Absolutely gorgeous collection of poetry. I love Hala Alyan's work and this did not disappoint either. Please read this!

The Moon That Turns You Back
Genre: poetry
Rating: 4⭐️

I was provided with a review copy for the publisher for the purpose of a review of my own opinions. Full review to come on bookstagram closer to publication.

This author blew me away with The Arsonists City, and I devoured this poetry collection in a day. In fairness, I’m a novice poetry reader, but always like to read poems to expand my reading palette. In this collection, some poems hit hard, and others went over my head - all were beautifully written. In my advanced ebook, there were some formatting issues, that negatively impacted my reading experience slightly, but still a heartfelt collection solidifying the author as an auto-read. Truly a writer that puts so much emotion and heartache into her words, which makes such a memorable experience for the reader.

"Was the grief worth the poem? No, but you don't interrogate a weed for what it does with the wreckage. For what its done to get here."

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Ecco for this ARC! This was a beautiful collection of poems, Alyan excels at hitting me where I didn't know it would hurt. Off the bat there were a few poems I couldn't make sense of, but over the course of the day they hung over my head until I finally went back to read them over and over (and over) until I finished the rest of the poems.

There is one specific poem that I couldn't (and still can't) stop thinking about. The Uterus Speaks was profound way of approaching an experience with child loss / infertility. I think that people will broadly allude the the "shame" that women feel with infertility but its always this mystified, non-specific sadness. Writing a poem that voices the ugliest parts loss from the voice of a derisive uterus was brutal and honest. It oddly reminded me of one chapter in Alone with You In The Ether, where Blake narrated the FMCs entire day of intrusive thoughts through the lens of her mothers criticisms of her. Something about taking the ugliest ways that we talk to ourselves and personifying them is wildly powerful to me. I am not sure how common this is cause I obviously don't read much poetry, but this one sat with me.

Hala Alyan has had a very special place in my heart since I read Salt Houses and the Arsonist's City a few years ago (I even quoted her on the acknowledgements page of my undergraduate thesis.) She characterizes Arab diaspora, specifically that of Arab women, in such a raw and unexpected way. These poems were no exception. Once again, the brutal and beautiful truths of family across generations are laid bare and I am forced to reflect. There is a visceral honesty to her writing that is impossible to look past.

i’m not usually a poetry reader but i love Hala Alyan’s two novels so I wanted to give her poetry a read. her poetry really drew me in, although i struggled to understand parts (i am not a regular poetry reader). i didn’t want to put this collection down.

i really enjoyed the interactive fiction, i’ve never read anything like it and i don’t know if i read it right but it had me enraptured.

my favorite poem was “when they say pledge allegiance, i say.”

in the future i would like to spend more time with this work when i can sit down and analyze and understand. unfortunately i didn’t have time for that right now in my life but i thoroughly enjoyed Alyan’s poems.

thanks to netgalley and Hala Alyan for the ARC!

Hala Alyan is a powerful poet. The first poem was challenging for me to read - and I also loved its formal innovation. Time travelers also grabs me. There's so much beauty and devastation within these poems. A work of witness, a work of exile.

There were a few poems in this collection that really stuck out to me! I am not a big poetry reader but I appreciate the emotion put into this collection. It was heartbreaking to read at points.

“A good house can carry anguish, and this is how I think of bodies now, too.”

Displacement causes immense confusion: whether that’s displacement from your home, your spouse, your family, or your gender. The Moon that Turns You Back captures this idea perfectly through one of the most impactful poetry collections I have ever read.

The collection perfectly dissects grief, the realities of womanhood, marriage, and so much more in less than 120 pages. Each poem changes format and form as Hala Alyan puts her incredible creativity on display. I was never bored and I never wanted to put the book down. My favorite changes of form were the poems that became a “choose your own adventure” of sorts in which Alyan allows her reader to participate and decide what the next word will be. These poems, in particular, captured the idea of how displacement causes these shifting memories and narratives throughout one’s life.


If you are looking for a book that captures the emotions of being Palestinian during this moment in time, this is the book for you.

If you are looking for a book that captures the shifting emotions of marriage, this is the book for you.

If you are looking for a poetry collection that reinvents what poetry can be, this book is for you!


This collection comes out on March 12th, 2024 and I highly recommend pre-ordering it soon because it is not a book you’ll want to miss!

Thank you so much to Hala Alyan and Netgalley for giving me access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

THE BIG OUCH. I am so thankful to Ecco, Hala Alyan, and Netgalley for granting me early digital access to this profoundly deep collection of poetry that left me silent for hours. If you're looking for a way to support Palestinian voices and stories, picking up this collection is a good starting point. I wept for countless pages, reading the hardships and daily lives of what's known to be the "norm" for Palestinians living in Gaza since the mid-40s in their naturalized, stolen land. I'm working on better educating myself on this issue, and I couldn't get enough of this short-from prose depicting the ups and downs of life in the Middle East.

The Moon That Turns You Back hits shelves on March 12, 2024.

this is a poetry book, and definitely one of the nicer ones.

it talks a lot of womenhood, miscarriage, marriage, and life as a whole.

the structure of the poems was extremely varied, and there were lots of different formats thrown together, which helped keep me engaged. there was also lots of figurative language, which i appreciated and helped make the poems sound rich overall.

the pace and writing style was definitely something i enjoyed. the tone is as if you're catching up with your older sister over a glass of beer. there is room for shame, and anger, but also joy and pleasure.

while reading this book, i felt really connected to my femininity and i felt like a read a lot of interesting thoughts on topics i hadn't really heard anyone else talk about. growing up with a complicated relationship with my mother, this book really helped me ask and answer questions relating to my womanhood and the more feminine side of me,

i would really recommend this book to women and older girls especially, because it brings up a lot of great points. just be warned, there are some serious topics in here such ad mental health and depression.

there were definitely some formatting issues that made this book hard to enjoy, but i'm willing to blame that on my computer.

Hala Alyan's newest collection will surely be in my top books of 2024. It was that good! I'm a huge fan of Hala Alyan's poetry and this collection really knocked me out.

The formatting here is wild. The poems are mixed together and columns are laid over others so it’s a guess as to what goes with what poem.

The Moon That Turns You Back: Poems by Hala Alyan ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Releasing March 12, 2024

Alyan’s writing style is forever gorgeous and captivating, and this collection—exploring displacement, family, and identity—is no different.

As with any poetry collection (at least for me), some pieces stood out over the others. Some of my favorites:
Remains
September, a week in
The interviewer wants to know about fashion
Half-Life in Exile
When they Say Pledge Allegiance, I Say
The Uterus Speaks

Thank you to Hala Alyan, Ecco, and Netgalley for this ARC. Opinions are mine.

The Moon That Turns You Back is a beautiful collection of poems about displacement, identity, and resilience. Learning about the displacement and war on the Palestinian civilians, and how it can effect them showed me insight on what generations of Palestinians have been going through for almost 100 years. There were many different formats of poetry that I had never seen which was also nice to learn about. Overall, I loved the story and format of this collection and I hope to read more from this author.

A gorgeous poetry collection about diaspora and the conflicts in the Middle East. Alyan breathes life into the memories of her lost loved ones and weaves pictures of her travels and homes.

I found the grid poetry to be playful and well executed and her form is seamless. This is a book you'll want to read more than once.

My favorite poems are: "Time Travelers", "September, a week in", "Sleep Study No. 3", and "Object Permanence."

This was such a wonderful collection of poetry. This collection of poetry was very easy to read, and I would recommend it to folks who might not typically choose to read poetry. I have read Alyan's previous book, so I was looking forward to seeing how her poetry prose was, and I didn't disappoint.

Of course, some poems were of heavier content, but I would urge others to take a chance on this. There are some wonderfully formatted poems, and it was wonderful to see Alyan shine through her poems.

Wow, what a powerful, haunting little book.
Thank you, NetGalley for this early copy of Hala Alyan's The Moon That Turns You Back.
This book is a glimpse inside the life and mind of an Arabic woman living in America. She is haunted by the realities of war that afflict Palestine, where her family is from. What a timely, nightmarish portrayal - making for such an astounding read.
I have 2 novels of Hala Alyan's sitting unread on my shelf and will now prioritize them, as this author has shown me what a profound impact her words share.

Thank you Ecco & NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!

Available March 12th 2024.

There's something familial about Hala Alyan's work that grips the soul and slowly turns it until you can't help but view the world in a different way. I love the poems in this collection, the way Alyan plays with form, expanding and questioning the very fabric of poetry itself. At the same time, her stories center around traditional themes - motherhood, immigration, and relationships. I devoured these poems, each unlike the other yet together a symphony, like a box of sticky baklava, licking remnants off my fingertips and a delicious echo in my ears.

What a beautiful and heartbreaking collection of poems. There were some that quite literally took my breathe away.

It took me a while to get into the flow of this one, and I’ll confess, there were definitely a few poems in the beginning where I just had no idea what Alyan was talking about. But as you get into the groove it becomes a beautiful and heartbreaking collection of displacement, war, diaspora, loss, blurred borders and identities, family, and resilience. The format of “interactive fiction” poetry was really creative and interested—though I will say, Kindle was not the best format to read it in! Overall, this was a beautiful and very moving collection that made me eager to read more of Alyan’s work.

My favorites were:
- They Both Die on Mondays in April
- [Political] Dialogue
- Half-Life in Exile
- Sleep Study No. 3
- When they Say Pledge Allegiance, I Say
- Miscarriage
- Bore
- Interactive Fiction :: Werewolf
- Naturalized
- Fixation

Thank you so much to Ecco for the advance digital copy in exchange for an honest review! I’m looking forward to seeing what this one looks like in print :)

While reading Hala Alyan’s "The Moon That Turns You Back," I was reminded of Ilya Kaminsky’s "Deaf Republic" and the way it weaves different voices and fragments into a sort of narrative collage.

This is a collection that is so timely it might be a bit difficult for some readers to stomach, but I think that’s a testament to Alyan’s creative capabilities. There are so many lines throughout the book that will stop readers in their tracks, and I think one of the best things a poem can do is create that kind of friction. Early in the book, in “The speaker wants to know about fashion," we read,

"Please. I’d rather be alive than holy."

It’s the kind of sentiment and directness seen in each of the book’s highs, and it showcases how Alyan’s greatest strength is transparency—some of these poems about family and displacement demand that readers stop and sit with them. I also think it shows a self-assuredness by inviting risk—such direct poems can be boring, but these never are.

Because this is a book that deals so much with violence and displacement, it’s to be expected—and perhaps necessary—that it occasionally zooms out in its political scope. These poems, while infrequent, are less immediately memorable because they lose the specificity that makes the rest of the book so strong. I expect these pieces may grow on me with time, though. Likewise, there are a few poems (such as “Dog Person”) that don’t feel quite at home here, even though they are good—it simply feels like they are pieces that the rest of the collection outgrew as it became more focused. I understand the polyvocality at play here, but a few pieces still felt like outliers.

All in all, I think there’s a lot to admire here, and it’s a book I would love to hand to someone who doesn’t “get” poetry. It’s generous towards its readers in a way that is rare.