thank you so much for granting my request!!

It was so hard to get into the book at first. Yet, by the time, my whole mind was into it, It was really hard to put this one down.

This was a pleasant surprise of a collection. Short but sweet, the collection takes you along the themes of identity, family, and womanhood as well mask their intersections. Lyrical and intuitive, this collections holds you captive with each piece being a standalone in its own right. Some poems, I would not say I like das much as others but holistically it is a good collection. Thank you NetGalley and Button Poetry for the eArc. Now, I just need to go order this in hard copy so I can read it again.

Thank you so much Netgalley and the author for the e-copy in exchange of honest opinion!

What a mesmerizing cover! Honestly speaking, there are parts that I didn't understand but as a whole, the book is a brilliant masterpiece. I could relate to the struggles of being born to immigrant parents, the feeling of not belonging, having a difficult father and so on. The poems are very deep and capture Topaz's emotions, experiences extremely well! Highly recommended.

I flew through this book! And adored almost all of it! The writing style and importance of this work is beautiful and I found myself having to reread some of the poems several times because they felt as if they just hit in the best way. But there were a few things I had issues with, the first one being how short the collection was. There were moments where I felt like more ideas could have been spoken of along with how a few of the poems were formatted in a. way that I personally thought didn't make sense.

But overall this was a great collection of pieces that makes you really think which I enjoyed!

“Parlour trick: watch me disappear &
reappear as hunger. Or better,
watch me never reappear again.
They teach us the gods prize girls
who take up the least amount of space
but still I can't help wanting to be found.”

Poetry like this collection makes me glad that poetry is still around, for people like me to be captured in.

I devoured this, line after line. I’m not familiar with any of Topaz Winters’ work before this, but this made me regret it. How could I not know of any previous works?

I have read a fair amount of poetry, it’s one genre I consistently gravitate towards and Topaz makes me glad I do,

"I see the hurt in his eyes when
I flinch as he tries to hug me &
I want to say is it's not your fault but
all that comes out is I swear
there was a time when I didn't starve in
this language."

A wonderful poetry collection by Topaz Winters and my first encounter with the poet. These poems touch on memory, family, immigration, and art. The ones about the father-daughter relationship and the immigrant experience/mother tongue were some of my favorite!

What a beautiful, poignant series of pictures, glimpses into a life juggling the imbalance of conflicting identities.
Many passages are so well crafted I had to take a moment to think or read them a few times to really absorb their full meaning.
With poetry, it can be a hit or miss situations. Sometimes, the verses don't get to you at all, don't let any emotions surface. But this poetry collection by Topaz Winters isn't one of those.
What Winters creates here are some of the purest and raw lines I have read in a long time. It's full of emotion, both good and bad, of the relationship between family and 'the daughter', of history and prejudice.
The poems are all individual, the setup different each time and yet quite fitting, no matter if you get a huge, ongoing text or a poem with deliberate spaces in between. This controls the flow of reading, sometimes even changes the whole meaning by just adding additional space.

beautifully written with a lot of depth to each poem. i really enjoyed the themes of queerness, immigration and difficult family relationships presented in this book. it's bittersweet, moving and emotional. loved reading this!

A heartfelt poetry collection about self-discovery, identity, love, family, heritage and the immigration experience. I didn't connect with all of the poems, but my favourites are the ones in which the author contemplates her complicated relationship with her father and her experiences as an Indian woman in America. I also really enjoyed 'Poem in Which I Am Too Uncomfortable to Talk About Race, So I Talk About Baseball Instead' and 'Lover Of Light'.

This collection is beautiful. Winters is raw and perceptive. I felt like I was witnessing her process in real time--moving from reaction to reflection to synthesis by their side. The medley of prose and poeticism made for a powerful walk through these pieces.

An absolutely wonderful poetry anthology. Even the title of the collection is lyrically beautiful; if only I had a hardcopy so I could see it on my shelf!

So touching. This was such an empowering collection of poems. So honest and deeply personal. It's not the best poetry book I've ever read, but I think people all around the world can relate to it.

"I went to the laundromat to pick up my spine but it wasn't ready yet, so I sat on the washing machine & waited, dwarfed by my own shadow." (OCD Litany)

I knew from the moment I saw 'Oh, Stranger' that I would love this collection. Call it intuition, but something about the cover and the description spoke to me, and as a fan of poetry, I wanted to give it a chance to blossom. In part an exploration of identity, familial relationships and history, and a quiet discussion about what it feels like to be loved - Winters nails so many different aspects of giving and taking and feeling guilty about it all.

So many poems spoke to me in this collection, but two of my favorites were 'OCD Litany' and 'Ars Poetica VI.' The freeform nature of each poem was perfectly crafted, allowing the words room to breathe and move as they were being read. I loved how the collection was split up, with many of the poems building on the prior sections and calling back to them. Sometimes the poems were about the image evoked, sometimes they were about the things left unsaid - but every one left an impact.

This is absolutely masterfully crafted poetry collection. I could read a thousand more poems by Topaz Winters and never tire of the language and imagery used. I cannot wait to go back and experience their first two collections, and add this one to my physical shelves!

"It's poetry. Who cares if it makes sense." (Ars Poetica VI: I Have Better Things to Say Than This)

A variation of this review will be posted on my social media during the week of May 16. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Button Poetry for providing me with a copy to review!

So, Stranger is the third collection of poems by Topaz Williams and my first foray into her work, so wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, which in some ways creates a fresh perspective to new eyes.

So, Stranger deals with so many issues, from immigration, racism, sexism, family, bonding, loss, loneliness that one of its main achievements is doing so with such a precise clarity that it doesn’t overwhelm the pages. Yes, there is definitely anger within the words, but they are a justified anger, this is a woman observing the braggadio of a president supporting sexual violence towards women, and even as I man I completely appreciate and understand, albeit from my own perspective, feeling sickened seeing that person on television boasting and undermining what so many had fought for decades past.

From the start I did feel there was a sense of loneliness, maybe feeling out of place in modern America maybe, or maybe frustration that some people don’t understand that just because someone may look different it really means nothing. From the start I did gain a new perspective on immigration today which is a topic all countries have to deal with; however, this is the first time, I think, I’ve ever truly thought about such things from the perspective of the other person, and what do people really think of us? I dare say I’d rather not imagine as I doubt it would be too complimentary. In these respects, So, Stranger is a book everyone really should read to gain not only a new perspective but also an understanding that just because someone looks different, we should never judge.

Looking back on her own childhood, Williams takes us through the monsoons of India to her family arriving in America and their own life there, the trials of being a teenager and the ongoing rebellion against a parent, which many of us can appreciate and in doing so So, Stranger starts to feel less like a book from the outside to feel like a personal friend.

i need to reread this, to be honest

this is my favorite type of poetry - the perfect mix of metaphor and imagery, but it's very grounded in what that imagery portrays. i definitely see the richard siken and jenny holzer influence.

thank you to the publisher and netgalley for providing my review copy

The poems in this book were okay. I guess for poem lovers this is an amazing book. The poems were well written and everything but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I tried to get into them and like them but I just couldn’t.

I am definetly not a poem kind of person . I tried to go thru and read to the end but I just couldn't.

"So, stranger, what invented you as emptiness?"

With poetry, it can be a hit or miss situations. Sometimes, the verses don't get to you at all, don't let any emotions surface. But this poetry collection by Topaz Winters isn't one of those.

What Winters creates here are some of the purest and raw lines I have read in a long time. It's full of emotion, both good and bad, of the relationship between family and 'the daughter', of history and prejudice.

The poems are all individual, the setup different each time and yet quite fitting, no matter if you get a huge, ongoing text or a poem with deliberate spaces in between. This controls the flow of reading, sometimes even changes the whole meaning by just adding additional space.

All in all, this is a wonderful poetry collection and I am grateful that I was allowed to read this one.

I'm always conflicted when it comes to rating poetry. This was well-written and there were lines that gave me chills or resonated with me. I just wasn't able to form a connection to the works in general, but I appreciate the emotions these contain and the care with which they were written.

So, Stranger is a collection of poetry written by Topaz Winters. It is a truly beautiful collection of words that convey such strong emotions of what immigration can feel like. I was drawn in from the first few lines and was in aww of the beauty and pain woven together in a story unlike any other. A must add to your collection.