4.5 rounded up to 5!

This book is so raw, emotional and beautiful! Sophie Diener did an incredible job of writing a poetry collection that everything can feel something when they read it! If you're a fan of Amanda Lovelace this book is for you! It's so hard to emote how great this collection is, and you need to get a copy!!

Thank you St Martin's Press for the eARC!

This was truly so well written, as a woman in her 20’s this was very easy to connect too! From the raw beginning to the peaceful bright ending, it was a great reminder that through rough patches and failed loves; you need to be kind and find the love within yourself, I devoured this book! Some of my favourites were Panic Attacks, Run, The Waiting, Birthdays and Be Kind to Yourself. Will definitely be purchasing more from this author!

I don’t usually read poetry books, but I really enjoyed this one! The poems touch upon heart break and loss, and I think many people will find comfort in this book!

I thoroughly enjoyed this set of poems. While a lot of them were about bad relationships and trying to move on from them, a lot of it resonated with me and personal experiences I've had outside of relationships. I highly recommend reading these. Whether you're already healed, on the path to healing or just went through something. These poems made me feel like I wasn't alone

No offense but these felt like poems I would’ve written after a middle school break up. They seemed ridiculously cheesy or overly “emo” and there was wayyyy too much rhyming. For some reason I feel like rhyming doesn’t work for professional or publishing-level poetry. Thanks anyway for the ARC, but these did not work for me.

An interesting look at teen love and teen hardships made me realize how lucky I am to be on the other side of it. Although I could connect with some of the poems, the rhyming often became distracting to the overall message and theme of the poem, still rooting it in adolescence.

I enjoyed this collection of poetry. I felt a lot of the content was relatable as the author touched on young adulthood, love and growth. It was entertaining and lighthearted.

Poetry is so subjective that I don't often like to review it, but this sounded like something I would enjoy.

Unfortunately it was just not to my taste.

Look at me just randomly requesting a poetry collection on Negalley and only finding out after I've read it that the author is a "Tiktok fan favorite", whatever that means. I'm cool without meaning to be. (I'm just kidding. I've never been cool.)

Diener writes about first love, first heartbreak, and finding your identity as a young person out in the world. It's familiar territory, and Diener has some really good verses. I like her poems best when they're telling a story: of the first boy she loved, of his house, of falling in love again, of the little routines of love. I particularly enjoy "I Hope Today Is Kind to You" and "I Hope You're Happy". Still, it didn't stand out to me as a poetry collection. I liked but didn't love it. Recommended if you're looking for a new poet and some good verse. Just wasn't my favorite!

I went into Someone Somewhere Maybe with an open mind as I do not normally read poetry.

Overall I was not impressed I felt like the poems were repetitive however there were a handful from the collection I would recommend:
Don’t Be A Stranger, The Last Thing You Have Left to Let Go, The Next 5 Minutes, The Small Steps, You are Growing, and Be Kind to Yourself.

Despite not enjoying most of this collection I am sure others out there will appreciate it. It is just not a book I would personally recommend.

These collections of poetry are like any other poetry books I’ve read. Pretty good read. Reminds me of lyrics from a song or so many stories.

Thank you to the publishers at St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in order for a review.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 out of 5 stars.

Poetry was once a huge part of my life. I wrote nearly every day, I was on AllPoetry everyday reading, writing, commenting, and making friends, some of whom I have stayed in contact with for nearly two decades.

It was a slow fade, but I eventually fell away from that community, and I rarely read and ever less often write poetry anymore.

This book, though, these verses... They made me feel things reading verse that I have not felt in a long time.

The poems about heartbreak had me grieving the loss with the author. but it was Eighteen, Feelings, Have Hope, and the other poems it felt like the author was writing to herself that choked me up and had me nearly crying because they were verses to oneself as a reminder to be kind to yourself. Not to judge yourself too harshly, not to get caught in the belief that this moment is all there is, will affect every aspect of your life because things change and things get better and understanding of certain events come with time.

A wonderful collection of poems.

These poems read a lot like song lyrics, which she does say in the intro she writes song lyrics too.
I did feel the heartbreak through these poems and it took me back to my younger teenage years.
I think this is a good collection for college age to be reading.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.

I requested this book knowing very little about Sophie Diener, but I've since discovered that she rose to fame through TikTok prior to publishing her poems in this collection. I wish I had known that prior to reading this book (my own fault), because I think I would have gone into it with the knowledge that I was reading work by someone very young whose primary demographic audience is from social media, and that would likely have shifted my expectations for what I was reading.

What I liked about this book:
- As someone who teaches middle school students (many of whom claim to "hate" poetry), I think it's always great to have more examples of accessible, relatable poetry to inspire young students to write, write, write.
- These poems read like song lyrics, in the vein of Olivia Rodrigo or Taylor Swift. There are a lot of slant rhymes, and phrases that could lend themselves to interesting syncopation if put to music.
- Many of Diener's themes would have been tremendously relatable to my 17-year-old self (+/- a few years). She writes a lot about first loves, heartbreak, the "boy next door", mental health, and self worth.

I do think that at this stage in my life, I perhaps found these poems to be much less relatable, and they felt very young to me. But I applaud what she is doing here, and I hope it inspires more young readers to go out there and read and write more poetry.

I like when Sophie Diener pops up on my FYP but I’m very likely not her target demo. I felt a little too old and a little too married for many of these poems, but they did remind me of my hormonal teenage years. These poems are very surface level, and they’re not bad by any means, just best suited for a younger audience who maybe doesn’t want a ton of nuance to their poetry.

Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC!

4 stars

There were a lot of interesting ideas and images displayed, I wished the author went in a little bit further. The first half of the section really sparked my interest, because with the images of everything the author went through. My favorites were "Haunted House" and "Halloween" (even though with that one, I felt like it could have went further a little bit more, so it'd feel complete).

The second half, I wasn't as pleased with (mainly with could have been explored more), but the overall message of every poem was beautiful. You get to see the heartbreaks and seeing that journey turn into realizations was nice, the pace of it was great.

I wouldn't mind reading more of Diener's work in the future, but for this being a debut collection, I did enjoy it!

4/5

Solid first book of poetry released by Sophie Diener. Full of poems of love, heartbreak, self-love, mental health, this poetry is the perfect companion to a rainy day or a moment when you don’t want to feel quite so alone in the world.

I do have to say that I’m not the biggest fan of heartbreak/love poems, but that’s only because I can’t relate to them. I feel like Diener’s love forward poems were really personal and I’m glad she got to add them to her book, but they just weren’t doing it for me personally.

The second half with the self-love and reflection though? Looooooved. I did actually cry to one particular poem. Diener’s writing is very earnest and straightforward and uplifting. Her latter poems made me feel at home and content.

I would definitely pick up another collection of Sophie Diener’s poems which I hope she gets to release one day.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this ARC. I've always been a fan of poetry (both reading it and writing it) and I especially like poets who can write things that appeal to a wide audience. Poets who can tap into the thoughts and feelings and impressions that we've all had in our lives at one point or another. As we grow and give love and receive love, as we discover ourselves and our own limits, as we fall in love and out of love or get our hearts broken and find ways to move on etc. This book of poetry has a universal appeal because it can tap into all of those things that each one of us has felt, but maybe just didn't know how to explain or put into words ourselves. There is a good use of vivid imagery throughout and the free verse style of her poems is the style that has always been my favourite. The poems sometimes come off as streams of consciousness that are full of metaphor and hidden meaning, but at the same time are very clear in communicating the overall feel/message. The reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that there were times where the theme was overused. But, that being said, the poet put together a collection and was likely going for that theme. Great poetic style overall.

Thank you NetGalley for this collection of poems! I enjoyed reading her style very much. It’s hard to tell if the formatting is intentionally however in certain poems I loved the flow and disruption. She had some amazing messages that were a great reminder to love ourselves as who we are. She’s honest about the thoughts we have inside when suffering heartbreak and the other person moves on. I enjoyed how she was bold is putting to paper what most of us never say out loud.

A very simple and straightforward poetry collection that was just really not up my alley... The poetry I find myself drawn to the most has evocative, strange language and playful turns of phrase that can catch me by surprise and make my perception of the world around me, even for just a moment, shift. Sophie Diener's poetry is serviceable, and her aim seems admirable, but there was not a poem in this collection that left me surprised for even a moment, or particularly compelled at all. These poems felt very explicitly aimed at a younger audience perhaps just dipping their toe into prose, as well as having a slant toward self-help/positive thinking mantras. I genuinely am happy to hear of anyone drawn to poetry for any reason whatsoever, but still felt a bit patronized by the extremely banal tone and trite life advice filling the pages of this collection. This will definitely work for some people, and in its defense, the marketing seems to recognize this in proclaiming Diener an apparent TikTok sensation - I unfortunately skipped reading that descriptor and so was expecting something a bit more incisive, and less moralizing/cliche.