A beautiful little collection of poems that feel like a warm hug, definitely a sweet book to keep tucked away for when you need a pick me up.

Thank you to the author Sophie Diener, publishers St. Martin's Press and SMPGInfluencers, and as always NetGalley, for an early access widget for this beautiful poetry collection, SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, MAYBE.

From On the Urge to Isolate p54

"The sky
will roar and scream and cry
and I
will not call her dramatic...."

I truly love contemporary minimalist poetry, but I can be pretty picky about it. I feel like every poet starts off trying to emulate Rupi Kaur, whom I adore, but whose style and tone I consider inimitable. What I love about this new collection from TikTok sensation Sophie Diener is that if she took any lesson at all from Rupi, it was to be vulnerable and reveal her own voice.

I found the poems somewhat repetitive at times, but at others, they ache with beauty. Here is a favorite:

Easy to Love p50

"I’m bending and breaking.
I’m easy to love.
I can’t look in the mirror.
I’m just what he wants.
I’m passing all his tests.
I love getting good grades.
I’m jumping through dog hoops.
I’m digging a deep grave.
I shrink beneath sweaters.
I shed all my skin.
I sink to the floorboards.
I’m rearranged by him.
My heart gets discarded.
She tugs on my sleeve.
Her eyes are accusing.
She asks, What about me?"

A wonderful collection for fans of contemporary minimalism or readers new to poetry in any form. This accessible collection should appeal to a great range of poetry lovers.

Rating: ✨️✨️✨️✨️.25 / 5
Recommend? Yes!
Finished: June 16 2023
Format: Advance Digital, NetGalley, SMPGI

I was sooooo excited for this book and I am so sad that I did not like it. I gave loved some of Sophie's poems on instagram and other social media. Unfortunately this book just did not hit for me. I could not emotionally connect to this collection and I am so disappointed.

What a sucker punch of an emotional little book. This collection focuses on relationships, the rise and fall of love, and the aftermath that comes from putting yourself out there to be loved by others. There is a freshness from this collection where you can tell the author, Sophie has been collecting these over the years and working on exploring her feelings through this art form.

While there were a variety of topics that she explored I felt a strong connection to those that were about mental health and her struggles with panic attacks. The ones I loved most were:
1. Save me
2. I Hope Today is Kind to You
3. Seasons
4. Panic Attacks
5. You Are Safe

These were some of her most raw and emotionally charged poems in the collection, you can feel her pain and the growth that she was experiencing during this time of her life. I hope to keep these poems in my collection for years to come so I can come back to them time and time again and take from them when life gets hard.

Final Thoughts: I would recommend this collection to anyone who is wanting to experience a multitude of emotions in a tiny package. It was a wonderful read that kept me entertained!

TW: panic attacks, heartbreak

Disclaimer:
Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This book is perfect for fans of Taylor Swift, romcom films, and sad rainy days. Sophie Diener perfectly describes the hopelessness of heartbreak in a lyrical, melancholic way. All of the poems fit together so well and create an intimate roadmap of vulnerable feelings. The way that Diener describes abusive relationships and manipulative partners made me feel so seen and validated. This book hit straight to my core and tempered my heart.

Some lines that stayed with me long after reading:

- "I promise you it's okay. No one is mad at you."
- "And I keep reading your favorite book-the one I swore I would not like-and when I finally close its cover, it's all filled with underlines."
- "You are not behind...There's no line to cross by twenty-three or thirty..."
- "You meet me at bookstores. You make me black tea. I wear your best sweaters. Nobody wants flings in September, October, November."
- "It takes me one whole year and six months to realize that I am not the protagonist."
- "I'm passing all his tests. I love getting good grades."
- "There are ghosts that like to hang around the house."

Beautifully written…vivid imagery…raw & real

Young love, sadness, heartbreak, loss, loneliness, hope, peace, acceptance, self-growth

Having never been in a relationship, this book evoked sadness…my heart ached at a few scenes. Some of the poems, such as the ones that center around the feelings of anxiety, I was able to relate more to while others in the book, not as much.

Thank you to St Martin’s Press and Netgalley for giving me an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
I had not heard Sophie Diener before opening this book, but I am definitely a fan now!
The way she weaves poems about mental health, self-concept, heartbreak, loss, and grief is lyrical—beautiful. This is a quick read that resonates with you if you’ve ever felt alone, not enough, anxious, or getting out of a relationship.
Definitely a great read for poetry lovers!

This book of poems is very good, but probably not geared toward a middle-aged married woman. I feel the author’s angst and appreciate her words.

This was very real. This collection shows love, misery, self loathing, and self love throughout several years. Some of these poems were VERY relatable.

A humble collection of poetry everyone can recognize themselves in. The author shares her life's experiences of losing a first love, life separating you from a young adult love, how to go on with heartbreak, accept yourself for who you are, learn to be comfortable with yourself, and just take life as a fun experience you accept as a challenge and give your best. This is inspiring even though a little depressing. I saved a few poems to read to my daughters when it will be time to try to put words into feelings and help them go through tough times.

Thank you to the publisher and the author for this e-ARC in exchange of my honest opinion.

Wow, I was truly not expecting to be affected as much as I was while reading this collection of poetry. I felt like what I was going through was taken out of my soul and put onto paper so it could make more sense. I really resonated with the first half of the book and less so with the last half, however it was still a great complete read.

The collection transitions so well from love to heartbreak, then to self-discovery and self-love and acceptance. It was a very nice fluid story told through rhyme. It felt like I was hearing Taylor Swift read slam poetry (*snaps*).

Two of my favorite bit of the entire collection are below. I tear up even typing them.

Don't Be a Stranger:
You smile weakly and say to me, "don't be a stranger,"
and I nod my head knowing that's what I'll become.
Still, there will always be something between us-
a quiet recognition of what once was."

"Things do not have to last forever to have been meant to be."

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and the author for an opportunity to read and review this book before its publishing date. Opinions are my own.

thank you NetGalley for this arc.
this poetry book was nice,
it had good rhyming at times & it had good themes of love, loss, and growth. this book wasn’t bad, it was just average to me. Maybe if i had read it at a different point in my life i would’ve liked this book more? i just found it to be all over the place at times and i just couldn’t keep up with what the author was talking about with the constant topic switching. this book was unfortunately not for me, but if you enjoy simply written poetry with lots of mental health discussion, you might enjoy this.

This collection explores first love and how it ends. That it never leaves you no matter how you move one. Memories will always be there. Reminder to be kind to yourself in the end.
One thing I gotta say is that the running theme was the first love and how it ended how it hurts multiple times in different ways that made it seem repetitive but other than that I enjoyed the collection.
The writing was amazing and the common. Theme through out.
I breezed through this and enjoy what I read.

I love poetry like this - raw emotions and brutal honesty. A great addition to anyone's poetry shelves.

Thanks to Netgalley, St. Martin's, and the author for the eARC in exchange for my review.

I first heard about Sophie Diener after I received an email from NetGalley, where they offered the opportunity for me to read her poetry collection, "Someone Somewhere Maybe." While I don't read much poetry, I enjoyed reading her pieces, and found many of them relatable to experiences I've had in my life so far. I have a good feeling countless others will feel the same or similar once they read this!

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the opportunity to read this digital ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Five stars! Gosh, I love Sophie's writing - I found her ages ago on TikTok and have even gotten some of her work on Etsy and framed in my office just because I love it so much.

She writes with such ease and most of it hits so close to home. I really enjoyed how the poetry was compiled from the early stages to now and you can see the growth and natural maturing we experience as we go through life a little bit more.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read Sophie's poems. I will be pre-ordering Someone Somewhere Maybe, too, as I just need this on my bookshelf to grab every once in a while.

I think it’s hard to review poetry because of how intimate poetry is. Someone spilling their heart, emotions, experiences on paper to share with others in hope they might see them or connect.

Well Someone Somewhere Maybe really connected with me. I bawled my eyes out reading this book of poetry about falling in love, the heartbreak and growing. I felt so seen while reading this book and I just had to cry because it also made me realize some stuff about myself.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday for providing me with an arc. These views are my own.

When I read this was for fans of Rupi Kaur & Amanda Lovelace, I knew I wanted to read it. Thank you to St. Martin's Press & NetGalley for the e-ARC. Dieners' poetry is definitely reminiscent to their likes. The themes of love, heartbreak, growth, grief, acceptance and anxiety are in my opinion, written with a youthful approach however with a full grasp of all those emotions and feelings can encompass. The longer poems are also reminiscent of musical lyrics.

Just like with other poet's, you're reading the exposure of Dieners heart, feelings and soul. Some are extremely revealing and gut wrenching, others are a memory you could have shared or relate to through personal experience.

It is a very quick and easy read and I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a little mantra/affirmation style poetry read!

This collection of poems was very beautifully written and so relatable! The author states in the opening that they are based mostly in experiences from the age of 18 to 23, which is such an important and fast changing time in everyone’s life that even a couple of these poems would be relatable to most people - if not the book as a whole. This is definitely a poetry book that you can “sip” and pick up when you’re in the mood, or sit down and the read the book from cover to cover and return to without issue. I did find some of the poems did become a tad repetitive, with a focus on young love that falls apart - but of course that goes with the theme of the book.
My personal favourites were: A Poem for the People I Love, You Are Growing, and Reflections.
I definitely see myself gifting this book to friends down the road!

Thanks to NetGalley and St.Martin’s Press/Wednesday Books for the eARC in exchange for my thoughts. All thoughts are completely my own!

I suppose I should have known when I read “TikTok fan favorite” in the synopsis for this poetry collection that it might not be for me. Not that there’s anything wrong with TikTok, just that I might be too old to fully appreciate it. Not that there’s an age limit to such a thing, or that I’m that old (at least not on the outside). This one only gets 2 stars. It wasn’t bad, it just didn’t resonate with me. There weren’t lines that I just had to jot down to savor again later, which generally happens with poetry I love and know I will reread.

Diener writes about love and heartbreak as well as self worth, very relatable topics. Perhaps if I had read this a decade ago, in my twenties, I would have more stars to dole out. I do appreciate the openness and honesty throughout. Diener regularly mentions mental health and therapeutic ideas, which I agree should absolutely be talked about more. The issue for me was that usually these topics were just too plainly stated, I think? I can’t quite put my finger on how it didn’t work here but it can work for Rupi Kaur and Cleo Wade (poets to whom I have given 4-5 stars on multiple occasions and to whom this author was compared), but Diener’s attempt just didn’t work for me.

If these topics are of interest to you and you understand things I don’t about TikTok and/or poetry, you might like it. Either way, it’s a short poetry collection, so even if you don’t love it, there’s not much time lost if you give it a try!

Thank you to NetGalley for the e-arc. And thank you to Sophie Diener for being brave enough to bare your soul and then share it with dummies like me!