Le Petit Mort by Eli Wilde is a haunting and thought-provoking collection of poems that explores the themes of love, loss, and mental illness through the eyes of Rufus Hobster, a vampire with a talent for poetry.

The book takes the reader on a journey through Rufus's memories of Elise, The Girl Who Synchronised Death, and their tumultuous relationship. The poems are dark, gothic, and at times, disturbing, but they are also deeply moving and thought-provoking. Through Rufus's eyes, the reader experiences the beauty and pain of love, the despair of mental illness, and the horrors of mortality.

The author's writing is raw and visceral, and his words have the power to evoke a wide range of emotions in the reader. The poems are not just about Rufus and Elise, but also about the human condition and the struggle to find meaning and purpose in life.

Le Petit Mort spans several genres, including mental health, dark romance, horror, philosophy, and fantasy. It is a book that will appeal to fans of gothic poetry and those who enjoy thought-provoking literature. Overall, Le Petit Mort is a beautiful and haunting collection of poems that will stay with the reader long after they have finished reading it.

For starters, I love a book that forces me to turn occasionally to a dictionary. It definitely adds strength to the writing and allows the reader to really take in the words on the page. Eli Wilde does this beautifully without seeming heavy-handed or like a 4th grader with a thesaurus.

In this magnificent collection of poetry, Eli shows the reader the insecure, forgotten side of a monster who only invokes fear. Safely behind the pages of this book, we can explore the universal tragic thinking of a vampire - one that seems to not be of the shiny Edward Cullen variety.

The telling of a story of longing, confusion, and love through the eyes of a blood-lustful vampire is unique. I fully enjoyed this collection.

This book is definitely more well-suited for adults or older teens as there are some dark themes, mentions of sexual content and overall violence associated with destruction of self/humanity.

vampire and short stories sign me up! this year is the year for short stories and just recommending them to people who don't typically read has been fun to get their opinion. i really liked the format of this and word choice used!

This was a complicated but intriguing collection of poems that told an overall story. I found it complicated because I found myself rather confused at times about what was happening, after a few rereads of some pages I then felt more confident in my interpretation. However, it’s complexity drew me in rather than pushed me away. It was a story of immortal and mortal love, a descent into madness and depression, with mental health being a very prominent theme throughout. It was hard to tell what was real and what was a dream.
I felt that I struggled to understand the timeline a little bit.

Overall, it was a quick, intriguing read that I wanted to continue with until the end, however I don’t feel like I enjoyed it as much as I was hoping to. I will definitely try out more of this authors work and would recommend this to any regular readers of poetry, you may have more luck with it than me (Poetry is a semi-new interest).

Thank you to the publisher for this review copy.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

The book's haunting beauty surpassed my expectations. Despite the fact that I rarely read poetry, I enjoyed this one. I was totally dazzled all through. Overall, a fantastic and highly underrated read.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book! This book is available now!!

Beautiful, Haunting. That’s not a sentence but that’s how I’d describe this short poetry work by Eli Wilde. This followed a rear story. At times I struggled to follow but I usually don’t read story poetry like this.

Thank you net galley for an ARC for my honest opinions.
I enjoyed the depth and complexity of the prose. I look forward to more from this author in the future

this was.. well, weird. i don’t think i was quite expecting what it was and tbh i wonder if the author is ok, hahaha. i think it has its appeal to the appropriate audience though

I really enjoyed this poetry anthology. It was an interesting concept to try and have it follow a storyline somewhat, although I do think that some pieces seemed out of place it still worked because, after all, it is written from the perspective of a vampire!

I found Rufus fascinating: his contemplations on life, un-life, happiness, depression, immortality, love, and true death juxtaposed against his thoughts and musings on religion and the reality of his situation really helped this anthology work for me.

I'll be buying a hard copy, reading this again, and doing a more in-depth review for my upcoming website/blog.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for the ARC.

La Petite Mort is a collection of poems from the POV of a vampire.

There were quite a few references to religion that lost me.

However overall I liked the majority of the poems but did find it hard to always connect them to the bigger story.

Eli Wilde’s La Petite Mort is a poetry collection based on Rufus, a vampire who falls in love with a human. Elise when she leaves sends Rufus into a downward spiral as he faces madness. This collection is told through his voice which is dark and chilling.

The poetry is written in a visceral way. Through Rufus’s words the reader experiences his darkness. He uses the senses to portray through clever metaphors his hurt and longing for Elise. The descriptions border on macabre and beautiful making this collection interesting to read.

While I loved the premise of gothic poetry written about a vampire yearning for a young girl it didn’t live up to my expectations.

I just didn’t find myself immersed in the story.

I had heard of this book, and it stuck with me due to the art on the cover. When I saw it was available I snatched it up quickly. Unfortunately, I did not love it. I found the general concept of it interesting, but the author had obsessions with certain words and phrases, they were used so frequently it was all I could focus on. If they had been necessary to what the author was saying, or the flow of the entire piece it would have been less of an issue.

This is a gorgeous collection of poetry with a really unique twist. It’s written from the perspective of a vampire in love with a human.

The language is lush and gorgeous, and there’s an interconnectedness to each piece that’s really easy to follow.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

i liked it but was it memorable? no. will i think about it in the future? probably not. i liked that it really was telling a story but it just became too repetitive for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Eli Wilde for the opportunity of reading this book in advance in exchange for an honest review.

. . .

This book shows us poems written by the hand of a vampire, letting us explore his thoughts of loneliness, tiredness, love, lust, belief, a bit of hope, mostly hopelessness and an eternal questioning of his own existence.

Personally, a good number of poems captive me, they were dark, lovely, sad, very passionate and I adored them! The way in which there is a whole story unfolding through the verses of this, that is sometimes a bit unclear, is something that I enjoyed greatly, and it is an interesting way in which to tell a story like this.

There were also some poems that I found a bit corny, they were really cliché for this kind of themes and atmosphere, and for me, they seemed a bit out of place with the rest of them, getting a bit tiring, but I consider they were a minority.

I would recommend this book for people who just love angst, deep thoughts of sadness but also love, and that adore when these two intertwined, and for my part I would surely read more from this author.

La Petite Mort by Eli Wilde is a collection of poetry that recounts the relationship between Rufus , a vampire and his love Elise .and how the breakdown of that relationship has a deeply damaging effect on Rufus' mental health. I found the use of poetry a unique and impactful way of telling a story and found several of the poems to be really beautiful, but I did feel like it lost momentum towards the end.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher , all opinions are my own.

Genuinely one of the finest poetry books I've read.

Gothic poetry is still fairly new to me. One thing I've noticed is how many people try to either mimic Poe or write very anachronistically. Eli managed to take inspiration from the gothic greats while weaving in his own narrative. I was impressed by not only the writing but the imagery. I tasted the grass. I smelt the blood. I felt her touch.

This isn't a collection of poems, it's a story. You feel his decline from infatuation to madness. Yes, parts feel sparse, as if you're missing parts of the story - yet it makes sense. He writes when his passion is high. Passion comes from the extremes of love, distress, fear, and loneliness.

Every part of me wants to dive deeper into this. I want to sit in a class as we analyze every line. There is so much here to pick up on in future re-reads. This is definitely on my list to buy asap. Undoubtedly, this is 5/5 stars.

The idea of a vampire poetry collection intrigued me and thank you Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review La Petite Mort.

Here we have vampire Rufus' poetry collection, primarily based about Elise - the love of his life (or death...) it seems who then becomes his greatest loss.

I wasn't expecting this to be quite so deep and emotional - but it really was. I liked most of the poems and something completely different than I have ever read before.