Letters to the person I was by Sana Abuliel is a deeply personal collection of poetry on the themes of forgiveness,reflection and self love. The book is divided into four parts , and as the reader processes through these sections they see the writer's growth . Some of the imagery used is striking, and there were several poems that spoke to me on a personal level. The poems may be short, most are a page or less, but that does not lessen their impact or power. This is a collection that will speak to many people and one that I will revisit.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Beautiful and sad. The artwork really sparks the book for me. This is such a heavy subject matter and for it to be handled in such a way is really inspiring. The come away the author had and the growth. The ability to learn to stop blaming oneself for others harm. It’s something I think most people can relate to at one time in their lives.

It wasn't the usual rhyming poetry style, it was different, writing a letter, more like a journal expressing feelings in an unstructured way. It wasn't rhyming but it did what it had to do, express feelings, pain, emotions. It spoke about how we try to blame what's not in our control, and try to save what can't be saved. The poet is inspired by her own feelings towards her friend who self harmed herself. It talked about breaking and how its inevitable, but it heals. It talks about the difference between love and what feels like love. It talks about selfish friendships and how in the end you only have yourself to depend upon, yourself to trust. It doesn't talk about family, or career.

Something about letters to the person i was gave me the feeling that I was going to love it. The cover, the title, the description all just gave me the same vibe that a lot of my other favourite poetry collections have given me. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite what I hoped for.

The poetry focuses intensely upon personal experiences, and many of those personal experiences were ones I could deeply relate to. I related to it in a way that was hard for me rather than cathartic. It gave me a lot of negative feelings and made me recollect bad memories in a way that isn't particularly helpful for me to recollect. While the journalistic style isn't my preference, it isn't a style I don't enjoy, but it did get rather repetitive here. At least, it made me feel repetitive reading it.

Some of the poems jumped out at me, some of the lines moved me, but mostly this was just hard for me to read in a way that I couldn't really appreciate. It feels more like something I might have appreciated a decade ago, but now it's just not something I fit into comfortably. I wouldn't recommend against it, because I recognise that my not enjoying it was for deeply personal readers and others may connect with it differently, but I will note that it deals with depression and self-harm, so it may be triggering for some readers.

three stars only because i've had bad days and i cried. i liked the style, but the content was not what i expected. i don't know if i would liked it if i was not sad when i read it.

A heartfelt and empowering compilation of poems told to her younger self, Letters to the Person I Was offers words of wisdom to herself experiencing heartwrenching past events.  Though I appreciated the sentimentality (especially the diary-esque dating system of the poetry), I wasn't too personally crazy about the content.  It was nice and sweet, but it didn't totally do it for me--though that  might have also been because of the typeface, which I wasn't too crazy about either.  I did enjoy, however, the manner in which the poetry was broken up.  Though still chronological as a whole in this book, each section broke apart the more painful to the more hopeful, and that I felt was a good, aspirational move.

letters to the person i was by Sana Abuleil is a collection of poetry born of a responsibility to convey that whatever the circumstances we currently find ourselves in, life is, ultimately, always worth living.

The verses flowed through my consciousness and many resonated on a deeply profound level. This is a substantive collection that is worthy of the time invested in ruminating on each beautiful word.

Thanks to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for this ARC.

This book is exactly what it says on the tin - letters/poems the author is writing to younger iterations of herself - and yet it's exactly this that confused me while reading it and makes me not really know how to review it now.

First off, I'm unsure about how I feel about calling chopped-off sentences with no real rhyme or structure (yes, yes, free verse) poetry, but I do sometimes find them effective, both in this book and in general.

It was more the content that made me unsure of who this was meant for and where it was all going. The letters are sorted chronologically, but some of the earlier ones seem a bit too heavy to be messages to a 12-year-old girl (or maybe I'm just insensitive and underestimating kids?). They were deeply personal but also frustratingly abstract (is this a cop-out? or is it art?). They were, after a while, slightly repetitive, and uniformly depressing - and then, at later points in the book, extremely self-aware. ("my poems are all / starting to sound the same / they blur into each other")

And, somehow, that was what threw me off the most, that the author knew how she was coming across, supposedly to her younger self, but really to her readers, was aware of the weaknesses in her approach and chose to forge on without changing it.

It begs the question of who the book is for. There must be an audience for it, someone who, like the younger iterations of the author, really does need to hear that they are important in a hundred different varieties. I liked a handful of said varieties, but wasn't really the right audience for the rest.

Such beautiful words! I feel like a lot of this is highly relatable to who I was in the past as well. I wish the file would have been able to be downloaded on my kindle, but I ended up being able to read it on my phone.

This is a collection of poems to a younger self, dated and illustrated. The poems talk about hardships, terrible experiences of abuse and hurt and a slow return to some kind of hope.
I didn't particularly enjoy this anthology to be honest.
It started with the font and I know I have a digital ARC and things can change but the font was so awful to read, I was distracted by it so often, I had trouble focussing on the poems themselves. Please do consider changing it before the release because it drove me insane!
As for the illustrations, they're cute and modern, but they also felt like a way to fill pages independently of whether they matched the general theme of the poems or not.
As for the poems. I get it. Modern poetry doesn't rhyme and verses are just ways of giving rhythm to long sentences. But this felt at once too personal for me to relate and also too distant for me to feel whatever the poet was talking about. I mean, I read the poems but I didn't feel like there was any part of it that I wanted to go back to at a later instance. Overall, it just wasn't what I expected and maybe my hopes were too high, but this just didn't meet them.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was very moving and an important read. I feel that things like this should be read by everyone, as it is one way to truly understand and connect with others. I loved everything about this.

Thank you netgalley for providing the e-arc in exchange of an honest review.
This poem books was in way of a journal , and some of them are so raw that they make you feel the sadness. The book was short and good read. Do read it when it comes out next year!

i don't know if i would call this a poetry book because its more like a self reflection journal. I felt there was struggle in this book because of how similar each poem was but i feel this book fits with the current authors coming out with poetry such as "Rupi Kaur" and even the title not having proper punctuations just like Kaur. this poetry didn't work for me but parts of it did show the authors pain and growth it just wasn't enough to save the book in my opinion

I had high hopes for this one.
Sadly, I couldn’t really get into the writing style of this book. Interesting and relevant topic and beautiful illustrations.

Poetry is so hard to review and evaluate. It’s such a personal journey and if you’re not on the same journey or haven’t been on it it can often be difficult to understand and interpret. This is such a beautiful book of poetry however I think that anyone could relate or appreciate it.

This is the new style of poetry that Rupi Kaur does so well. Sadly this one misses the mark. Without anything flowing like we are used to for poetry, they should be thought provoking and this poetry collection didn't do that for me. The writing was flat and lacked flow and style. It is such a heavy topic (self harm) but the collection didnt bring me in emotionally like it should have.

I found it difficult to read because of the childish font and the illustrations. They just didn't match.

Overall, this would be a pass for me.

This is a poetry collection in the popular modern style of journal poetry, very self focused and not exceptionally poetic. The style of all of the poems was fairly similar, leading to a kind of run-on journal feel of it about the author's life. Little color sketches accompany some of the poems. Some readers may enjoy the poems because they relate to them, but it feels so personal that it doesn't feel relatable, yet it feels so impersonal that the reader doesn't feel much empathy either. Not a lot of poetic devices are used here, just free verse poetry about her life and unhappiness for the most part.

Trigger warning-- self harm. There are other minor triggers too, but this is a big one from the start.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

I really enjoyed what this voice in verse had to offer in this collection. I’m glad to share good things about this book as a lover of poetry.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher, for providing me with an advanced e-copy for an honest review.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: self-harm, suicide, abusive relationships, depression, and anxiety.

I had a weird experience ready this book because it’s the first time I’ve actually felt triggered while reading something, but I could relate a lot with the feelings presented on this collection especially those of the first and second sections. Still, I felt like the way it was written made feel the author detached from her own words and feelings. I did, however, loved the aesthetics (drawings and font) of the book. I feel that it sets it apart from most poetry collections.

Book's release date: February 25th, 2020 by Andrews McMeel Publishing

I found the collection frustrating. It was deeply personal, yet somehow, it felt like the writer was detached from the writing. I’m not sure I’d even classify this as poetry, so much as stream of consciousness writing. There’s not really anything lyrical or poetic or groundbreaking about the writing. It’s just…fine.

I also found the aesthetics of this book rather distracting. The font choice made it difficult to read. The graphics were oversized and thus overwhelmed the writing. Overall, a miss for me.