This was a great poetry book. I always absolutely enjoy their work and I can't wait to read more in the near future. I highly recommend it.

I really enjoy it when a collection of work has a theme and this book flowed really well. I did however begin to notice a few too many similarities in the individual pieces for my liking. All in all, it was a very interesting and thought provoking collection of work.

DNF at 22%. Confusing and hard to find the deeper meaning to this poetry. Personally, not for me. Nothing against the author as I read wonderful reviews from others.

The illustrations that accompany the poetry in this book are wonderful, a delight to stumble upon as you flick through the pages. The poetry itself is not quite so engaging. At times it is stilted, the language jarring, feeling almost like the stanza have been generated by an A.I. experiment, or translated to English from another language using one of those older pieces of software. After finishing, I read a few other reviews where the readers said they found it hard to connect with the pieces - and I realised that's how I was left feeling too.

I am a regular contemporary poetry reader, and found this collection, while beautifully illustrated and pretty to browse through, simply didn't resonate with me in the way similar collections exploring feminist themes or women's journeys have recently. I may be setting the bar high in my expectations, but I'm thinking about works such as Milk and Honey, The Sun and Her Flowers, or The Dogs I Have Kissed.

I love the illustrations and poem names. Some poems are really good. Some of them i couldn't connect it. Overall it is a nice poem book.

I have to say I'm not much of a poetry reader. It doesn't mean that I don't like, or even love it, it's just that I rarely feel like sitting down and actually read it. A couple of days ago I was thinking about this, and it bothered me a bit, so I went on NetGalley and chose two collections of poems, one being this here.
I'm not sure this book should have been the one I start with. This book just wasn't for me. It may be more a me than an actual writing problem, though. See, I've never been a huge fan of modern poetry. It's at many times too chaotic for me. So my problem might be that I simply don't get it.

On the other hand, I feel like I actually understood what the poet wanted to talk about. I understood many things, and suspected the meaning of many others... I don't say I get it all, but I get the picture. I get its meaning and see the metaphors and everything - if I want to. Problem is, I have to force myself to think about it. The poetry I love isn't like this. Excellent poetry sucks you in, even if you don't get every layer instantly, it floods you, makes you feel, and you don't even realize that you started thinking about what it all means. It MAKES you think, not tires you so much you're not in the mood anymore to do so. Because with this book, I felt like that.

To me, the chaos and randomness of the wording and phrasing felt forced, and just for the sake of being so chaotic and random. It kept me from forgetting myself in it. I could see that every piece was well-thought-out, and deliberately put the way it was put, I could see and even appreciate all the work that went into it. Sentiments did not come through, though. Only thing this book made me feel was uncomfortable and confused.

There were one or two poems, though, that I had no problem with. The one giving the title name, 'She Used to Be on a Milk Carton' and 'If Hell Had a Boy" were okay, and I found 'God in Real Life' quite good.

I also have to say that the illustrations were nice and they matched the poems.

As far as poetry collections go, this was a pretty mediocre book only redeemed by the illustrations and how quick it went by

A witchy series of poems on Catholic girlhood. The witchiness and references to Mary felt natural amongst the poems on media devoured by teenage girls such as My Girl, The Virgin Suicides, and Flowers in the Attic. Films that both haunted and defined the adolescence of many and to see poems on them was a gift.. My favorite poem was the first in the collection, "The Space Before Crossing Over," the last few stanzas helped set the tone and beckoned me into the collection. I devoured this enchanting book in one sitting.

I love poetry, and typically fly through collections. However, I just did not enjoy this. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I really did not understand most of the poems. They were too “out there” to actually make sense and not enjoyable. Unless you’re someone who enjoys delving deep into each poem, this collection is a disappointment.

It wasn't possible for me to connect with this collection on any level. Perhaps it just came at the wrong time but it felt very disjointed.

*Received an advance reader copy in return for an honest review.*
There were a few poems in this book that didn't speak to me. That being said, this is my first time reading anything by Tedesco, and I love her honest, raw imagery. From Babe, to girl, to woman, to babe again, she was speaking to that connected female in me who is born of the moon and baptized in blood.

These pieces are deeply feminine, dark, a little mystery, a little magic, and a firm grasp of nuance.
If you are looking for simple, then this isn't the book for you.

Honestly, this book is pretty wonderful. Once I read the very first page I could see so many good things about this book. Yet, unfortunately I couldn't get into the book that much, I don't really know what's wrong though. I just don't get the story so much.

Mesmerizing imagery. Decadent & lyrical poetry infused with Gothic themes. It touches on desire, magic, needs so dark yet vulnerable. I truly enjoyed reading this collection of poems.

This is a delightful collection of poetry - especially if you're a pop culture obsessive. There are poems here that reference Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a poem for Elisa Lam, and one of the greatest concepts I've heard in a while, "The Planets Star in a Burlesque." "Mood Ring," which provides instructions for the color-changing gem in such a ring, is by far my favorite piece, though it's difficult to choose just one. Some people are wary of pop culture references in writing, but the allusions here are not just gimmicks; they're deliberately crafted to serve the function of each poem.
Whitney Proper's illustrations are lovely, but not necessary - the writing could have stood just as well on its own.

I couldn’t really comprehend this piece of poetry.. I hoped for inspiring poems; ones about finding your true self in times of hardship but I was left with.. I don’t know? I couldn’t figure out what was going on, to be honest.

It was very reminiscent of Milk and Honey, but unique all the same. If you’re riding the poetry train, add this one to your cargo!

I want to preface this review with saying that poetry is subjective, and in this case, it didn't work for me.

Every time I read poetry I want to love it. But with this book, it sometimes feels like words are just thrown together because they might make sense somehow (?) or because they might sound good together or sound like "smart words".

I think I read someone review where they said they want someone to dumb down the book for them and honestly, I do feel similar... or I feel like the poems are complicated on purpose (to show off maybe?) rather than for the sake of the image the poems evoke. I hope to not compare any poetry book with Rupi Kaur's poems (because her books sparked my interest in contemporary poetry), but this book lacks that simplicity that gives depth to Kaur's words - and although the author is not trying to be Rupi Kaur (they have different themes and so on), it does feel like the same effect is desired (or maybe it's just me).

I did not understand the lines... the logic behind them. It's not like I was expecting iambic pentameter, but at least a bit of sense. Although I did like the challenge of the lines a bit or as an artistic exercise for a poem or two, it did get tiring when you met it at every single one. When I was reading a sentence ending with "orange" and thinking of an orange and then had to rethink everything because the next verse (and there was a couple of rows empty between verses!!) was starting with "juice" and it was clearly the same sentence... well, it is just not fun to read. I was tired and couldn't explain the logic behind it - sometimes it made sense, like you could play with two meanings in different verses, but sometimes it didn't.

I did like the Gothic imagery, but that's about it.

Beautiful poetry volune. I believe that young adults will flock to this book.

She Used to Be on a Milk Carton is a collection of poetry that focuses a lot on darker, gothic imagery and death, but it isn't to the point of depressing. It has a lot of juxtaposition with its images, but it all seems to come together at the end of each poem/section.

What I found interesting in this collection is that the poems are at a much higher level of maturity than the cover or the illustrations that accompany the pieces. While I found the poetry intellectual and thoughtful, the drawings looked like they belonged to a collection that's more along the lines of the recent rise in Instagram poets. It was jarring, but not to the point where you still couldn't absorb the words.