Mini Review: Poisoned Apples: Poems For You, My Pretty by Christine Hepperman

Poisoned Apples: Poems For You, My Pretty by Christine Heppermann

Release Date: September 23rd 2014
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Format: e-galley
Genre: Young Adult – Poetry, Fairy Tales
Source: Edelweiss
Author: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon | The Book Depository
Add it: Goodreads

Every little girl goes through her princess phase, whether she wants to be Snow White or Cinderella, Belle or Ariel. But then we grow up. And life is not a fairy tale.

Christine Heppermann's collection of fifty poems puts the ideals of fairy tales right beside the life of the modern teenage girl. With piercing truths reminiscent of Laurie Halse Anderson and Ellen Hopkins, this is a powerful and provocative book for every young woman. E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars, calls it "a bloody poetic attack on the beauty myth that's caustic, funny, and heartbreaking."

Cruelties come not just from wicked stepmothers, but also from ourselves. There are expectations, pressures, judgment, and criticism. Self-doubt and self-confidence. But there are also friends, and sisters, and a whole hell of a lot of power there for the taking. In fifty poems, Christine Heppermann confronts society head on. Using fairy tale characters and tropes, Poisoned Apples explores how girls are taught to think about themselves, their bodies, and their friends. The poems range from contemporary retellings to first-person accounts set within the original tales, and from deadly funny to deadly serious. Complemented throughout with black-and-white photographs from up-and-coming artists, this is a stunning and sophisticated book to be treasured, shared, and paged through again and again.

*This book was provided by Edelweiss and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, a few things I have to say right off the bat. I swear on my life I have already written this review, even my master list of books says that I have but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. It’s not showing up on my blog when I search and it’s not in my computer so I must be crazy. If I am not crazy though and this is the second time you are seeing this then I apologize. Another thing is that I did not take notes on this book and I read it back in May so this is going to be going off of my memory so I’m going to go ahead and make this a mini review (which it probably would have been anyway), but again my apologies. Alright, enough of that… on to the review!

Poisoned Apples is a book of poetry that is fairy tale based. It is also very feminist. I am very picky when it comes to poetry that I like and I wasn’t really crazy about this book. There were a couple good ones thrown in but nothing really screamed at me. There are 50 poems that are all about the same things. Really they were kind of repetitive. They were about the pressures that are put on girls. On how they should look, act, eat, etc, according to society.

The writing was fine and I did like how each poem had a tie in to a fairy tale but that was pretty much it for me. Overall, it was the cover and the title that pulled me in to read the book. The synopsis compares her writing to Laurie Halse Anderson and Ellen Hopkins but I think that is stretching it a bit. I can see how some people would really like this book and some people could be like me and just not be into it. If you are someone that is really into poetry or really into feminism then by all means pick this book up, you will probably one of the ones that loves it! If you’re not into those things then I would say pass on this one.  

Review: Amphigorey by Edward Gorey

Amphigorey by Edward Gorey

Series: Amphigorey, #1

Release Date: January 28th 1980
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Format: Paperback
Pages: 220
Genre: Adult - Poetry, Art
Source: Library
Author: Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon | The Book Depository
Add it: Goodreads

The title of this deliciously creepy collection of Gorey's work stems from the word amphigory, meaning a nonsense verse or composition. As always, Gorey's painstakingly cross-hatched pen and ink drawings are perfectly suited to his oddball verse and prose. The first book of 15, "The Unstrung Harp," describes the writing process of novelist Mr. Clavius Frederick Earbrass: "He must be mad to go on enduring the unexquisite agony of writing when it all turns out drivel." In "The Listing Attic," you'll find a set of quirky limericks such as "A certain young man, it was noted, / Went about in the heat thickly coated; / He said, 'You may scoff, / But I shan't take it off; / Underneath I am horribly bloated.' "

Many of Gorey's tales involve untimely deaths and dreadful mishaps, but much like tragic Irish ballads with their perky rhythms and melodies, they come off as strangely lighthearted. "The Gashlycrumb Tinies," for example, begins like this: "A is for AMY who fell down the stairs, B is for BASIL assaulted by bears," and so on. An eccentric, funny book for either the uninitiated or diehard Gorey fans.

Contains: The Unstrung Harp, The Listing Attic, The Doubtful Guest, The Object Lesson, The Bug Book, The Fatal Lozenge, The Hapless Child, The Curious Sofa, The Willowdale Handcar, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Insect God, The West Wing, The Wuggly Ump, The Sinking Spell, and The Remembered Visit.

I honestly don’t know what to say about this book. It was so “out there”. I liked parts of it but since there were so many stories I am going to break them up and talk about certain ones. It was definitely interesting.

First I will talk about the book as a whole thought. There is a lot of death a lot of it is child death. If you don’t like reading about that then you probably won’t like this book. This is a book of fifteen different books, with lots of different stories. All but two of them are in black and white and they are all pretty much pencil type sketches. I wasn’t really the biggest fan of the illustrations and there were only a few stories that I actually liked.

The Doubtful Guest – This is one of my favorite stories of the book. It was actually pretty funny when you realized what the story was about. I liked the way the “guest” was drawn. It sort of made the story funnier. This is a story about a guest that shows up at a house and acts just like a child. It takes things it likes and throws them in the pond to “protect” them. It rips pages out of books and breaks things. It has been there for 17 years and shows no plans of leaving.

The Listing Attic – This is a group of small random poems with a graphic to go along with each one. Some of them were rather disturbing.

The Bug Book and The Wuggly Ump – These were the only two books that were colored. The Bug Book was a pretty good story about a group of ants that have to protect themselves from a bully bug. The Wuggly Ump is pretty much a song about a weird creature that eats children.

The Hapless Child – This story was really sad! It was about a young girl whose father is in the military and is sent off to Africa and her mother passes away while he is gone. She is told the father has been killed in war and is sent off to an orphanage. She escapes the orphanage and is sold to a drunken man. That is all I will say about it but the it doesn’t end well for the poor little girl.

The Curious Sofa – Porn on paper… That is all I have to say about that one.

The Gashlycrumb Tinies – This is an alphabet story (i.e. A is for… B is for… C is for…) The thing that makes this one different is every letter is a different way that a child has died. I sort of liked this one but I’m not sure why. It’s pretty disturbing.

Those are all the ones that I thought worthy of talking about. There are a lot of stories in this book and if you like things that are on the darker side then you might really enjoy this book. I’m not sure it was quite for me though. I am not sure if I will be reading the next set of stories.

My Rating: