DNF'ed at 42%. I just could not put myself through this. I just could not. I expected better from Cody and it also happened to be one of those poetry books I so wanted to read since I saw it on NetGalley. I don't know if it was the writing style that I had an issue with or if it was not for me but I just could not put myself through it. I am glad I read a borrowed copy since the arc was archived before I downloaded it. I will not be visiting this one again to give it a chance because for the second time I am DNFing a book and for the first time, I am not feeling guilty about it.
Giving this a one because that's the minimum rating.

Not every singer can be a poet. The poems were too disconnected and failed to convey meaning or produce any kind of imagery for the reader. Not a good effort.

As a fan of Cody Simpson, I wanted to fall in love with this one. Sadly, it fell really short. It had no real flow to it, and it felt incredibly disconnected.

This poetry collection was okay. I found the style to be too flowery and over-the-top. It was difficult for me to understand the hidden meanings and metaphors. Using simpler language would have made the poems more effective. Because of that, I could not connect to the poems emotionally and felt confused most of the time. Some of the poems did not make any sense and this decreased my enjoyment level.
Overall, this collection fell flat for me.

I will not be continuing on with this book due to personal reasons. I found one poem to be too blasphemous and I am all for freedom of religion and expression in art, but I don't have to support an author who thinks that Apollo is more powerful than Jesus Christ. For that reason, I will not be posting reviews of this novel to my blog or Goodreads account.

This was an interesting poetry collection. Usually I prefer reading women’s POVs in poetry but Cody’s was refreshing and enjoyable.

“Son, there are millions of fish in the sea. Find yourself a mermaid” p.60

2.5 stars

I requested this book mainly because of the author, I love Cody Simpson´s work and I wanted to explore what he could do in the poetry environment. The poems in the beginning were strong and I kept telling myself “wow if all the poems are going to be like this I think I have just found a new favorite poetry collection”, however I was so disappointed that only the first few poems were that strong.

Like I said, the first few poems were strong, however I am sad to say that the poems that followed were not for me at all. In my opinion, the author tried to be very sophisticated, using metaphors in every sentence and using words that just left me feeling like I had no idea what was going on. I was constantly saying “what is he talking about” “what does he mean” and maybe this is a reflection of how bad of a poetry reader I am but I was so confused for almost all of the collection.

I was sad I did not enjoy this more, I truly wanted to love this and get a more personal glimpse in the life and thoughts of the author since I love his work and what he does. But I could not get into this, there was no common theme, he used words that were just difficult to understand and it changed the overall meaning and tone and moreover, this poetry collection tried way too hard to be more than it is.

I am disappointed that I couldn’t find many positive things about this collection, but I truly had a hard time getting through this book even though it was 128 pages.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read and review this collection.

If you like his work as a singer, you may like his poetry - even if you don't like him as a singer his poems are nicely done about different issues. Decent and varying lengths.

"Artists are those most apt to seduce us to life."

This stuck with me and there are snippets here and there that would be memorable for readers. I love that the author drew inspiration from Poseidon :-) and it's obvious that he loves being out in the waters because it's the overriding theme in the collection.

Being his first collection, I'm looking forward to more of his work...

Thanks Netgalley for the eARC.

I thought this was a good first book for the author. You can tell he’s young, but has a lot of potential. I think he will just get better as time goes on and I hope he sticks with this theme. I love the title.

this collection tried way too hard. Most of the poems made no sense. There was no theme except water/ocean but that wasn't portrayed in a way that kept the collection cohesive. It felt like a lot of unfinished ideas and poems written with words that made the poems sound pretentious.

O boy,where to begin... There were a couple of poems in the beginning that I liked,but everything else just was not working. After every other poem I would catch myself thinking "What is he even talking about?", because seriously what is he talking about? Where would be some pretentious line about the universe and our place in it and in the next line he would get a hard on. A pretentious line about meditation and being present and in the next line "semen sprawled on trees". There was no comment theme to the poems, no beauty in the words. And most of the time I could not make sense of it. Another great example:"We may wear different clothes but we wear the same sun". How the hell do you wear a sun exactly?
This poetry collection sadly did not work for me.
Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This wasn't the greatest book of poetry I've ever read but it had some potential in some of the poems. There wasn't much of a spark to this book which I found disappointing as apart from afew of the poems, the book fell flat for me.

So I felt that the poet was trying too hard to make poetry. I haven’ t read a lot of a lot of poetry. But I felt that the author was using trying to hard to use certain words they felt should be in poetry instead of just writing exactly what they were feeling.

This sounds like an interesting concept, and coming from a musician, which has me intrigued. I was not able to open the pdf egalley but I thank you for it anyway. I will keep an eye out for it when it releases.

From Netgalley in an exchange for an honest review.

I found this to be both boring and didn't get very much out of it.

This was such a disappointing book and a time waster too. I am trying to come up with something good to say but honestly, I can't think of any!

It has no flow whatsoever. He used words that could have been either eliminated or changed into simpler words. I personally think that he was trying too much and forcing out words. The majority of the poems barely made any sense at all.

I'm sorry but that is what I think of this book, I absolutely do not recommend it!

I was not fond of this at all. I could tell that the poet was trying too hard to use words to make his prose sound fancier and that’s just not really how poetry works. The flow wasn’t there and I didn’t enjoy it.