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

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I love Alicia Cook's voice. This has to be one of the most powerful poetry books I have read in ages.

Split into 2 chapters – the EP & the LP, Alicia Cook takes us through a landscape of joy, pain and triumph in I Hope my Voice Doesn’t Skip. The subjects were varied – from family and home, to nostalgia, love and world events. There were poems with grief as a subject, which made me reflect on my own losses. Some of the poems on love, of first love – such as Traffic, Signs gave me feels. There are small details that characterise the writing – mentions of straw wrappers, squid ink and saltwater. The second part features writers, Christina Hart and J. R. Rouge, for example. There were some very assured poems in this part of the book.
There were a couple of poems I didn’t like, and I would expect that. This was the first book I had read by Alicia Cook and it won’t be the last. I found her poems were compelling, uplifting – they gave me strength and I’m sure if I read this book again I would find something new to like.

Sometimes the right book finds you at the right time. This is one of those cases. A powerful and moving collection.

It was a great read and I immensely enjoyed it. Sometimes I didn't have the motivation to read through the book at one go, so i resorted to reading the poems randomly now and then and it worked!

I loved this poetry collection! They were all so relatable and heartfelt. I will definitely be checking out the author's other work.

As a note, an e-galley of this novel was sent to me via NetGalley by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not effect my opinions in any way.

I've said it once, I'll say it a billion times: Alicia Cook is one of the best voices in modern poetry. She never fails in moving me with simple prose and the ties between her poems and music make reading her work an even better experience. I Hope My Voice Doesn't Skip had a lot to live up to. Alicia Cook's first published collection, Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately, was/is one of my all-time favourite releases in poetry.

Cook has a way about her prose that feels so alight with everything that makes us human. There's strength and vulnerability. There's loss and love. Everything that a person can feel. My favourite part about Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately was its connection to music; the intimacy behind a poet's words is not unlike the expressions musicians use in their lyrics. I've always had this theory that the quickest way to knowing a person's soul is in the music they adore. So many of us find ourselves in music and poetry and Alicia Cook captures the essence of that statement beautifully. We know what Cook allows us, as readers, to know--both in her prose and in the music listed in every poem.

Alicia Cook's power remains in her ability to express herself in every line. There's an honesty to her that you cannot contain or replicate and proves to readers why she is a leader in the strongest voices of modern poetry. I Hope My Voice Doesn't Skip connects in a way that is crisp and to the point--an exceptionally beautiful nod to our humanity and Cook's ability to speak freely to her audience.

There's this uniqueness to her expression that I cannot quite describe but her longtime fans will be quick to acknowledge. I Hope My Voice Doesn't Skip proves that Cook is bound to get better with time; her first release captivated me, and this one gripped me further.

Once more, there's this rawness to her prose that I simply cannot get enough with. Alicia Cook is, hands down, a favourite in the poetry community and I cannot sing her praises enough. Name one emotion, and you'll feel it. And so continues the tradition of feeling all you can during one collection. Alicia Cook does it again!

3.5 stars

First, let's get the math done for how I finally decided on the rating:

EP portion: 2.5 stars + LP portion: 4 stars = 3.25 stars, round up to 3.5 stars.

This was a predicted 5 star read because I absolutely loved Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately but the first half of the book was just not my cup of tea. The writing was average and at points, trite beyond imagination. The only redeeming point as with any of Cook's work was the inclusion of personal anecdotes which ensured that I read forwards. I barely had any favourite pieces but the ones I did love were because of their simplicity and profound relatablity rather than the writing so if someone is looking for masterfully crafted poetry or traditional poetry, the first section of the book, in my opinion, is bound to dissapoint.

Then came the second section of this book: The LP, and I so wish that we could've gotten more, similar to what it contained then the EP portion; it was wayyy better. The only problem I had with that section was some poems shared the same theme and were successive, so when read, it really felt like you were reading the same thing with different words, lost my interest then and with a lot of love related pieces. What I perhaps like the most in this collection was Cook's brilliance when it came to creating a certain atmosphere/scenario in the reader's mind, she did it so effortlessly and made it feel like you were sharing the same head space as hers, experiencing her memories like they were yours.

Overall, this collection is personal; you know when writers say I write for myself, Cook's collection actually brings those words to life because it includes personal tragedies, heartbreaks, death, harm and love. If you can connect to it and feel emotions riling up then the collection I believe, has achieved its aim. If not, then this isn't for you because the writer wrote this for herself as much as she wrote it for the readers. At least that's what I felt like whilst reading.

I complain when I read modern poetry about how it's not poetry and Cook's work is no different but her simple words and writing are so profound that I can't help but realize that maybe poetry has no form, it really does depend on our interpretation of the words and lines that etch themselves on our hearts and adamantly refuse to leave. That is why I think I'll always look forward to more of Cook's work!


Favourites:

The EP:
Collateral Beauty, I am Marked, Saturday-Morning Cartoons, Riviera Maya, Amalfi Coast, Absent, I Am Sorry For Your Loss, Hard of Hearing.

The LP:
Sailing On, Leaf-Strewn Sidewalks, This Isn't About The Number Six, Four Minutes In May, Hindsight and Pictures, Gloves On Radiators, Ten Little Girls, It's About Power, The Process of Apoptosis, Ready, Set..., Footprints.

Special shoutout to all the poetry pieces/songs in the collection, they were an added treat!

I was completely surprised when reading this book; I hadn't expected it to be this good. The collection of poems and song lyrics made the book easy to read and enjoy.

This book waa amazingly beautiful. Would definitely recommend. Alicia Cook definitely has an interesting and creative way to write poetry.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This book of poetry comes with a trigger warning of mental illness, death, drug use, violence, miscarriage. For anyone who might be effected by these topics I would not recommend this book however, it is an amazing book of poetry.

"But if I'm not pained by their pain,
I have not earned the right to be overjoyed by their joy."

Just as with Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately, I absolutely loved this collection. The writing is full of emotion and strength. I thought the music collaborations were brilliant and I cannot wait for whatever comes next.

I Hope My Voice Doesn’t Skip is a collection of poetry by Alicia Cook that covers the usual poetry themes of grief, love, loss, but also of addiction, murder, and crime, and she begins the book with a trigger warning for these things and more. She follows that warning with a simple statement that we are all recovering from something.

The book is delightfully structured reminiscent of a record album. Poems are broken down into two sections: EP and LP (the latter including generally longer poems than the former). In keeping with the theme, she refers to her acknowledgments as liner notes. Another great touch is that Cook provides URLs at the end of certain poems that lead to musical versions you can listen to on her website. I hadn’t seen that done before, and it adds more dimension to the experience of this book.

Among my favorite poems in this collection are: “Motor Skills,” “Am I Doing this Right?,” “Vellichor & Venom,” and “Bombilating Brains at Breakfast.”

Disclaimer: I received an advance-read copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I liked that not all of the themes in these poems were predictable. Some of them felt relatable while others felt super specific and autobiographical. I appreciated the way the author played with form, structure, rhyme, and both verse and prose poetry. Some of this I liked and some was just okay.

This book interweaves poems on hard topics and happy days. Alicia Cook writes masterfully about her experiences in the world in a way that is relatable to others.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the read.

I spent the afternoon into the evening reading Alicia Cook’s new book of poetry entitled I Hope My Voice Doesn’t Skip. It took me a few poems to get the feel for her voice and style of poetry but after I acclimated, I enjoyed her work. I would call her a poet for everyday. She writes about the life lived with human foibles and heartbreaks. But her work is not hopeless. She offers courage to overcome and even to rise above the struggles and keep pressing forward. It has been said that loss motivates most all writing and while I’m not 100% convinced of that thought, most of the work in this book takes into account the losses experienced by one who has had to courage to love someone else and not only romantically but in family relationships and friends. I even found myself in a few of these poems because I, too, am haunted by a great loss in my own life. And isn’t this what a good poet does? I connected and engaged in her work. Among my favorite selections were “More Cherry Blossoms Than D.C. “,”Ortley Beach”, “Ready, Set . . .”, “Transitions”, “For You”, “Absent”, “I’m Sorry For Your Loss”, and my favorite “The Stains Left Behind” For poetry about real life, read this book.

Cook's second book is more than amazing. It's super personal, with such enjoyable poetry. I like her poetry style, simple, not overdone. Her poetry does cover so 'touchy' topics in today's world. But I find her to be brave and her writing moving to be stepping out of a bubble, she's leading the way for more poetry that tells the truth not just dance around it. Her poems made me cry a few times, like 'Ten Little Girls'. Her words don't hide what she's feeling about I find that powerful.
The mix of poetry and music is such a clever idea. I feel that the two are similar while being different at the same time. The design and overall look it pretty as well. If you enjoy poetry, then you will not want to miss this one.

This collection of poetry features works on love, loss, and finding strength within yourself. It starts off with a series of short poems that are simple with a lot of thought put into them. The next section features longer poems with lots of meaning. The literature isn't too flowery and it feels personal. I was able to sense every emotion Alicia felt or had intended to put into the poem. I was able to sense some growth in her poetry when comparing it to Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately - this collection features poems with more personality and feels as if she is opening up more to the audience.
Unlike with Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately, I related to this collection way more on a personal level. I too lost a cousin very unexpectedly and I know the pain Alicia went through and after years, it still feels unreal. A few of her poems had me on the brink of tears because it followed her loss.

"This Isn't About the Number Six (an excerpt)
6 weeks before you died, we sat together.
You were sad, and I was mad,
but we managed to laugh and joke
about our crazy mothers.

We ate sandwiches together.
We hugged and shared our last words.
Of course, we didn't know then
they would be our last.

6 seconds before I knew you were dead,
I wasn't thinking about you.
I was thinking about the test
I had just sat down to take.
It was on Shakespeare's sonnets.

Then my phone rang.
..."

This collection shows beautiful, raw emotions that let's the reader know just exactly what she wants to say. I adored the format of the book where it isn't divided into sections based on a common theme. Instead, it goes on with her music theme where it feels like the poems have been put on shuffle so you'll never know what kind of poem you'll read next. I could be in tears for one, yet feel powerful and hopeful in the next. I love how Alicia just writes and writes and with this collection it feels as if I'm reading a diary or journal. I could not find any flaw to it either. Lastly, bonus points for the trigger warning page at the beginning that only tells you the possible triggers but also includes the title of a poem that contains the most triggers. Not only that but she even goes as far as labeling the poems with a trigger warning right after the title.
In the end, I would absolutely recommend this collection to everyone and cannot wait what the future holds for Alicia and her poetry.

Thank you Netgalley and Andrews McMeel publishing for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first book by Alicia Cook and let me just say that I truly enjoyed this poetry book. It's proven difficult for me to find a poetry book that I actually love. There are some poems that I didn't relate to (and that's normal) even if I wasn't able to I know there are readers who will. Some poems really hit me hard and some brought tears to my eyes. Alicia has a different style of writing than most writers and poets. I truly can't wait until all the poetry lovers and readers get to read this book!

A new instapoet voice for me, I found the collection quite readable and relatable. Many of the poems included are songs, with links to where you can hear them performed. I like that connection and merge into music. There are usual themes of grief, loss, empowerment, but also reflections on society for issues, in a punchy and effective way.