What the Moon Gave Her by Christi Steyn is a beautiful book of poems inspired by the nature around us. I loved the poems about love and life. They were crafted in such a way that you could feel the authors emotions ebb and flow like the tide.

Thank you NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for giving me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have some mixed feelings about this collection, but I'm ultimately looking forward to re-reading it. I'll start with some of my favorite things about this. I like how thematic elements like mermaids, flowers, and the color purple are recurring throughout the collection. It helps create a sense of cohesiveness and intentionality. Also, some of the poems that contain more rhyming are beautiful and singsongy when read out loud. Plus, LOOK at how beautiful the cover art is!

For me, some of these poems feel like they could have been ripped from my own personal diary, and at times I caught myself nodding my head, giggling, or relating to many of the pieces. But some of the poems either didn't make sense to me or felt a little underdeveloped. Maybe those particular poems just weren't for me. At the end of the day, art is always subjective!

I'm glad to have read this and I do plan to re-read it in the future.

This is a beautifully nature themed poetry book about life, Perfect for anyone who wants to have a calm moment and feel connected with nature.

An thick, earnest, emotive collection of poems. I found myself empathizing with Steyn, but craving a more symbolic writing style. Many pieces verged on cliché, with neatly rhymed lines and endings seeming to wrap the stanzas in a final bow. I think this might be wonderful for a YA audience, considering its emotional and metaphorical accessibility.

I have not been much into poetry lately but this book gave me the feels. There are so many poems in the book that I can relate to and make me take a closer look at myself and to know that I am ok. Please read. This is going to be a book that I will purchase and pass on because of the relatability and the feels.

DNF'ed this book at 50%

It's a hard no from me. Some of the poems were nonsensical, a jumble of words without any meaning.
I don't know how old is the author, but the poems were very juvenile, something you could write in 5 minutes and give to your teacher.
I just couldn't force myself to read it to the end. Half of this book was more than enough for me.

Usually I have a hard time interpreting a poem, let alone getting into every stanza, but the poems in this book may seem ordinary but the words are easy to enjoy and make my mind sink in every play of words. and most importantly, the poems in this book are so closely related to what I'm experiencing right now that they give me a kind of strength.
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This book is divided into 6 chapters, where each chapter has a varied interpretation. Casual poems but they seem have a lot of meanings and advices within about self renewal, loneliness, confidence, love and hopes. Some of the poems would be better to get manifested to reach a good quality of live.
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Don't missed up these poems due to many new-essential points dealing with life will be found in each line of its words. top recommendation for who loves casual poems to read.

Thank you NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the chance to read and review this ARC.

I gave up on What the Moon Gave Her around 60 pages in. While the book started promisingly, the chapter titles looked very interesting, however as a whole I feel like the poems sounds a little immature.

To give Christi Steyn credit I will say that I did like the poem 'searching for keys.' I also feel like fans of hers who follow her on TikTok may appreciate this collection more as they'd want a physical copy of poems that resonated with them.

This was a good and creative read. It was nice to read some modern poetry that actually rhymed. Some parts were repetitive, even if different words were used, the meaning remained the same. Overall, the message was clear and to the point, and it's a good palate cleanser read between heavy genre reads.

Love the art it was absolutely beautiful. Some poems i loved and some i felt lacked understanding, but overall was a great poetry read!

This was a decent poetry collection, although I found many of the rhymes to be rather cliché.

My favourite poems in this collection are:
- and i will walk away stronger
- slim thick
- apologise
- how can you love what you don't understand?
- i want her back
- light can be deceiving
- there will be no begging tonight
- thumb tales
- i prefer to be the odd girl
- dance
- all hail the wild women
- i will have time for you

It's difficult to review poems as personal as these. I loved them. Some truly resonated with me while others made me feel like I was seeing something I wasn't meant to inside someone else's heart.
I would buy this collection to have on hand for the poems that really spoke to me and gave me a boost of self confidence and self love.

I'm sorry... this is just baaaad. The poems are giving me angsty grade 7 assignment vibes a.k.a. make as many rhymes as you can regardless if they make sense or not. This is going to be a DNF from me.

What the Moon Gave Her is a collection of poems written by Christi Steyn. The book is divided into 6 chapters, each having a recurring and specific theme, which I find very interesting.

The consistency of the themes and metaphors was very intriguing, it felt like the book was organized, and everything was thought through.

The poems, however, didn’t stick with me. There are a couple of them that I really liked, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of the rest. Some felt shallow and superficial, others reminded me of some other poems I’ve found on Tumblr and Pinterest, or some of them started nice and smooth, with some impressive verses, and just ended fast or just not the way I wanted/expected.

Although this book wasn't my cup of tea, I think this book is a great fit for people that didn't give a chance to poetry until now.

I don’t know what to think. I guess these poems just didn’t amaze me, didn’t feel right. The illustrations were really nice though, I loved them.

The way the author approached the topics included in here, especially rebirth, was very interesting. It has a very calm watery and moon vibes that can be felt while reading, hence, adding to my enjoyment of this book.

A touch of life in general elaborated in each chapter of the book. Though its segmented in different parts I still enjoyed the simplicity of the book.


Thank you Netgalley and Andrews Mcmeel Publishing for the ARC.


3.4/5 stars

What The Moon Gave Her is a collections of poems with a deep connection to the earth, the universe and nature.

The poems were good and I enjoyed the theme throughout, linking natures with self-love was my favourite focal point through the poems. The poems were all nice, however none of them stuck with me longer than reading them. I am interested to see how Christi Steyn develops as a poet as I think she has a lot of potential.

Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to review this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

What the Moon Gave Her by Christi Steyn is a nice debut poetry collection. The book is divided into six chapters, which each have their own theme. I really enjoyed that about the book. Also the use of words correlating with the theme was great! The only downside was, that I expected some of the poems to be about the moon due to the intriguing title of the book. I was a little disappointed on that front. I also didn't resonate with a lot of the poems unfortunately. While some were really great, there was a lack of emotion in most of the poems.
Overall I did enjoy the book though and I am glad that I got to read it!

A really interesting and interpretive read that changes every time you read. The words and poems speak to your emotions; where you are at the time of reading. I found some of the poems inviting and liberating and others I didn’t understand. However, I think this is the beauty of poetry; that some poetry speaks to you on a deeper level and some you’re just not ready to understand yet.