I love all of Amanda Lovelace's works, this one was no different. I was very excited to get approved for this title early and was not disappointed. I love the way Amanda takes modern life and melds it together with fairytales and dreams. They have a succinct ability to motivate me and address trauma with poetry that (I feel) speaks directly to my interests. I'm a huge fan of this series of poetry and will continue to be for as long as Lovelace plans to write them.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for approving me for an eARC ahead of release. It was much appreciated and enjoyed!

This is the third and final installment in the feminist poetry series, “you are your own fairy tale.”
Some poems definitely meant more to me than others, and they're the reason I'm giving it 4 stars. Even though these words may seem a little simple and obvious, sometimes it's all you need to hear. I really enjoyed it.

* I received this book from Andrews McMeel Publishing in exchange for an honest review

This is the final book in a poetry collection trilogy. And I like each one a little less. 😬 I still enjoyed a lot of the poems in this one, but to me the overall theme did not connect to Beauty and the Beast at all. Most of the poems were about losing her mom and finding/loving her wife.

Amanda Lovelace has never let us down. She will never let us down. I could relate to all of these in some way and I think thats why she is as popular as she is.

Unlock Your Storybook Heart is another beguiling poetry collection by Amanda Lovelace (aka ladybookmad). It's the third and final instalment in her You Are Your Own Fairy Tale trilogy.

Lovelace states in her introduction that the poems are inspired by a few classic tales, "most notably Beauty and the Beast", but also clearly contain a great deal of autobiographical content.
disenchanted is she by the idea
of living her life the way
she thought it had to be. (-finally, she gets it, p.71)
The poems are reflective, yet simultaneously illuminating, exploring themes including finding one's life purpose in spite of external pressures, body image (in particular the poet's relationship with food and eating), finding love outside the heteronormative mould and her ongoing grief at the loss of her mother, who died prematurely. There is less emphasis on misogyny and male-female relations than in previous collections, although these do occasionally feature, and are as insightful as Lovelace's readers have come to expect. Interspersed between poems written in Lovelace's signature style of free verse are paragraphs of prose, which generally exhibit a more advisory / instructional style.

A greater sense of contentment and self-fulfilment pervades Unlock Your Storybook Heart than some of Lovelace's previous published collections. The neuroses that resonate with so many of her readers are still present, but seem less raw than in several of her earlier publications. The poems that I found particularly appealing were "let me tell you a bittersweet story", "her books say" (p.70), "nothing is so definitive that you need to decide it's doomed" and "no simile can capture the pain". As a fellow cat lover, I also appreciated the two pieces relating to her pets.

Reading Unlock Your Storybook Heart also led me to the discovery of what a "moonbow" is.

I'd recommend Unlock Your Storybook Heart both to existing devotées of contemporary poetry and newcomers to the style. It's a though-provoking, entertaining and moving collection.

My thanks to the poet-author Amanda Lovelace, publisher Andrews McMeel Publishing and NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review this collection.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book/poetry collection (in this case) my thoughts are my own

This was underwhelming, nothing new from the author and while some of the poems are quite nice, a lot of them did not read/feel like poems.
It felt like the same things that had been said in some of her previous work was just said in a different way, I wish she had taken more risks with this new installment of the series. While I have not fully read all of them, just the first one and went through some of the poems in her other ones.

While I did really enjoy some of them, most of them felt like a "quotable advise" rather than a touching poem, it felt surface like which is not how I personally enjoy my poetry.

Overall, repetitive, if you've read the first volume do you really need to pick this one up ? honestly not really.

A couple hits and a LOT of miss in this one.
Disappointed,
Bookarina.

𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝑵𝒆𝒕𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑨𝒏𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒘𝒔 𝑴𝒄𝒎𝒆𝒆𝒍 𝑷𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒘 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒃𝒐𝒐𝒌 ✨

.

I'm honestly feeling that I'm gonna enjoy it and was really pleased to have enjoyed this collection far more than what I've expected.

Just like her otherr poetry collections, this book takes the inspiration of fairytale stories and through those stories, weaved an inspiring and motivational set of poetry and prose collection that were both heartwarming and empowering.

Like her previous books, it tackles body weight, pressure, love etc that can be only seen on her previous ones as well, although it's kind of repetetive in some instances, I still enjoyed the rest of it.

Overall, this was a very good read and can not wait to read more from Amanda Lovelace.

I am a huge fan of Amanda Lovelace’s work and was thrilled to be able to read this on NetGalley. Although I would say this is different from her other books, I still enjoyed the book. Her interpretation of fairy tales twisted into poems is always a fun read for me.

Like the Amanda Lovelace books I read before, I felt inspired by Unlock Your Storybook Heart. If you are a fan of poems and even if you aren't this is a good book.

I’m a huge fan of Amanda Lovelace’s poetry although, this collection wasn’t my favourite of the series, I still loved it. I found some poems were unexpectedly relatable, I felt so understood with just a few words. The collection made me laugh and at times hit me where it hurt. Like always, I love the minimalist approach she takes without compromising the beauty of her words.



Thank you Netgalley and Andrew McMeel Publishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received an eARC copy from Andrews McMeel Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

"she delays everything until
the very last possible minute -
even the things she likes to do.

she's afraid to even ask:

does that make her lazy?
does that make her irresponsible?

-procrastination.

*****

hey, you. yes, you. the very person reading this right now. you deserve a happiness brighter than every firefly in the entire world lit up at the exact same time.

-your forever reminder.

The final instalment in the You Are Your Own Fairy Tale feminist poetry series brings us a more levelled approach and more positive thoughts with profound meaning (and more words!). Its inspiration derives from Beauty and the Beast, coloured in self-love, acceptance, and striving for more; yet, I am not sure I followed through in understanding who the Beast is (I think it's the world and its fears of different and self-sufficient, but I might be wrong).

The lovely (self-)appreciation manifesto still sounds like a self-help/affirmation book I did not expect to read. In other words, it steps away from poetry and enters the love-yourself-first self-help motivation world that somehow does not match the supposed emotions these short poems and messages should shower us, the readers, with. And while I did enjoy the prose paragraphs and their powerful messages, I could not connect much with most of the poems, sounding pretty much like the one on the page before.

An extra point goes to the artwork in this poetry collection. It is beautiful, simple, exquisite, and works perfectly well with the overall atmosphere of the writing. A truly cosy feeling, to curl up in a nook and read some of my favourite books of all time. More emotions, growth and character development throughout the series would surely bring merits to the author and the readers.

ARC was given by NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

This review is being published on the release date (March 15th, 2022)

✨ Break Your Glass Slippers ★★★★
✨ Shine Your Icy Crown ★★★

Content/Trigger Warnings: Loss of a parent (in the past), grief, sexism, depression, talk of death, queerphobia, talk of fatphobia, talk of eating disorders, sexual harassment, self-harm, suicide, mentions of intrusive thoughts, mentions of toxic and abusive relationships

Wow. What can I say fellow readers other than wow. What a way for me to end this poetry collection. It’s been a while since a poetry collection left me completely… underwhelmed. Honestly, I’m a little salty I didn’t connect with any piece of this collection other than the two-three pages talking about cats. As always, I say literature comes into our life when we need it the most and maybe that’s why I’m so underwhelmed. Maybe this wasn’t my time of needing this collection because I already know all the things that this collection has to offer or perhaps, it was something else.

This collection is the third and final installment in the You Are Your Own Fairy Tale trilogy. Like the rest of the books in this series, this collection is broken into three parts and beautiful illustrations that divide the sections. Lovelace went above and beyond to make sure the readers of this collection has access to content/trigger warnings in advance so you know what to expect going into the collection. Lovelace does this with every collection which is a nice little touch to show the author cares about their reading audience and their mental health.

“Let no book collect dust. You never know which one will heal wounds you never knew you had.”

I would say that my favorite parts of this book had to be the illustrations. I always enjoy when authors add their own artwork into their books and Lovelace is no exception. If I remember correctly, each illustration is drawn by the author themselves and in a way, you can almost get a feel for the things this author enjoys, what they love to draw the most, and the full colored panels were a fantastic touch. There’s a lot of coziness to the full colored panels and there’s little details in them that make me wonder if the author actually has a little corner like that in their own home. The full illustrated panels are also a nice break from a lot of the themes in this collection. Those panels are there to say, “Hey, take a break. Take a moment to come down and breathe.”

I mentioned before that I really enjoyed the few pages we had about cats, but I also enjoyed the few passages we received about books. Now, I know the parts are titled in reference to books, but more so the pages that talk about books healing wounds or helping you to escape reality for a little while. As a consumer of books, and for you too book lovers, I think these sections will touch your soul and remind you how important books are. I think it was a great way for the author to nod at their readers and the book community.

“Some change happens gradually, some changes happens in the blink of an eye, & some change manages to do both at the same time.”

Despite the good things I found within this book, there was a lot of issues with this book that I just couldn’t look past. The biggest things for me that made it really hard to enjoy this book was the constant whiplash and jumping around. In past books, the author had some solid organization and structure to help with the flow of the book, but with this book in particular it felt like there was no consistent flow. You would constantly have these moments where it would be talking about good things and then it would thrown in a page or two that was talking about something negative like toxic relationships or self-harm. If anything, the one consistent thing this book does is give you the choppy flow of giving you large doses of feel good, uplifting passages and then smack you in the face with dark, negative passages. This made it really hard to focus on the content within the book and had a desire of wanting to skip pages build up inside of me. Also, just for reference, ever book up until this particular book had a good steady flow of working through the bad into the good. That’s the kind of writing style the author normal put into their books and we just don’t get that in this book. This would have probably stood stronger if the author had kept that structure to this book.

My other issue and struggle with this book was the repetitiveness throughout this books. I think I talked about this in my last review for this series, for the second book, as well. The things being written in this book literally feels like passages from previous books just being rewritten in a different manner. There were a lot of times where I was reading this book and I’d sit here, asking myself, “Have I read this before? This feels familiar.” Usually, I don’t mind a little repetitiveness, but consistent repetitiveness just doesn’t work for me.

The most minor issue I had was the fact that this collection felt like there were passages just thrown in there that had nothing to do with the overall theme of this book. Honestly, I was expecting this trilogy to consist of them not only coping with the loss of their mother, but also their relationship with their partner. And while we get bits and pieces of that, there were passages thrown in that had nothing to do with these themes. It’s not a huge issue, but this does circle back to how the pacing of this book felt so off and had that choppy flow to it, making it hard to focus to read this book.

“& if she had a choice, things would be different.”

Overall, this isn’t a bad read, but it definitely wasn’t for me. Again, maybe it wasn’t my time to have this piece of literature come into my life or maybe it’s something else. I think there are a lot of stand out passages that surround finding love, loving oneself, passages that deal in grief – many passages I think many readers may potentially connect with. However, the reading pace/flow of this book was really rough and choppy, and I think I would have enjoyed a little more structure when it came to the pacing. I still recommend this collection because I know that even though I haven’t connected with this book, I know someone out there will. So if you enjoy poetry, I still want to encourage you to pick it up.



The quotes above were taken from an ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

“Unlock Your Storybook Heart” is the third and final installment in the “You Are Your Own Fairy Tale” poetry series. It explores topics like perfectionism, healing, experiencing love, and self-love. As it is true for most poetry collections I connected with some poems more than with others, but overall it was a very enjoyable read. It went along with the style that I have enjoyed before in Lovelace’s past works, simple yet filled with emotions.

Thank you to @netgalley, @andrewsmcmeel and @ladybookmad for providing me with this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I received an eARC of this poetry collection through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This collection of poems is the third and final in the "women are some kind of magic" series. Lovelace continues to weave her life experiences and fairy tales together to create compelling and cohesive collections.
As I've stated in my previous reviews of her work, I love the style this poet writes in. Her poetry flows so smoothly and draws readers into its current while also tackling difficult topics with compassion and honesty. I'm always excited to find out what the divider art will be each time I open a new collection of her poems, and this collection's art of cozy bookcases and autumnal imagery radiates comfort and peace. I loved this collection and look forward to reading whatever she creates next!

I absolutely adored this poetry book. It is filled with so much raw emotion and powerful words. This felt almost like a self help book in places but I loved that, the poems made me feel so many emotions and left me wanting more.
Definitely recommend.

Thanks to Netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the ARC and audio ARC of this! I read them together so I could hear the author reading but also see the beautiful illustrations.

I am such a huge fan of this series, and this one did not let me down. It was beautiful, feminist, queer, and full of fairytale vibes. I really enjoyed especially the first part, with the “her books say” responses. It’s hard to say at this point that this one is my favorite so far, because they all have been! I’ll definitely be returning to some of the authors other works for a reread.

Another enjoyable poetry collection from Amanda Lovelace. I didn't love this one as I as loved previous ones but I did enjoy it. It felt a lot more impersonal than previous ones, even from this series. Well, impersonal to me specifically. I couldn't relate to most of the poems, where I've been able to a lot more in the previous ones. Some real gems though!

I really like this poetry collection; the storyline, content, themes and flow were very well done. The poems have a feminist and empowering focus to it, with LGBTQIA+ representation. Reading the poems felt like a home – it was loving, inspiring, comforting and supporting. It felt like the voice spoken through the poetry wanted to make me feel okay and seen, urging us on to achieve our own form of greatness and believing in you when you might not believe in yourself. The poems touched my heart, mind and soul, it was like a big hug and a call to stand up and be brave all in one. It filled me with a sort of motivational energy and the belief that I could do wonders if I put my mind to it. This poetry collection is pure, raw, beautiful and powerful.

3.5/5

Unlock Your Storybook Heart by Amanda Lovelace is the 3rd and final collection of poems in her You Are Your Own Fairytale trilogy. Covering many themes such as self-love, relationships, grieving, and many more, Lovelace does an excellent job in delivering powerful, short poems in her distinctly Lovelace way.

Definitely an improvement from the last collection of Lovelace that I’ve read. There’s better flow, more in-depth poems and more captivating art spread throughout.

The first third and last third of this collection were great for me. I related and contemplated a lot of the themes that were covered. It’s so nice to know that my experience in life is shared by others and that poets like Lovelace can deftly put these feelings into words.

The middle third wasn’t for me, but that’s cause I don’t really like relationship stuff - not to say that someone else wouldn’t like this part, it just wasn’t for me. I did feel like all the relationship poems were a little dragged out and kind of repetitive, which is why my rating isn’t too high, but again: liking poetry is subjective.

I definitely recommend giving this book a chance. It’s classic Amanda Lovelace and it does it’s duty making you think and feel, especially if you’re a girl like me who hasn’t quite decided yet how their fairytale is going to end.

This seems to have resonated strongly with other reviewers, so there's clearly an audience for this book. I found it generic and unengaging.

This is less a poetry collection, and more a self-help book. I think if these motivational quotes were embedded in an actual story, as opposed to just being page after page of paragraph-length aphorisms connected by conceit but not narrative, I'd have been more engaged by them. But there aren't any original or creative ideas in any of the aphorisms. I feel like I've read this entire book before on a series of embroidered pillows.

The art was also generic and didn't add anything to the experience.

I'll stock a copy or two and see if it hits for anyone else but I don't see myself recommending this to anyone looking for a poetry collection.