Thank you so much to NetGalley and Sarah Kay for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for A Little Daylight Left coming out April 1, 2025. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I received this directly from NetGalley. I’m not familiar with her work. I enjoy poetry, but I’m not obsessed with it. I’m more into the classic poetry. But I’ll read modern poetry if it’s available. I really enjoyed some of the poems more than others. I wasn’t a fan of some of the topics. I think it’s a great collection though. It was definitely a fast read.

I really enjoyed this collection of poems and couldn't put it down until I finished it in one reading session. The writing was powerful and vulnerable, with hints of nostalgia, sorrow, and anger. I found quite a few poems very relatable, and were able to capture feelings I too had, but was not able to put into words. I felt seen. Kay's ability to take topics that seem unrelated to one another, but entwine them in the end was really enjoyable to read. This was my introduction to Sarah Kay and I look forward to reading more of her poetry in the future.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love getting lost in a book of poetry. Sarah Kay has a beautiful way of looking at the world but I’m afraid her style just isn’t for me. I have no experience with her prior work but I hear that her spoken word may be more impactful to an audience member like me who doesn’t love poetry written in long run on sentences/thoughts. I can’t connect with a lot of poems about fertility or children so those topics definitely disconnected me from the work on occasion. Overall a few great poems with a couple of phrases I enjoyed but the book overall just didn’t hit me in a memorable way.

The Dial Press eARC
This was a beautiful collection of poetry that showed such a range of human emotions as the author wrote about her life experiences. I loved the insight and rawness she brought to these poems. There are some that I will be thinking about long term. I think what made this collection work so well for me was not that I could relate to every single thing, but that she wasn't afraid to put her entire self on the page. I enjoyed the growth and reflections here. I enjoyed the wondering and just sitting in emotions. It was well done and I look forward to reading more from this poet.

Wow, I wanted to read this slowly, but it's so difficult to put down! Each poem is deeply impactful and showcases a completely different complex emotion and relatable experience. It's dark, yearnful, hopeful, nostalgic, and yet, at some parts, light and airy. Unlike many poetry books that have a consistent theme that can sometimes become too heavy to read for a long period of time, this ebbs and flows beautifully from one concept to the next.

This book will be released April 1st, 2025, and I'm sad I can't include any quotes in the review until then. There are so many worth sharing, remembering, and holding on to. I plan to reread this time and time again. This book is for anyone who enjoys beautiful words and shared experiences.

Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing, for the opportunity to read an advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed the poems in A Little Daylight Left, they are well written, readable and moving. Some are light and humorous and some touch on the disturbing.
They read like poem/prose and I liked that.

I stopped reading this collection because of disturbing content. I would like for there to be content trigger warnings so I knew what to skip.

Beautiful book of poetry about love, grief and living. Moving from childhood to adulthood in poems made this a quick read but very moving!

I’m still fairly new to reading poetry, but I really enjoyed this collection. I’ve never read anything by Sarah Kay before, now I am eager to see what other works they have available.

Some of these poems didn’t fully resonate with me, which is to be expected. Others were a punch to the gut. Giving me that heavy feeing in my stomach, full of grief or sorrow. I could FEEL them.

This is definitely a collection I would recommend to poetry loving friends. I will also be rereading the poems that I really enjoyed.

This is the feeling I will chase each time I pick up a new collection. It was full of cheeky, sad, happy, and relatable poems that were so vivid in my mind. The second section is where I really fell in love with Sarah’s writing and knew she would be a new favorite. I really enjoyed and related to many of the themes present in this collection (love, loss, friendship, creativity, grief), and loved her descriptive word choice combined with the purposeful layout/rhythm. I don’t think I’ll ever stop thinking about this one.

Some favorite quotes:

“& if your old friend ever picked up the phone again
you would say wherever
you've been
was where you
needed to be
& whoever you
are now
welcome
back, beloved.”

“I could learn to be patient if
I knew
there would always be a you to love”

My favorite poems were:
- RACCOON
- WORH CELEBRATING
- BEGINNING IS A SEASON
- ON THE DAYING APP I SELECT FROM THE DROPDOWN MENU TO INDICATE I TOO LIKE BEACHES
- PRAISE MY TINY KITCHEN
- DREAMING BOY
- TABLE GAMES
- ORANGE
- SONNET FOR POP
- SHARPSHOOTERS
- ALLOW ME JUST THIS ONE
- EACH IF US HERE
- WHOEVER BROKE INTO THE RENTAL CAR AND STOLE MY VIBRATOR
- NATURE VS NURTURE
- TSUBU
- JELLO
- DEVOTED
- EPITHALAMION
- MILES FROM SNY SHORELINE

This type of poetry is not for me. The specificity read too flowery and young, like a college student attending her first English workshop and wanting to prove how smart she is.

Sometimes I find it challenging to review a book of poetry, but A Little Daylight Left really struck a chord with me. I've been feeling very introspective and slightly melancholy lately, and these poems just spoke to my soul and resonated with me. Yes, these poems describe difficult times, but also how we make it through changed and stronger. Thanks to NetGalley and The Dial Press for the ARC.

"A Little Daylight Left" begins with poetry which depicts the process in which the naïveté of childhood slowly disappears as you reach adulthood. As I read through the beginning of this collection, I really resonated with the message of realizing the moment when you are finally old enough that you suddenly become the adult that you once relied on when you were a child: and now there will be young people looking to you for answers for the rest of your life. I think that Kay describes this collection of poetry very well when she states later on in one of the poems: "If there was a girl scout badge for ease with human vulnerability I think I could earn it". A very accurate description of this collection is "vulnerability", which is something that I really gravitate towards when reading poetry. "A Little Daylight Left" includes poems that discuss coping with the pain of grief and of heartbreak; the pain of transitioning into new phases of life; the pain of self-doubt and of realizing your body isn't going to cooperate with you. Different poems will surely resonate with different people, and I connected with a good portion of this collection. Thank you to NetGalley, The Dial Press, and Sarah Kay for providing an early digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Sarah Kay is an intricate storyteller. I can picture every poem as if I was in the room and while I’m there she always makes my heart ache in the best way.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for an advanced copy.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for access to this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

As an English teacher, I adore Sarah Kay, mostly for her spoken word videos, which I show my students when we tackle slam/spoken word poetry. A Little Daylight Left is full of heart and reflection on love, grief, and living. This poetry collection, Kay's second full-length publication, is one that I read slowly. It is divided into three sections, and so I would read a section per night and sometimes I would pause to allow the words to sink in.

I rate the collection 3 stars because, while the poetry was moving, I feel it would have impacted me more if I had heard Sarah Kay read it. That is more about her writing style. The poet tends to use "enjambment" where there is no punctuation, making everything feel like a run-on sentence. I am not accustomed to reading poetry like that, so I think some poems failed to resonate with me.

Overall, a bit of a mixed bag but I would still recommend it to students and friends that enjoy poets who experiment with different styles.


#ALittleDaylightLeft #NetGalley.
Expected Publication 01/04/25
Goodreads Review 11/03/25

I enjoyed this book of poetry and connected with many of the poems. This was my first encounter with Sarah Kay’s poems and I’m eager to read more.

Fans who have waited for Sarah Kay’s second full-length collection will not be disappointed. Equal parts hurt and hopeful, Kay’s words will resonate deep in that place in your chest where you try to hide the things you don’t want to feel. This collection contains a poem for every emotion, and I highly recommend reading.

Wow! This is my first encounter with a work by Sarah Kay and let me just say I was not disappointed. Their work is really good and a nice change of pace after going through a reading slump! Thank you to NetGalley and Sarah Kay’s publishing house for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review! 4/5 stars ⭐️

𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸.

3.5 stars.
Some of the poems in this book were really good, like Worth celebrating and Jakurta January (Jakurta January DESTROYED me), and really affected me, but as a whole, I don’t think A little daylight left had a big impact on me. I do still think this is a good book, but I think another reader would be able to appreciate it more than I have.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this! My full review will be posted on Instagram and Goodreads on March 31st, in preparation for publication day!

I actually really enjoyed this poetry collection. Initially, I was reading the first few poems and almost felt overwhelmed by them, as the way they read felt fast and my thoughts as an AuDHD person already go very fast. Though, the more that I read, the more that was exactly what charmed me. I think that is something that really contributed to the emotion and I am grateful now for the range of emotions I experienced by just the formatting and flow of the writing. The poem's themselves were written beautifully, with a lot to ponder at times and even warranted rereads at several points.

This was my first exposure to Sarah Kay, but I am very interested in more of this writer's work now!