I did not connect with this one as much as I did with her previous two, but nonetheless still immensely enjoy what I find to be a very accessible style for someone like myself who does not usually get into poetry. I will continue to read what she sends into the world.

Thank you, NetGalley. I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Lang Leav brings a collection of very vulnerable poems, some worked for me but most did not. Since her last book, it feels as though she’s been through something that has stole her confidence. I’ve enjoyed her other collections but this one didn’t exactly have the same spark.

Like any good book of poetry, this had a select few that resonated to my core. I couldn’t help but audible saying “damn” after one or two that hit home. A great fall poetry collection that’s easy to read- for fans of Rupi Kaur.

When I read the title I was instantly captivated, due to my own bias as September is after all my birth month.
However, this book met and exceeded my expectations. Well written and poetry that anyone who's ever been in love can relate to.

Poetry books are hard to review. As a fan of classic poetry, modern poetry touches my heart in rare occasions. But I found that Lang Leav writes beautifully what I am feeling inside. How is she privy to such a secret? How is she able to pen them down the way it is?
Honest. Poignant. Aching. September Love is more than love poems. It's almost a survival guide.
I loved most of the poems, if not all. My favourites among them are:
●Ingredients of a poem
●Being an artist
●Self-control
●After thirty
●A woman
●To past generations

To everyone looking for a good poetry collection, this is for you.

I am learning to love poetry, but this was a miss for me. I felt no connection with the poems. They didn’t make me think deeper or compel me in anyway.

This book was free and was sent to me as an ARC on NetGalley. However, all reviews are of my own opinions and I am in no way under obligation to give this review.
I will be honest, I don’t often read poetry, but for some reason, this book really jumped out at me. Could it be that it is September? I have never read anything by Lang before and so this book was completely new to me. I loved this book, more so, I adored some of poems. Some were less relatable, but I find that the case with anything. However, those that I felt were relatable, I really did find myself connecting with them. I have even written a few of my favourite poems down in one of my notebooks and I know I am able to go back and read it should I ever want.
This book has definitely changed my perspective on poetry books and I will definitely be picking some more up in the near future.

I received an e-galley of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This is my first time reading Lang Leav’s poetry, although her name has definitely been one that I recognized and known amongst poetry readers and so I was happy to read and review her latest book of poems. Reading poetry can be such a personal and impersonal venture at the same time. On the one hand, I felt that some of the poems were words that I was just absorbing with no emotions attached and then other poems would resonate deeply with my heart and feelings. September Love was both - relatable and unrelateable. And that was completely okay to me as a reader to be able to try to understand the experiences and emotions that the poems were to convey. The poem that took me by the most surprise (and made me laugh) was the one titled “To The Guy Who Claimed My Poetry Was the Cause of His Breakup,” which I thought was the perfect response to such a claim. Reading September Love has definitely made me more curious as to Lang Leav’s earlier work.

Thank you to Andrews McMeel Publishing for the e-galley.

I though this book was ok! I enjoyed some of the poems and was indifferent to some others. I didn't feel this book was entirely my cup of tea, but it does not mean that other fans of contemporary poetry will not like it. I encourage everyone to check it out. The poems are short, easy to read probably in line with a lot of the experiences and feelings almost anyone goes through when they are in love. The poems have 3 main topics: poetry and writing, love, and self (meaning: the author and her emotions).

What I loved: there were some poems that worked very well for me and that really translated my reality and the way I have felt things in the past. Those were mostly her poems in which the author talks about herself and her emotions. I also loved the mix between different types of poems, with some of them rhyming, other being just short prose poetry a few others being longer (usually just a paragraph or two).

What I did not love: I felt the strain of repetition of poems about the three main topics. It felt like a lot of the poems were about the same theme and conveyed exactly the same message in a similar way. It does not mean that those poems were bad, it just means that the reading experience was not great FOR ME. Additionally, I couldn’t relate to a lot of the poems because MY experience was very different from the author’s. I truly believe that poems hit differently when they translate your emotions into worlds and that was maybe why I feel this book was not for me. Check it out for yourselves because our experiences are all different and there is a good chance yours are more like the author’s than mine!

I have received an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my review.

***5/5***

Lang Leav is one of my all-time favorite poets. In the past, her books have inspired tears and emotions with every turn of the page and luckily "September Love" is no different. Other times Leav has inspired me to feel love but this aptly named collection inspires new emotions. Where other collections were about past hurts and new loves "September Love" feels fresher, a new hurt, and new pains. The relatability of her works is one of her greatest talents, to make the reader feel emotions like this is truly extraordinary.

Some of my favorite poems in this collection are:

Breaking, Grief, Between Us, All I See, and Nine Books

I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My first time encountering Lang Leav, I was a starry-eyed fourteen year-old who thought there was life to be found in the smoke of some denim-clad, bruised boy. I remember sitting in a cafe with a friend, skimming through Love & Misadventure like the writer had uncovered the all of the universe’s secrets. How could this woman know all the sensibilities I tucked under my sweater, pick the grub and grime under my fingernails, thieve the knives I slid into my socks?

Give or take seven years later, my copy of Love & Misadventure is lost and I'm a little different. But as I read Lang Leav’s new poetry collection, September Love, I feel transported back to that crowded cafe—not from a sense of nostalgia, but from the pricking feeling that her poetry has not changed, not grown, not moved since I’ve last met her.

This book has recurring themes of love, literature/writing, and heartbreak printed into every page of the book. As I read through each piece, I began to understand Lang Leav’s greatest strength—her relatability. There is a great sense of universality to her writing. You could easily slide any experience you’ve had with romance and heartache into the spaces between her words.

However, relatability is a double-edged sword that she wields too casually. The collection, in general, excessively relies on relatability—to the point that the writing became vague.

I understand that writing, to an extent, has to be relatable. Us readers like to connect to our literature, especially when the subject matter is as ubiquitous as love. The problem with leaning (too much) on relatability is that depth and distinction can go astray. Toiling on something more personal complicates the mass appeal as it has a high chance of alienating an odd percentage of readers. But poetry is a craft! It’s important to keep reinventing and innovating with it.

At some point, the writing style got too repetitive, too prosaic for my tastes and all the works blurred together. I kept feeling like something was lacking. There are poems that are literally just sentences—and obviously length doesn’t dictate quality, but if a sentence reads like any other, like a tweet I could impulsively send out or a histrionic statement I’d say in passing to a friend, I’d pass by it without feeling anything.

The two poems I really liked are War, which played with allegories and line breaks powerfully, and God, which kept engaging with me through its illustrative imagery. God, in particular, was very intense and I had to take a minute or two after reading it to just sit in its shadow and process what I was feeling. I think these two show just what a wordsmith Lang Leav is by handing out nuance, ingenuity, and sentiment wrapped up in a pretty bow.

Overall, if I were to describe September Love in one word it would be ‘comfortable’. It was good, but not extraordinary. It felt too safe and recurrent and could have explored the boundaries of poetry and prose a bit more.

Sea of strangers was a bit of a hit and miss but this is my favourite of Lang Leav's yet. So many of these poems hit home especially as we're in lockdown, its september and love is all we can hold onto until this pandemic ends. Beautiful, thoughful poems - looking forward to one day getting a physical copy of this 😊

Thank you to the publisher on NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. Made for great bedtime poetry reading ☺

The contents of this book are either too cheesy or flowery that it distracts me away from the message. It didn't hit me with emotions that I want to feel when reading poetry books.

Really beautiful and refreshing to read, I was left with such a hopeful, wistful kind of mood. Lang Leav speaks on going back to her true voice with a clear mind and I really felt that. Her voice was distinct and has its own essence that shows in each poem.
There were topics on our current pandemic, on love, loss, yearning, having a public voice / audience, receiving criticism, and more. This one really touched on all corners and I feel that's also symbolic of our current time just contemplating on all the things that make up our lives. I liked that there was such a variety of subjects it made each poem stand out from each other.

Lang Leav's prose has the power to bring me to that moment in her mind. September Love is a beautiful book that connects me with the deepest emotions of the writer and her personal experiences. They say that the books are dialogues and that each one has a different mood, Leav's books are intimate and deep conversations in which one always feels listened to and warm.
Being a woman, being happy and feeling loved are the themes that are explores through her gaze. These types of books are the ones I like to have on my shelf to return to their pages a thousand times more.
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#SeptemberLove #NetGalley #LangLeav

It remains true, once again, that poetry collection by Lang Leav can be a hit or miss. And this one did it for me. Poignant, powerful, but vulnerable and deeply honest at the same time. I really enjoyed it, and I'm glad to see improvement in Leav's work.

This one focused on the topics of lost love, and I loved those. However, some of my favourite poems explored being a writer from a different angle. How poetry means stripping yourself bare, and how it takes tremendous bravery to share those parts of yourself with the world, ready to judge you at any time. It was relatable and resonated with me. I simply loved reading about it.

Leav's poetry is truly beautiful and, after reading everything except Sea of Strangers, I'm really excited to see where she stands when it comes to novel writing. And I'll patiently wait for her next release.

Thanks to Netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for providing me with eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I liked a lot of the poems in this collection, quick and easy read, very similar to her previous works of poetry.

The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I always love Lang Leav’s poems to the point she’s basically an auto-buy for me. I really liked the forward written by Lili Reinhart as she is also releasing a poetry collection around the same time. Looking forward to purchasing the physical copy in November!

This poetry collection was so easy to read, I really enjoyed it.

Its been a while since I've read poetry and this collection has got me in the mood to read more of the genre, and even write some of my own. I was smiling through most of this book and found that some of the poems were so powerful and inspiring. I loved the themes of love, self-love, inner self and more. I was able to really relate to these poems and find myself between the lines. The poems were written in different formats which gave such variety within the book and I really enjoyed the changes throughout.

I would definitely recommend this book to both poetry lovers and people who are trying out poetry for the first time. I loved the style of writing used by this author and would even consider picking up her other books! I'm very happy I decided to pick this up.

Lang Leav’s poetry continues to be incredibly overrated. Going into this one, I had no faith that the book would “change the way you think about love, relationships, heartbreak, and self-empowerment” as the premise claims. There’s no sense in bestowing her poetry with a power it has not earned.