I really wanted to enjoy this collection, but unfortunately, it fell flat for me. I expected a deeper exploration of what it means to be human, to exist in this world, to form and lose connections with others and oneself, etc. but what I found in this collection felt very surface-level and like nothing more than an Instagram post on a quote-based account. I appreciate that the poems wanted to explore deep, almost emotional topics, but even with the author's notes, this collection felt like more a first draft or a starting place than a final product. This book has the potential to appeal to readers who want to ease their way into poetry without having to decipher what the poet is trying to say or what the message in each poem is.

"Explorations of a Cosmic Soul" reminded me of the beauty of poetry that has been missing in daily life for years. Raising questions of pain, existence, growth, and purpose in a rushing society, Allie Michelle uses dreamy language and word choice to explore what we are lacking in modern society. I enjoyed her perspective of self-love and growth in a world asking us to hustle and judge, expecting others to love us without question when we struggle to love ourselves without question. Bringing a touch of art to discussions of trauma-informed healing, Michelle offers a treat to the soul.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

As every book I chose to read, I wanted to love this one, however I did not. It is a beautiful book, I’m in love with this cover, and the aesthetic of it, yet I wasn’t a big fan of the hand written notes after some of the poems, and found the poetry unfulfilling and underwhelming.

Great visually, written beautifully, however its nothing thats not already out there thats already done, I personally do not mind as it's always nice for positive repetition, but may not be for others looking for something new.

I enjoyed a few different things about this collection, including the author’s narrative voice, handwritten/scanned notes, the cohesive theme, and the passion that was evident in the writing. I also especially enjoyed the pieces “Blank Slate”, “The Future”, “A Daily Prayer”, “Wild Things”, “Intuition > Advice”, “take the first step”, “The Escape”, and “do not tell me of who you know”.

Unfortunately, I have to confess that the style and structure of many of the other poems weren’t quite for me. I am not against straightforwardly written or “simple” poetry structures in any way as a whole, but the rhyme scheme got a bit repetitive at times and a handful of the pieces were a hair too similar.

Still, as I enjoyed the “author’s note” and additional poems at the end of the collection the most, I look forward to seeing this poet’s continued growth as an author and individual and give many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC!

Thank you to Andrew McNeel Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very thoughtful and compelling collection, and I love how much you can hear the author's tone and voice in their words. Though I do enjoy poetry, I don't read it very often lately, so I decided to step outside my usual reads and try this one out! Though I do think these poems had a lot of value, and it was a quick, upbeat read, I didn't find myself personally connecting to many of them. I think many others out there would enjoy this collection, so I would still recommend!

I was quite underwhelmed after finishing this one. It's aesthetically pleasing, but that's really it. I didn't really like the poems in this one and definitely read it slower than other books in the genre.

I read the whole book in one sitting. And while it was good I was kind of underwhelmed. It felt like I’ve already read most of the poems in there and felt a little flat. But I really really liked some of them and want to keep them in mind they really touched me. But overall I guess I just expected more. However, as I don’t usually read Poetry, I can’t talk about it in comparison to other books and authors. I’ll definitely check out more poetry now!

I’ve started to read more poetry lately, so when this caught my interest I decided to give it a go. Now that I have finished this collection and had some time to think about it, I am still not completely sure how I feel about this one.

I found the pieces flowed well and connected with each other beautifully, but it felt to me as if not every poem was as strong or as moving as it seemed it was intended to be. In saying that, not every poet or poem is for everyone. This collection is just not quite what I needed it to be. So it could be, and I am sure it will be, exactly what someone else might need when they pick it up.

I definitely did have some favourites in this collection though, including: ‘From Lonely to Alone’, ‘Purpose Beyond Perfection’, ‘human’ and ‘do not tell me of who you know’. I especially loved the little snippets of musings which were placed after some poems, these, I felt, were just as poetic as the poems themselves. I would say though, that they should have been printed a little clearer, I had trouble making some of them out. (Though this is more a fault of printing than of the writing itself.)

Overall, while I did not love this collection of poetry, I can see the passion and care that went into writing these poems and into putting them together. I am sure this collection will find the right person when they need it most once it makes it’s way into the world.

Rating: 3.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing who sent me this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

(A mini version of this review will also be posted on my Instagram story/highlights with a link to my blog in my bio.)

Explorations of a Cosmic Soul is your run-of-the-mill Instagram poetry collection that strings words aesthetically rather than have much meaning behind them. One caveat I have with the formatting of the poems are the ones that are handwritten. If styled a little more legibly, it would be easier to read. I was mostly trying to read what was presented on the page rather than absorbing the content on the page, which was sadly detracting from the reading experience.

Explorations of a Cosmic Soul is a collection of poems by Allie Michelle. These poems reflect lessons she’s learned through travel, love, and soul searching.

I really enjoyed the poems in this book and finished it within a couple of hours. Michelle’s words were thoughtful and inspiring. Certain poems had handwritten notes that explained where she was, what she was going through, or what had specifically inspired her to write said poem. I felt as though these notes helped to deepen the connection between the author and the reader. Although I enjoyed this special touch, the handwriting was difficult to read at times.

There were more than a handful of poems that made rhyming its focal point, rather than getting the point across. While rhyming works wonderfully for some poems, it left some of Michelle’s work feeling like she had less words and options to choose from to clearly express what she wanted to. Using the rhyming technique creates limitations and there were pieces that would have done well without it.

This collection of poems serves as a reminder to focus on the present, appreciate the small things, and find inner happiness. Thank you to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Explorations of a Cosmic Soul would be a nice book to have sitting out on a coffee table to pick up and flip through whenever the mood strikes. I enjoyed the flow of the poems from start to finish.
Although it is not a deep, directive text, and is fairly generic, there are simple, gentle reminders within these pages.

Je pense que c'est un livre à lire quand on est un peu perdu dans la vie. Les poèmes redonnent de l'espoir et rassure d'une certaine façon qui est très agréable. L'astrologie et l'univers sont très présent dans les poèmes, ce qui pourrait plaire à beaucoup de monde. La chose que j'ai préféré est que c'est un livre qui est engagé dans la cause féministe, la voix de la femme est aussi importante que celles des hommes et ces poèmes en sont la preuve vivante.

I think it's a book to read when you're a little lost in life. The poems give hope and reassure in a way which is very pleasant. Astrology and the universe are very present in the poems, which could appeal to many people. The thing that I liked the most is that it is a book which is committed to the feminist cause, the voice of the woman is as important as that of the men and these poems are the living proof.

Thank you Netgalley for the arc...

No idea about other bad reviews but I really did enjoyed every poems in the book. Every poem is so clearly on point and it proves author has a great insight on life and cosmos.

Rating: 2.5

I’m not a big poetry reader, but every now and then I like to pick up a collection. I found this one on NetGalley and the cover and title instantly drew me in.
I think the easiest way to format my review is like this:

Things I liked:
- The font used (yes, this is important to me)
- The foreword about Astrology
- The Second section of the collection (Allie Michelle’s newer poems)
- The explanations after some of the poems about how the poem came to be

Things I didn’t:
- The poems in the first half
The first half of this collection, which were re-published poems from Allie Michelle earlier works, honestly read like badly sung rap songs. I skim-read most of these.
- Random blank pages after every poem in the second section of the collection
- The lack of images / illustrations (aside from occasional constellations)
- Allie Michelle’s handwriting after some of the poems (was super difficult to read)

There is a huge difference in readability between the first and second section. I feel like Allie Michelle has really grown as a poet since publishing the first section of this collection. I wish we’d gotten a whole new collection with only their newer poems.
I also loved the idea of descriptions / explanations of some of the poems written in their handwriting throughout the collection, with how the poem came to be. Except for the fact that they were super difficult to read and I didn’t get the full experience from them.
The small second section (maybe a quarter of the collection) really saved this for me. I enjoyed these poems, and wonder if there were meant to be illustrations with some of these as every page after one of the new poems was blank.
Overall, I would be interested to try some newer works by Allie Michelle, as there was definite growth between the two sections included in this collection. I still feel like some readers would enjoy this collection entirely. So if you enjoy a broader range of poetry (and aren’t as specific in your tastes as I am), I recommend you give this one a try.

While some of the poems were amazing, as a whole, the collection was pretty bland and basic. One of my main issues was that in most of them, she started writing them in rhyme but then gave up during the last 3-5 lines. Or even worse, she just gave up on the rhyme in the last line. And I did not feel like all of this had a purpose. It wasn't as if that last line had a great impact or anything it just seemed like she didn't know any other words sometimes.

There were 2 other things that bugged me format-wise:
1) all the handwritten notes took me ages to understand because of the handwriting
2) all the signs pages had no writing of what sign it was and the content was not spread evenly between constellations

While I enjoyed the book for a while, it was a bit hard to get through all of it since it started giving me a repetitive feeling.

I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book.

These sets of poems are hit or miss with much more hit than miss. The author has insightful thoughts throughout the poems, such as loving yourself now and when we create a "love affair" with our future self, we're "dishonoring" our current self. In addition to having a universe and stars theme, many of the poems also focus on self-love unconditionally-- even embracing our dark side, which I appreciate.

Some of the poems (very few) do come off a bit pretentious and lectury. However, the majority of the poems are quite good and do have inspiring messages. One thing I didn't like though, was some of the notes in between the poems. I preferred reading the poems one after another and having the author interrupt to have a handwritten letter or what she was doing as she wrote the poem, or what made her write the poem, pulled me out of her writing. 

The images of stars in between every handful of poems was a nice touch and fit the theme quite well. The cover is also beautiful and makes me think of my favorite Egyptian goddess. 

I'd say it's good for at least one solid read through. There's also a lot of great quality content; you can tell the author worked very hard and I believe she successfully pulled off these poems.

I’ve always had an open mind while reading not only poetry, but novels, short stories, even non fiction. This collection however was rough for me to get through. For me it lacked connection: certain poems were very good. All in all I’d give this a 2.5 out 5, only because I had a lack of connection. The writing itself was done beautifully.

Thank you so much for the E-ARC!
Some of the poems, in their simplicity, were beautiful, others were not. I wish I could say I enjoyed reading this but most of the poems lacked depth and emotion, I couldn't connect with them.

I loved that this version includes author notes that explain the reasoning behind some of the poems. The notes were handwritten and made the book feel a bit more personal, however, it could just be an issue with the ebook version but the quality was terrible and I couldn't understand what some of the words were.

Honestly, if you're already a fan you'll love it but this isn't for everyone.