Amanda Lovelace is one of my favorite modern poets, and to drink coffee with a ghost doesn't disappoint. Her language is sharp and soothing all at the same time, and she does such a wonderful job of getting right to the core of the reader's emotion without it being unnecessarily melodramatic. to drink coffee with a ghost reads as a love letter to girls who have complicated relationships with their mothers, thereby having complicated relationships with themselves and those around them. Some of these poems hit me deep down in a way I haven't been reached before, and it's always such a raw, exhilarating moment when it happens.

I highly recommend this collection. For girls with complicated relationships, girls who have to learn to love themselves, or even just people who love beautiful language, to drink coffee with a ghost will not disappoint.

*A huge thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review*
4.5/5 stars
Maybe my favorite collection of poetry that Lovelace has come out with thus far. Poetry is something very deep and personal, not only to the author, but the reader as well. I think that my favorites of hers (the princess saves herself in this one & to drink coffee with a ghost) are the ones that I relate to the most, and I am just so thankful work like this exists. Beautiful, haunting, emotional, and lyrical, Lovelace's work will continue to be my favorite in contemporary poetry. Please read it when it comes out on September 17th, 2019!

This was a great read. Amanda Lovelace wrote a wonderful book that may make the reader pause to analyze their own life once or twice. The book is full of raw emotions: grief, hurt, hatred, love and forgiveness. I especially appreciated the theme of the book and the illustrations. The title is very appropriate for this read.

Review: To Drink Coffee With A Ghost
Author: Amanda Lovelace
Genre: Poetry
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Publication Date: September 17, 2019

This is the finale of Bestselling Poetess Amanda Lovelace’s duology “things that haunt”.
The first, ‘To Make Monsters Out Of Girls,” focused on being in a toxic relationship.
This one is about the loss of her mother and their very complicated relationship.
When I was younger, poetry was like an extension of me. It was the THING. That thing that took the tired jumbled tangle of inexpressible emotions and made sense of them.
I knew it’d be risky business for me to dig in to this topic.
See, what makes death so hard is the ABSENCE of that person. So, while my mother is very alive, I’ve spent the majority of my life feeling like she has been dead.
As I read through these pages I realized that I had experienced nearly every situation she had described.
Difficult relationship? What little relationship I had with my (non-custodial) mother was conditional and manipulative. The author speaks of her contradictory feelings of wanting approval and almost idolizing her mother, no matter how torturous and toxic she knows it is. And her relationship with her sister; how much they had to step up and take on the grown up roles for each other.
This book runs the entire gamut of emotions. From the resentment to grief, to the acceptance, to moving forward.
It was written for the lost girls like me. The ones like my sister who had to put our mother to bed because she fell asleep sitting up smoking a cigarette or trying to get a spoonful of food to her mouth. Our mother is no longer very much mother. She’s more pills than mother now.
Amanda Lovelace has that rare gift of saying a multitude of things in just a few short sentences.
If you’ve never read her work, I highly recommend it.
And this one was so beautiful and touching to me. It’s ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 stars, no doubt. Sad I don’t have a copy on my shelf right now!!
#ToDrinkCoffeeWithAGhost #Netgalley #Goodreads

It's a shame this didn't warrant a higher rating from me-- the concept here is very good, a series of poetry made up of what she'd say in a conversation with the ghost of her mother. The reason I think it didn't work better for me is that it largely rehashes a lot of the ideas of her previous poetry collections and also she makes some stylistic choices that are very pop poetry that I don't necessarily love. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.
I'd probably give a higher score by a star if I wasn't already familiar with Lovelace's poetry.

BOY OH BOY DID I ABSOLUTELY FIND MY NEW FAVORITE POETRY COLLECTION/SERIES.
I read to make monsters out of girls earlier this week and when I saw this on netgalley, I snatched it so quick. I personally really loved lovelace's second poetry collection in her first series, but felt so so about the other two. I absolutely LOVED this one and the one before it. I really feel like amanda is just going to keep getting better and better because this collection is hands down one of the top 3 best poetry collections I've ever read. Her writing is so unique in the sense that she's writing about life and experiences but it feels like you're reading a fairytale or fantasy book. I loved the themes this touched on and really felt the emotion behind it and found myself so connected, even though it wasn't something I've experienced. I also love how all of her books include trigger warnings as I think that's so important. So if you're into modern poetry and love the feel of a fantasy story, I cannot recommend this enough!

This hit me with all the feels. I don't think I can leave a really good review on this because I have so many emotions. Some of these poems definitely hit home as I lost my mother to an incurable illness, some of them (poems) made me incredibly emotional.

I do appreciate that Amanda does put trigger warnings in the beginning of all her poetry collections.

Thank you to netgalley for giving me to opportunity to read this before its publication date.

"the ways in which they suffer themselves is not an excuse to make you suffer in return." Amanda Lovelace

I want to thank NetGalley for giving me a ARC of Amanda Lovelace's new poetry anthology for an honest review.

It must have been a real journey for Amanda to write this book let alone having to go through it all. This book is a journey for the reader as well as we have all grieved for someone. When I read about her mother's cancer, it inspired me to finally write about the loss of my Grandma. This book has helped me in my own grieving process. I think Amanda is very brave to have been able to publish this book out into the world for everyone to see. People will connect with it because it is about something so real. Death of a loved one is the worst part of our existence but sharing our grief will help others like this book has helped me.

I thought the art in this book was beautiful and worked perfectly with the poetry. Each chapter focused on a different part of the grieving process and explored feelings of guilt and love and hate. The last chapter showed Amanda's strength and I am so happy that I get to read her work. She is an inspiration to everyone. Being able to go through the things that she has but still living her life to the fullest is amazing. A Brilliant poetry anthology that I recommend all to read!

Amanda Lovelace keeps doing it. Her words are poignant and raw, they always strike as profoundly sincere and human. I respect her immensely for the courage needed to open yourself like that to the world, to pour your experiences and your pain and your soul and heart into words and give them to others as a gift.

In this book, Amanda focuses primarily on the relationship with her mother, which was a toxic one. And even though I cannot relate to this topic as much as I related to the topics on her previous books (because I have the immense luck of a great loving relationship with my mother, that I won’t take for granted anymore after this reading experience), the poems still managed to make me feel a lot. And that only speaks wonders of Amanda’s writing style. Someone capable of making you feel torn apart at things that didn’t even happen to you is an author that shouldn’t be ignored, but greatly celebrated.

I also love that she never focuses on the trauma alone, she talks about healing as an ever ongoing process and that, ultimately, there’s always hope. And that is okay to feel contradictory things about a person or a time of your life, all that you need is acceptance and the will to keep going.

I am clearly always going to read what this amazing woman writes, and I highly recommend the experience of her books. It’s an enriching one as no other is.

This books takes you along with the emotions that come along when your relationship with your mother is abusive and complicated, and then she passes away. It’s about grief, about how a sister can be a saviour, how the relationship with a parent can (and most often will) resonate in (love)relationships. With beautiful drawings (all black and white, with one color accent each), and of course the amazing wordcraft of Amanda Lovelace.

I highly recommend this book. Get it when it comes out the 17th of September. I recommend all her books. Buy them, read them, feel them.

Lovelace is one of my favourite poets and I’ve read most of her books now. I enjoyed this so much I bought a copy of the first book, To Make Monsters out Of Girls. These poems are very personal. Lovelace explores mothers and daughters and how the relationship between them is never simple. The mother in these poems seems to be cruel at times, verging on unhinged and abusive. Some of the poems were painful to read. As the poems were for the most part very short, no more than a few lines I read the collection fairly quickly. I would have enjoyed longer poems with a bit more substance. I looked forward to Lovelace’s next collection.

I’ve fallen in love with this author since the first book the princess saves herself in this one and this one doesn’t fail to compare to her raw emotional writing that hits in every way to me

This book starts with a list of trigger warnings that is bigger than some of the poems that follow so beware that some of these poems carry heavy emotions and heavy themes with them.
The book is divided into three parts: the first is about the author's relationship with her mother and all the ways in which she failed in protecting her daughter from the world and herself. The second part is about reconciling the good and the bad, learning to forgive the mother for what she couldn't change after getting sick and prematurely dying and still remember all the good moments that they had together. The third part is my favorite because it is about healing and finding a family.
My absolute favorite poems though are the one's about Amanda's spouse because they are what divides the sad poems from the happier ones.
Amanda's poetry is direct and heartfelt and I'm happy I finally had the opportunity of being introduced to her books.
This book is also illustrated and every drawing is absolutely beautiful.
Thank you to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for this ARC.

chills.
Thanks to Netgalley and the author for letting me read this piece of art.

I read this poetry collection in a very short amount of time, but let me state that it gave me enough to think about for days. I teared up, this is so important.

The Trigger Warnings section in the front reminded me that maybe literature today is headed in the right direction, with more and more authors including them in their works. I count myself fortunate for being able to start anything without even worrying about what's inside.
This fact and the book reminded me how fortunate I really am. For having parents who support me, and not having lost anyone really close to me, for having a relatively easy time while others have it terribly hard.

to drink coffee with a ghost made me think about how crucial it is to think twice before you talk: to avoid affecting those who look up to you in a harmful way.
Words hold endless power. As someone studying psychology, considering myself an empathic person, and trying my way of spiritualism I am well aware of how much it matters.

Please take care of others. Please be careful yourself.

The author showed me how much has happened to her and I rooted for her to get that happy ending, because some cases you just know that someone's a good person and they deserve it.

The art work in this poetry collection is absolutely gorgeous. Witchcraft, tarot and COFFEE are incredibly important things to me which means that I felt an even stronger connection to this on top of everything.

I'm so grateful to have been able to read it.

I am giving this book 4.75 stars!! This poetry book was so good!! I love this author so much and I can’t wait to have the finish copy in hands!! The book was also red for the reading especially for the challenge 6 which was Pick a book that has 5 or more words in the title !! Thanks to Netgalley for the e-arc in exchange of my honest review!!

Amanda Lovelace never fails in a fun amazing book full of poetry. She is one of my favorites. Can’t wait til her next one.

Amanda Lovelace is back, and while I admit to never being that into poetry, something about her work guts me, puts me back together again, and inspires me to get her words tattooed on my skin. Seriously, this collection of poems, which deals with similar issues to the first few of her books and also with the death of her mother, is powerful and beautiful and I can't recommend it enough. 

I love Lovelace's style of writing, the simplicity of her poems and how they pack a punch more than any sonnet ever could. The illustrations in this book are also amazing. While this book deals with a lot of things I've never experienced firsthand, I still couldn't stop reading and I can't wait for her next collection. She's a real gift for female readers, I know that.

As usual, Lovelace does not disappoint! I love Lovelace's storytelling and the way that she conveys her emotions and makes you feel them too. A few triggers, but it to read some real and raw you have to overlook the triggers. Definitely recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this wonderful book.

To Drink Coffee with a Ghost is Amanda Lovelace's second installment in her Things that Haunt Series. In This series of she explores her complicated relationship with her mother, who died of cancer, grief, and healing. I was enthralled by her writing once again, and the drawing between chapters in their autumn colors is such a beautiful touch.
I truly adore Amanda Lovelace's poetry. I have written every single book she has published. She has such a way with words, and how she shapes each poem to be related to an overarching theme is simply beautiful. I found myself relating to this one so much, as someone who has also lost a parent I loved reading the ones about grief and healing as I felt like it spoke to my soul.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
***
Every time I think, I can’t love Amanda Lovelace anymore than I do already.
Every time, I end up a liar.
To drink coffee with a ghost is Amanda’s exploration of her fraught relationship with her mom and finding peace in the good times and bad, and exploring how hard it is to go on afterwards.
I had a good relationship with my mom, but her words still spoke to me for the person I did have a tough relationship with. She spoke to my heart of how hard it is to forgive but want to get to that point. About how perception can change as you get older, how you can look back at that relationship and see it differently now. How sometimes that doesn’t really change the hurt, just how you view it. How we haunt ourselves with all the what if’s, could haves, should haves, and maybes.
I loved this collection and I can’t wait for it to go on sale so I can add it to my poetry shelf where I can bookmark my favorite pages and sink back into the words.