Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I will always and forever love Amanda Lovelace's poetry. It shows how powerful women can be, but does not shy away from insecurities. Every book I read of hers makes me feel so happy to be surrounded by such strong women, and so thankful for the bond we share.

Another collection of hers I really enjoyed. Many are quick to read and move to the next. Can make you think and consider yourself.

Amanda Lovelace's writing is like a hug. I enjoyed this poetry collection like I do every time this author writes anything. This was a great addition to the fairytale collection.

Love anything by Amanda Lovelace seriously she’s one of Ny favorite poets I always leave so renewed. After reading her works

Thank you net gallery for letting me review this book. This is the third book in the series.The series is about empowering yourself.

thank you netgalley & publisher for providing me with another ARC of Amanda's poems!

i really enjoyed this one, but a lot of the content is very generic non-poetry. overall, an group of writing that can touch your heart!

I really enjoy Amanda Lovelace's poetry and this one the premise was great. I did find myself skimming and not being as hooked as her others but overall was an enjoyable read.

I enjoy how the poems are like affirmations and there are a few ill be keeping hold of as reminders.

Thank you for the arc.

First off I want to thank the author, @andrewsmcmeel audio & publishing groups and @netgalley for allowing me to read the full collection.

I’ve loved some of Amanda Lovelace’s other collections and was grateful to have all 3 to read at once with her latest, Unlock your storybook heart, coming out this past week.

I really enjoyed how each book built upon each other and how vulnerable Amanda always is with her poems. I appreciate she uses her hard times to teach others self love, development and growth.

I can connect to a lot of her poems from previous times in my life. And the one that I really felt connection to in Unlock your storybook heart was “her cat was always there for her, even when nobody else bothers to be - her soft companion”. It reminded me of harder times in my 20s and even at the start of the pandemic when things were so uncertain and I was living on my own with my 2 girls who brought me so much comfort daily.

I rated all three of these ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
The princess saves herself in this one is always my ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ comparison.

Highly recommend the audio copies as well which the author reads herself!

trigger warning
<spoiler> fatphobia, loss of a parent, grief, misogyny </spoiler>

I listened to this on audiobook. I still really love that the author gives content warnings, and you should look up what she says in there, since I listened to this I am not so sure I can give the full list.

The audio as such was not my cup of tea, but I think that if you like a voice and style of a narrator or not is a very personal thing, you just have to try if it fits. I am also not sure that poetry is the right thing for me to consume in this way, it was an experiment and now I know.

While I like the topics, like self-doubt and misogyny, man-splaining and maybe you are the person you need feel the one true love for, I had trouble connecting with what the author said. What was really well done was the transition from fairy tale character to everyday problems faced by women and afabs.

The arc was provided by the publisher.

Wonderful poetry with beautiful illustrations. Amanda Lovelace never fails to captivate readers through her collections that empower women.

Some of my favorite parts were:

some of the souls that are considered old
are actually just young & exhausted
due to the unfairness of the world
they did not have the means to prepare for

~

One day you were reading fairy tales,
And then your life became one.

I love the themes of self-identity and independence here and how the two are not mutually exclusive with finding love. It was a joy reading this.

I love Amanda Lovelace's poetry. unlock your storybook heart is the third and final book in the You Are Your Own Fairy Tale trilogy. The words are absolutely beautiful and I love that Amanda writes such relatable stories. The art work is also beautifully done.

this is my second book from amanda lovelace and I really enjoy their writing style. they have a way of putting poetry through another gaze that is quite interesting

in the princess saves herself in this one, you could feel how this book was meant as a personal therapy to heal from their past trauma. it was my first book from them and I found the writing quite refreshing and I was moved by their story.

this one is about celebrating themselves, their journey and their wife and I loved the feminist imprint and how relatable it felt to me. it was also less about their own story and more about the reader. the biggest lesson of this collection is to learn how to love yourself. it is a concept we grow quite bored of hearing of but when you finally understand the underlying of it, you understand why it has been an important subject. this book helps you highlight the benefits of that self love journey

my favourite part was how they kept comparing reality with the multiple fairytales we grow up. we grow up with illusions and no one prepared us for the downfall reality was and it was cathartic to read about it to be quite honest

this book is a big yes. i will buy a physical copy when the book will be out

ratings: 5⭐️

A lovely addition to Amanda Lovelace’s growing collections of poetry. Unlock Your Storybook Heart was full of relatable sentiments that make me want to reread her poetry again and again. As an educator, if a student expressed interest in poetry, I would recommend Lovelace’s latest work without hesitation.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishing company for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is my second poetry book from Amanda Lovelace. Please look at TW before reading, as always. However, this is was a bit different than her other collections. I liked it but I didn’t LOVE it. It’s definitely different from her other poems, some stood out and yet some didn’t. It did seem kind of repetitive at times, which I did not really enjoy. But I still liked it nonetheless.

Unlock Your Storybook Heart is the third and final installment in Lovelace's feminist poetry series, You Are Your Own Fairy Tale. This collection, inspired by Beauty and the Beast, focuses on topics of perfectionism, self-love and living beyond societal expectations. The poems are lovely and inspire self-reflection especially when it comes to missing out on your own life, being too busy aiming for perfection, and pleasing others over yourself. Prioritizing yourself and seeing the value in your worth are among the biggest takeaways from this installment making this series one not to miss. I look forward to what Amanda Lovelace comes up with next.

Special thanks to Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I am officially an Amanda Lovelace fan. I grew up on classics so it took me a while to get on board but this book did it! Unlock Your Storybook Heart is absolutely beautiful. This collection does a phenomenal job of conveying healing. While the underlying brokenness is there, the overall tone stays hopeful, nurturing, and inspiring.

Like Lovelace's previous books, "Unlock Your Storybook Heart" is a lovely and empowering collection. But while the others books in this series had a more delicate balance between the poetry pieces and the advice pieces, here, both the poetry pages and the "her books say" pages often read as advice pieces. Instead of letting the poems be, leaving room for interpretations, and letting the readers take whatever they need to take from each poem, the advice pieces interrupt the flow of the reading and tell us how to read the book and the messages we should take from it. The messages are still great, the illustrations are gorgeous, and there is a beautiful poetry narrative holding the book together. But reading this book can easily feel like reading a self-help book dressed as a poetry collection. And not that there is anything wrong with reading self-help books, but this isn't what this book promises its readers, and some of the magic, and the authenticity Lovelace's first few books had is missing here.

I've come to realize this type of poetry is not for me. I craved more emotion, depth, and use of literary devices to really make me feel what the author was attempting to convey. The art is nice, but I was extremely underwhelmed.

Thank you to Amanda Lovelace (ladybookmad), Andrews McMeel Publishing, and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of Unlock Your Storybook Heart (You Are Your Own Fairy Tale #3) for an honest review.

I can never say it enough: Amanda Lovelace's poetry owns my soul. This last volume in the You Are Your Own Fairy Tale touches lightly on Beauty & the Beast, but the message throughout the poems is not one about a specific fairytale already handed down through the ages -- it's about *yours*. It's about every person's ability to find magic in the world around them, the people with them, and to hold on to it as long as you can. That no matter if you feel the magic went to sleep, you can always wake it back up and let it fill your heart again.

I, also, remain forever amazed at the very in-depth Trigger Warning/Self-Care reminder at the beginning of every one of her volumes. It makes me always remember that she cares deeply about those reading her books and can openly acknowledge all the topics she speaks about in her writing.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
***
Unlock Your Storybook Heart by Amanda Lovelace is the third and final collection in the “You are your own fairy tale” poetry trilogy and maybe my absolute favorite of all her writing. I have always loved her writing, seriously check out my other reviews for her collections I adore her work and I’m not afraid to say it, but I think this might be the one I have felt the most connected to emotionally.
Told as though it is a fairytale you start with a story about a blacksmith who gives girls a magic key when they are born that is supposed to lead you to your “one true storybook love” and the collection is split into three parts. The first part, my favorite bit, is a kind of a call and response, the girl feels or goes through something and the story book returns with sage advice. Part 2 is about embracing yourself and not letting others opinions hold you back and moving forward after loss, specifically the loss of a mother which is a loss I still feel even after all these years. Part 3 is recognizing the end of the story isn’t really the end of a story, just another beginning.