4.5 stars

I was blown away by this fierce collection of poetry. There's just something about it that will speak to every single woman who reads it. The collection tackles important issues such as misogyny, feminism, abuse, the insidious patriarchy, and does it in super an amazing way - through symbolism and metaphors of the historic Salem Witch Trials. It's incredibly powerful.

The book is very dark, but I loved that. I did, however, have an issue with one or two poems which is why it's not getting a full 5 star rating from me (although I feel so weird rating something that is clearly based on the author's life). The issues are totally on my part as a reader being confused as to their inclusion in this particular collection (perhaps would have been better in another? Idk, I'm not a poet, just a reader).

Aside from that, I loved this collection and highly recommend it. A fantastic feminist poetry collection you NEED to read.

The Witch Doesn’t Burn In This One is a follow up to the author’s, The Princess Saves Herself In This One. Like the previous poetry collection, it talks about misogyny, patriarchy, feminism, abuse, and other things relating to it. While the previous collection used the trope of women always being saved by men as a metaphor, this one used the Salem Witch Trials to portray the oppression of women. It talked about how women are told to remain weak, that women are something for men before we are our own person. I think it did it really well and in a really powerful way.

The book is really dark and heavy since it does talk a lot about misogyny but it also encourages self love and the importance of it. I liked how it used the Salem Witch Trials as a metaphor since the horrific events themselves are a good portrayal of how women were murdered for not falling in line, to the point of being accused of being witches. The author used this as a way to talk about how it’s good to go against that and people thinking that’s wrong doesn’t matter. It’s an amazing and feminist collection of poetry.

I love the idea behind all of Lovelace's books. They're strong, powerful poems that are aimed towards strong powerful women. The message in all of them is wonderful which is why I am reluctant to rate this anything lower than 3 stars. I understand the important impact that books like this can have on a person. However, there is quite a lot of filler content in her books and this one is no exception.

Poems with one or two words can be powerful, there's no doubt about it. However, when a book is filled with tiny clusters of words per page, these singular words can seem a little bit redundant. There is almost too little content per poem. When this happens, your eyes might start to drift onto the next page only to confuse differing poems in your mind. Or, perhaps the words become meaningless because they are just too little by themselves. Quite a lot of the poems in this book were baby poems. Often times they felt incomplete.

There are a few saving graces in the collection which I thought were beautiful. Detailed below is a piece of prose that I really enjoyed and thought fit the theme quite well. Like the title, it's ominous and highlights how powerful women can be.

the man with the witch-killing look in his eyes drinks deeply from the chipped lilac teacup, his trembling hands making it clink against the saucer as he places them back together. my stomach churns in circles as the dark liquid dribbles down his chin in lines. he eagerly slides the cup & dish to me across the old, rickety table & I waste no time turning the cup over the dish to get rid of the excess. when I turn the cup right-side up, I spot the clusters of soggy brown & black leaves that litter the bottom in various shapes & sizes. I study it for a moment & immediately look away, nervously wringing my hands in my skirts. there’s no question what the means.

“well? what does is say?” he asks.

i keep my eyes down. “the leaves say you’re going to . . . pay.”

“p-pardon?” he sputters, his eyes filling to the brim with terror.

“They say . . . you’re all going to pay,” i whisper.

– the leaves never lie

i didn't come here
to be civil.
i didn't come here
to sit you down
with a mug of tea
& a blueberry muffin
to coddle you as
i try to convince you
that respecting
my existence is essential.

Much like the first book in this poetry series, Amanda writes about feminism with a pleasantly surprising level of intersectionality and care; she touches on topics like transphobia, menstruation, rape culture, body-shaming, eating disorders, romanticization of abuse, and more. Her thoroughness is the reason I keep coming back to her writing - as well as her unapologetic nature when it comes to tackling rape and abuse culture in particular.

That said, I struggled to even give this 4 stars (instead of 3, which I considered) because I struggled with the same problems I saw in her first book:

1) Repetition - much of the poetry in this book feels and sounds so much like the first book, or like other poems within the same collection. I feel like I read the same phrasing a few too many times, though I won't count off for this one as it'd probably be less noticeable if you didn't read every poem back-to-back like I did.

2) Her writing - something about her writing voice reminds me very much of the poetry I wrote on MySpace as a teenager, and not in a good way. If it was occasional, it would be a really enjoyable, nostalgic touch, but since it's almost every single poem, it begins to feel very dated.

3) Inspirations used - there were three or four pieces in this book that felt like that had been lifted almost verbatim from inspirational quote images and tumblr posts I've been seeing float around the internet for years. It would be one thing if it was vague wording or base paraphrasing, but some of the imagery painted is just too on-the-nose to ignore. It gave me a weird feeling of deja vu throughout several pieces.

All in all, I'm willing to round this up to 4 stars because, regardless of how I feel about her writing itself, the content is important. We need more feminist pieces. We need more rants about rape culture, abuse, transphobia, misogyny, and body shaming. I will forever applaud Amanda for taking the steps that she does to promote intersectional feminism through her work, and would recommend this to anyone who enjoys poetry of its kind. While I will probably not pick up her future works, as I think this book made me accept that her writing is not my cup of tea, I would still encourage you to give this book a try.

Thank you to Andrews McMeel Publishing for granting me this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Warm, fuzzy, emotional, makes you want to take over the world too. Once again, she awed me with her writing.

Using the motif of the fire that burned our female ancestors, Amanda Lovelace uses that same wrath and fury through scathing poems about the female experience and the related women-rage-fire within us. Especially with the rise of the “me too” movement in the past months, this is an important (and quick) collection that everyone should read to get a better understanding of rape culture, abuse, self-love, eating disorders and weight, the importance of sisterhood, and of writing poetry to further share our experiences. Many of these poems, especially the last section function as a rallying battle cry for women everywhere, literally mentioning the current social and political climate and how it must be upended and changed for future equality.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am certainly not one of those “feminazi SJWs” that get so much heat from the internet. Some of these poems did rub me the wrong way. Especially two sequential poems that glorify murder and dismemberment in order to communicate rage against male abusers, ironically followed by a poem where she denies being the “crazy ex girlfriend.” I have a lot of feelings about the societal approach to feminism that I haven’t quite figured my full opinion on, but I will say this: many of these poems are fueled by anger and make me feel the anger through the words. Rightfully so, a lot of the anger is directed towards men, which works for some poems, but after a while starts sounding a little too Tumblr-y for me. This works best when the overarching theme of witchcraft is tied with that fury, which was a very interesting concept.

Overall, there were many poems that made me smile, feel tons of emotion, and audibly cry “DAMN” in my living room, so despite my gripes, I do believe this is an excellent and important collection of poems from Amanda Lovelace.

I would recommend this book for those who like to call this format "poetry". As for myself, I prefer actual poetry. Admittedly, I didn't read the first in the series, so as soon as I saw this one was available, I decided to give it a shot, see what the hype was about... I was left utterly disappointed.

I spotted that this was available on read now, immediately downloaded it and have read it in 2 sittings, only stopping because I had plans.

The Princess Saves Herself in this One was one of my favourite reads of 2016- Amanda Lovelace just speaks to my soul. Her poetry is raw and beautiful and inspiring. I didn't personally relate to as much of this one but it still made me cry with both joy and anger. How do so few words make me feel so deeply?

I can't wait to buy a physical copy of this and add it to my collection, it's just wonderful. Now the wait for The Mermaid's Voice Returns in this One begins.

I rarely give a book one or two stars, but this was just awful. This is not poetry. And I will not recommend this to anyone. Best of luck to the author in her future endeavors.

I didn't expect anything less than amazing and that's exactly what I got.

White the first book in this series felt a little sad, this one felt like it was full of anger. Anger in the best way possible. Reading it made me powerful and confident, like nothing could bring me down. I'd like to hold onto this feeling (I'll have to reread this one a few times I think). There was anger about the world, about men pushing women down, about women never being good enough, but my favourite part was that there were solutions too. There were mentions of being confident because woman ARE good enough. There were mentions about how women should always be sticking up for one another. The whole thing just made me feel so GOOD.

As for the writing style, every word felt like it was chosen deliberately and placed in exactly the right spot. The formatting on some of the poems were different which only made it more interesting to read.

I couldn't wait to read this book and I can't wait to read her next book.