Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader copy of Between These Bones by Freya Sharp in exchange for an honest review. This beautiful book of poetry was a raw, honest look at love and abuse. It was hard to read as it was easy to relate, but written so full of emotions that it was impressive. I recommend this book of poetry.

This was a quick and pretty read. Some of it read like the instagram posts I scroll through with my morning coffee while others left me wanting to crawl inside the poets mind.

This poetry collection is about toxic relationships, but also finding the beauty in life.
While I did not like all of the poems, many of them were absolutely beautiful and some deeply resonated with me.
What this book could use though are trigger warnings, especially considering the topics covered.
So, here are some that I noticed, including one that triggered me personally and caused a panic attack as I was not prepared for it at all: rape, anxiety, depression, toxic relationships, abusive relationships, abuse.

I want to thank Netgalley and Harbor Lane Books for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I wish I could say I loved this collection. There were certainly more than a couple of poems I did love. Unfortunately, this collection had more than 80 poems and I did not enjoy the vast majority of them. I think we started with a bad start as the first poem seems to attack the reader by intimating that since the poet didn't get trigger warnings for her life the reader also doesn't get that luxury. Granted, I would say only one or two of the poems are anything that would need warnings, but I still found the sentiment poem insulting. The few poems I loved were really introspective and well-paced. But, the vast majority of the poems are banal and repetitive (I know they were not actually written to be part of a collection so the repetitive nature might be excused.) I think the idea of this collection is a good one but the execution of the theme is seriously lacking for me.

"Between These Bones" is a raw, vulnerable, and intimate collection of poems that follows Freya's journey through personal trauma, toxic relationships, heartache, surviving abuse, forgiveness, acceptance, and ultimately finding love again.

The first poem reads:
"all the things that happened to me
came without warning
so why do i need to warn you of the things
you're about to read?
- life doesn't come with trigger warnings"

Certain parts of the book evoke strong emotions and can be upsetting. If you are currently in a sensitive frame of mind, it may be best to avoid reading this book for now due to potential triggers.

Favorite Lines:

ᥫ᭡ Dedication:
This one is for me and maybe you, too.

ᥫ᭡ "i need you to know
i forgive you
and all i can hope
is that you forgive me too"

ᥫ᭡ "how many moments have we lost to anger
from
carrying burdens that weren't ours to carry
- it's us against the world, not you against me"

Thank you to NetGalley and Harbor Lane Books, LLC for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I sometimes cover poetry with my students and they always tell me that they find it difficult to work with, to read, even. Medieval poetry was quite complex, at times, with kennings and alliterative rhyme schemes, but the themes it dealt with were as personal and emotive as those we find in modern poetry collections, like Between These Bones. It turns out, however, that I may not be the intended reader for modern poetry. Thanks to Harbor Lane Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Recently, while reading up on narrativity, I was struck by the importance of consciousness when it comes to narrativity. One of the biggest tragedies of humanity, I think, is that we are incapable of truly sharing our perception of the world with others. We cannot, truly, show others how we feel, how we see, what we think. The closest we come is art and literature, which allow us to try and find ways of expressing ourselves through colour, words, movement, ideas. As such, poetry is not only highly subjective, it is also highly personal. Everyone eventually finds their form of poetry but equally they also need to find their poets, into whose minds they want an insight, from whose view they want to observe the world. Between These Bones gives insight into an abusive relationship, into violence, into self-destruction, things that are jagged and hurt. Sharp begins her collection with a refusal to give trigger warnings, as she wasn't warned before these things happened to her. While I appreciate where Sharp comes from there, it strikes a bit of an odd tone for the following poems. Therefore I do give you these warnings, also because it gives an insight into a situation in a way you may not enjoy.

The blurb describes Between These Bones as bite-sized poetry, which is largely accurate, but it is also a part of the Insta-poetry tradition which rose in prominence after Rupi Kaur found an audience. This poetry is (usually) marked by an absence of rhyme scheme, meter, or punctuation, made up of short, often to-the-point but descriptive lines that rely heavily on first person and imagery. Maria Manning has described this kind of poetry in a paper, 'Crafting Authenticity: Reality, Storytelling, and Female Self-Representation through Insta-Poetry', as one which allows for a certain kind of female self-expression while perhaps neglecting poetic craft. Between These Bones is an excellent example of how this style of poetry can allow for the processing of traumatic experiences, for finding imagery to express it, and creating a sense of self. I do think, however, that it is time for me to throw in the towel with Insta-poetry and similar poetry. I think it is an excellent form of poetry for people to express themselves in, but I find that it does not hold my attention for long. This may be different for others, but the form of it makes me glide over much of it. However, for those who enjoy this type of poetry, and who are willing to dive into the dark with Sharp, Between These Bones should absolutely work.

Between These Bones is a raw collection of Insta-poetry which focuses on surviving abuse, without denying the darker, self-destructive edges which can exist alongside victimisation.

Shout out to NetGalley and Freya Sharp for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have a hard time rating poetry books but I thought this book was ok. For a short book, it was slow. There wasn't any passages that jumped out at me or made me want to highlight them. I feel like I have read this book before or the poems were similar to others I have read.

If you enjoy Rupi Kaur's poetry, this collection might be for you. Freya Sharp covers a multitude of topics and you get a sense of a person who has overcome some trauma. I am not a huge poetry fan and often feel like I might not understand the author's meaning.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harbor Lane Books, LLC. for an e-ARC of this poetry book.

Freya Sharp has written a collection of short poetry that is raw, vulnerable, filled with hurt and pain after an abusive relationship. I liked the simplicity of the prose, yet it can evoke emotion and understanding from the reader to the author's experience. The first half of the book was dark, some poems with vivid descriptions, so readers should tread carefully if you've experienced abuse. The poems became more happy and lighthearted, but it made me wonder if the author flipped the timeline of the relationship, or if the author find a good relationship after (I hope the latter!).

Overall, this was a compelling collection of poetry from Freya Sharp and I would recommend it to readers of modern poetry.

ℝ𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | 𝔽𝕠𝕣𝕞𝕒𝕥: 𝐸-𝐵𝑜𝑜𝓀

ℝ𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨: 𝐀𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐯𝐮𝐥𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤. 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞. 𝐌𝐲 𝐛𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞! 𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝑩𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝑩𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒔 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠.

𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓃𝓀 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓉𝑜 𝐹𝓇𝑒𝓎𝒶 𝒮𝒽𝒶𝓇𝓅, 𝐻𝒶𝓇𝒷𝑜𝓇 𝐿𝒶𝓃𝑒 𝐵𝑜𝑜𝓀𝓈, 𝐿𝐿𝒞, & 𝒩𝑒𝓉𝒢𝒶𝓁𝓁𝑒𝓎 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒜𝑅𝒞! 𝒜𝓁𝓁 𝑜𝓅𝒾𝓃𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓂𝓎 𝑜𝓌𝓃.

I really enjoyed the vulnerability in these poems and the arc/progression in the order that we got them. It was delightful to get to be able see the progression of their hurt and the acceptance as time when on. the final poem really moved me especially the end.

WOW. What an emotional read! I already knew going into it that it would be emotional and raw and intense- but Sharps's words were absolutely heart breaking and beautiful. I loved that her dedication was to herself, "but maybe you too". That was honestly the most beautiful dedication I've ever read. I know it can't have been easy to write this, but I'm so glad I read it. I hate having to rate books like this, because I don't think people's lives and experiences should be rated.
Definitely highly recommend to poetry lovers.

Honestly, the very first page about trigger warnings and the lack of them kind of rubbed me the wrong way, even though I do understand the reasoning for it, it just… yeah.
This collection of poetry is definitely on the darker side, though it does slowly get lighter, with it ending on a much happier note than it starts, which is nice. The writing is so good. I never would have guessed it was a debut, so cool. I will definitely check out future works from Freya Sharp.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

Between these bones is an emotional, personal and intimate collection of some memories curved into poetry. It is very authentic and raw, almost like you are having a conversation with the poet. The length of the poems are comparatively short which makes it easier for the readers to read. It aligns with the definition of modern poetry more. It was an easy read and I enjoyed it. The descriptions were pretty vivid. For my choice, it had some pretty explicit descriptions which made me a little uncomfortable in the beginning but I think it's totally on readers and their likings. Overall, I must appreciate the writer's courage to write so authentically.

Sadly, I didn't connect to any poem in this collection despite the fact I experienced some situations and hardships portrayed in here...
The poetry itself felt like one or two sentences broken into random alignment of words to make up lines which basically didn't have any kind of flow to them whatsoever. The lack of any kind of punctuation marks hindered the reading experience as well since one could not determine when one thought ended and another begun...
There are two things I really liked about this book; the cover and the foreword of the author about not listing trigger warnings because life doesn't give you those.

This was a very emotional and raw book of poetry. The author was very honest and reading the poems, I could feel the emotions behind them.

Disclaimer: I really didn’t want to rate this because books like this are just too hard to rate, but you have to or it won’t post. Is it a 5-star read? No. But it’s also not a 1 or 2-star read. The emotional depth and relatable moments make it stand out, even if some poems didn't quite hit the mark for me.

This collection of poetry is a quick and easy read, perfect for a palate cleanser between longer books. The author takes us on an emotional journey through pain, longing, hopes, and expectations, all tinged with hate and toxicity—a reality for many people, unfortunately.

As someone who has always been captivated by Rupi Kaur's Instagram poetry—and still is—I find this style of poetry incredibly engaging. The work and emotions poured into this collection are palpable. While some poems did fall a bit flat, there were many that truly resonated with me. They were relatable and tear-jerking, capturing the essence of human experience in a way that few collections manage to do.

Overall, this collection is a heartfelt exploration of the complexities of life, making it a worthwhile read for anyone who appreciates raw and honest poetry.

Thank you, NetGalley and Harbor Lane Books, LLC., for the chance to read and review this!

Read on July 4th, 2024. Written on July 4th, 2024

I am genuinely so so happy that I got the opportunity to read this book because it was so emotional and heartfelt.

What a journey the author takes us through, of pain, longing, hopes and expectations filled with hate and toxicity. The reality of some relationships, unfortunately.

The pain of a lifetime in 97 pages.

Signing off,
B.

(Free ARC from NetGalley and Harbor Lane Books, LLC. that I chose to review after reading)

I received this beautiful poetry collection from @Netgalley and devoured it. The pain of falling into the trap of a narcissistic partner, breaking free and the collapse of falling again emerged with the growth of realization and find true happiness.

I really enjoyed this collection and do recommend it

This was such a raw and emotional read for me. The author put her heart out on the line for all to see. This collection of poems triggered numerous emotions from me. It was sad, emotional, and heartbreaking. I'm sure this collection will touch many women who have experienced unconditional love. I would definitely recommend this collection to others.

Thank you NetGalley and Harbor Lane Books for this advanced copy.