First, I'd like to extend a thanks to the author of the poems, Tove Ditlevsen, the translators, the publisher of this collection, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and NetGalley for the privilege of being able to read There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die. I will share my review to Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble upon release.

After reading the background on the author, I was extremely interested in the poetry and was surprised by how much imagery and feeeling were conveyed. Many of the poems engage the idea of aging, being a woman, and finding your place in the world with a changing identity. Some of the poems are very sad and difficult, and made me feel for the poet and what she must have been through to feel such sadness and struggle. These are poems that many women can identify with, considering the difficulty of holding so many roles.

The author is able to express so many major themes of adulthood and feminitity, poverty, aging, and the loss of loved ones in a way that both tells stories and builds worlds through lovely images and heartbreaking realizations. I would recommend this for anyone who enjoys poetry in translation, gender studies topics, is discovering their identity, or struggling with some major traumas they may need help working through. There are some poems that just feel deeply sad, without resolution or any cheerfulness, much like some events in life. I felt like the voice of the author was very clear and vulnerable, as pointed out by the translators at the end. This could be really helpful for someone needing real and honest truths about things they may be feeling.

This is a short book of poems. It was nice and maybe some of it was lost in translation because some of them did not make sense to me. It was still written beautifully, and a lot of the poems I could connect to.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for an honest review!!

As a fan of the author, I was curious to explore their poetry, even though it's not my usual genre. While a few of the themes resonated with me, the poems felt simplistic and didn’t leave much of an impact.