnected #NetGalley #CentralAvenuePublishing

This is a collection from a bunch of popular poets filled with self involvling poems and short stories dealing with connection or lack of connections, it was a quick read.

Interesting concept and I enjoyed a large portion of this book. Like with many collections some definitly stood out more than others but I thoroughly enjoyed this book overall and have recommended it to others.