This poetry collection is an honest exploration of love and the many ways it can manifest. The author bares her heart in her beautiful prose.

my thoughts
*cracks knuckles* *references goodreads updates*

*sips the now available pumpkin spiced frap from starbucks*

– first impressions –
okay, let’s dive right in.

First things first, I want to shout my love to the world for this stunning COVER (!!!). Just look at it! I was scrolling through NetGalley’s poetry section when my eyes saw this beauty, and I IMMEDIATELY requested this book. The cover drew me in and the synopsis finished the deal. SOOOOO shouts to Divyani Jaiswal for creating the cover for this collection. It’s beautiful. Period.

SECOND !!! The book starts out with a TRIGGER WARNING so fucking PROPS to Catarine for that. Trigger warnings, especially in poetry (where emotions and experiences tend to be particularly highlighted) are something I don’t often see included, at least for a lot of the books I’ve read. I personally find them to be very important, so thank you to Catarine for including one.

٩( ᐛ )و

– content –
And now for the actual content 🙂 I really enjoyed reading this collection. I was sucked into each of Catarine’s relationships, and I could see and feel how they impacted her life and her following relationships. I loved the poems a lot, and there was some slight variation in format, which was nice and refreshing as the book progressed. The collection is very ~internet poetry~ but that happens to be one of my favorite types of poetry despite the critical hate it sometimes receives. I find it to be very relatable, personally, and beautiful to read. Catarine’s poetry is very similar to Amanda Lovelace in style and formatting, so take that as you will.

The collection is split into six sections, each referencing a love in Catarina’s life. They are titled: Ruby Red, Ocean Blue, Primrose Pink, Stormy Gray, Golden Yellow, & Emerald Green. The colors reference the title of the work, Shades of Love, very clearly (because, colors––duh) and do a good job of reflecting the experience Catarina had with each of said loves.

There were some reoccurring poems that are seen throughout this collection that I haven’t seen in other works (and because of that I immensely enjoyed it) that are featured in each section.

– sections based on a boy: I already touched on this, but it breaks up the collection nicely and you can tell the difference in emotion for each love

– words of advice: advice she learned from each relationship

– poems to herself on self-love: a note on the evolution of her self-love during each of her relationships and how it changed, for better or worse

– end letters: at the end of each section, she wrote a letter (mostly goodbyes) to each of the boys from her past relationships, reflecting on her current thoughts and feelings and her wishes for them in the future

– things that remind me of you: a cute (mostly)* list of things and moments that remind her of each relationship, again, for better or for worse

– scenes: CUTE (mostly)* little scenes representing each of her relationships. It really does a good job of introducing the boys and their interactions

Another point, most of the relationships Catarine describes are from her high school years, as she is currently 20 years old. BUT, it absolutely does not come across this way. Quoting directly from my goodreads updates, “it seems much older and yet ageless at the same time; it could be anyone, any gender, any age.” Yeah 🙂

*note: one of her relationships was VERY TOXIC, hence the mostly* on some of my comments

– critiques –
Honestly, I don’t have too much to critique on this work; I really enjoyed it. I think at some times the poems didn’t feel much like poems, but phrases broken up into short lines in free verse, much like many internet poetry poems. Also, there was one poem in particular that I didn’t like, as to me it came across as a toxic way to look at a relationship that wasn’t passionate enough in her opinion, but that was a one-off. And as I mentioned before, not necessarily a bad thing, I couldn’t help but relate Catarine’s poems and writing style to poets such as Amanda Lovelace and Rupi Kaur. Basically, I feel like I’ve seen some of this before, but luckily I really enjoy it.

wrap up
So this completes my review for Catarine Hancock’s Shades of Lovers. ٩( ᐛ )و I do recommend checking out this book if you think you’d like it and I recommend it to anyone who likes internet poetry. Overall:

rating = 4 stars

Dieser Gedichtband ist in sechs verschiedene Abschnitte gegliedert, die jeweils eine Beziehung der Autorin zu einem Jungen/einem Mann beschreiben. Die Partner wurden dabei mittels Farben anonymisiert: ruby red, ocean blue, primrose pink, stormy gray, golden yellow und emerald green. Jeder Abschnitt enthält mehrere Gedichte, welche das Kennenlernen, den Verlauf der Beziehung und die Nachwirkungen in poetischen Worten wiedergeben.

Mir hat sehr gefallen, wie reflektiert die Autorin ihre Beziehungen beschreibt. Jede wurde anders von ihr wahrgenommen, manche haben sie sehr verletzt und fast zerbrochen, andere wiederum haben sie heilen lassen und ihr etwas Selbstvertrauen wiedergegeben. Der Vergleich mit den Farben hat mir ebenfalls sehr gefallen, da die Partner hierdurch greifbarer wurden. Die Gedichte in "Shades of Lovers" erzählen von der Liebe in all ihren Facetten, von Vertrauen und gemeinsamen Erlebnissen, von Schmerz und Verrat und schlussendlich von der Erkenntnis, dass man zuerst sich selbst lieben muss.

Dass die Autorin erst Anfang Zwanzig ist, mindert weder die Sprachgewalt ihrer Gedichte, noch deren Tiefgründigkeit und Weisheit. Ich bin gespannt auf ihre nächsten Werke und vergebe sehr empfehlenswerte 4,5 Sterne.


In English:

This volume of poetry is divided into six different sections, each of which describes a relationship between the author and a boy / a man. The partners were anonymized using colors: ruby ​​red, ocean blue, primrose pink, stormy gray, golden yellow and emerald green. Each section contains several poems that describe the meeting, the course of the relationship and the aftermath in poetic terms.

I really liked how reflective the author describes her relationships. Each relationship was perceived differently by her, some hurt her very much and almost broke her, others let her heal and gave her back some self-confidence. I also really liked the comparison with the colors, as it made the partners more tangible. The poems in "Shades of Lovers" tell of love in all its facets, of trust and shared experiences, of pain and betrayal and, ultimately, of the realization that you have to love yourself first.

The fact that the author is only in her early twenties does not diminish the linguistic power of her poems, nor their profundity and wisdom. I am looking forward to her next work and give this volume of poetry a very recommendable 4.5 stars.

Shades Of Lovers by Catarine Hancock - 2.5/5 stars

Trigger Warnings: Breakups, Unhealthy Relationships, Depreciation

I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Shades Of Lovers is a poetry collection depicting a series of relationships throughout our narrators life and her journey to self-love. It is told through a modern poetry format and separated by relationship.

I will preface this review by saying that I don't have much experience with poetry, but I am hoping to change that.

This novel was unique and interesting, but ultimately not my favorite. I liked how it was divided by the different loves that were had throughout our narrator's life, but the writing style - while beautiful at times - was a little lackluster for me. I found myself wanting to be more invested than I was, unfortunately. There were a couple of lines that really got to me, but the overall collection was good but didn't stand out very much.

This was good and I definitely recommend it! Just not my perfect collection.

I DNFed this one. I wanted to like it but it was hard to follow and the format didn't help. While I tried to get through it, it just wasn't for me. On a positive note, the lyrical writing was beautiful which really made me sad that I was having such difficulty following.

Such amazingly beautiful poetry, covering a range of relationships and previous loves, Catarina really covers the full range of emotions as you read though these stunning and often powerful poems. These felt more unusual a style than I usually read, but I found them wonderfully accessible and inviting as you read through. The poet sharing her journey of emotions , honest and raw felt very refreshing in the style the poet chose. Stunning

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

First, I would like to thank the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was really excited to read SHADES OF LOVERS, thinking it would be akin to Rupi Kaur's books. In SHADES OF LOVERS, Hancock describes, through poems that range in length, her previous "loves" and how they changed her (and how they ended). It's a lovely idea, which is what drew me to the book in the first place, but unfortunately I just don't feel that this was well executed. There are three main aspects of this book that hindered its storytelling for me: repetitive sentiments with little variation in wording, a significant feeling of "telling" rather than "showing," and a fairly consistent sense that the author blames the people that these poems are about for "breaking" her.

It would seem that this book is divided by past love, with sections of poems dedicated to one past love, and another section of poems dedicated to a different past love. I was so excited to see how the tone of the poems would change depending on who they were written about, but they just all felt... the same. If you lifted a poem from the first section and dropped it into the fourth, I don't think I'd be able to tell they'd been moved. The sentiment felt the same throughout, and with over a hundred poems in these pages, that's a lot of one sentiment to explore.

As I read these poems, I didn't have the opportunity to gauge emotion through the writing; the feelings were told, not shown, which was a huge obstacle for me in getting into this book.

Finally, I felt that SHADES OF LOVERS was really just a big "f*#k you" to the people these poems are about, rather than an exploration of how these relationships shaped and changed the author. Don't get me wrong--I am all for a good heartbreak book (it's kind of my thing, actually), but these poems just felt like the author was playing the blame game rather than celebrating the vibrant woman we assume she's become.

I really liked this poetry collection! I found that the style and format was more modern than I’m use to reading in regards to poetry, but I really like how’s it would flow in a traditional stanza and then move into more of a prose paragraph. I thought that this was really interesting. I also enjoyed the different takes on love and all of the intense emotions that come with that. This was also a quick read and really accessible for people who maybe aren’t use to reading poetry, or who would like to start on the genre. The formatting on the ereader did go a bit wonky sometimes but it didn’t take away from the experience.

This was a very interesting read! Iveread a couple of love poetry collection already but most of them focused on heartbreak and then a love at the end that makes everything you're going through worth it. This one however, includes every love of the author. The good and the bad she learned from every person, what stuck with her, what she thinks about when she thinks about that specific person. The poems are sometimes addressed at those loves as well and she is comparing them to a color that represents their impact on her. It felt like you were part of the authors life and could see her get over some things so she could finally be at peace with her thoughts and her body.

Overall a very interesting poetry book and definitely different from every poetry collection I've read.

4/5 stars

I'm just starting to dip my toe into the world of collected poetry, but I genuinely really enjoyed reading Shades of Lovers by Catarine Hancock.

I ended up highlighting so much of this book on my Kindle- the emotions the author laid out were so relatable to me, and I think one of the most important aspects of poetry is being able to find yourself in and between the lines of someone else's words.

I love how each significant other was likened to a colour- it makes each phase of the book, the details of each relationship, stand out in stark contrast from one other in my mind. There are so many emotions that are explored in snippets that feel both so raw yet complete at the same time; innocent love, pure rage, dark questioning, and everything in between.

I definitely would recommend this, especially to readers who, like myself, are just starting to explore collected editions of poetry.

This work was absolutely beautiful. I read it in one sitting and loved every page of it. Catarine Hancock writes of her various love stories throughout her life - the good and beautiful, and the abuse and heartbreak. From her first love to her current relationship, Catarine touches on trust, butterflies, lies, abuse, and, the most overwhelming resonant thing to me, about losing yourself (and your identity) in a relationship and fighting to get that back.

Even for me, an almost 30-year old woman, Catarine's writings bring back those jittery feelings of first love and that pit-dropping moment of first real heartbreak in college.

I will immediately go and add her other work to my Goodreads TBR.

I absolutely loved this! It was so beautifully written! I think that it captures the emotions and feelings really well! I can't wait to read more from this author!

Thanks to #Netgalley for making this book available to me.
This book is a collection of 'poems' and short stories that explore relationships, that is, the ups and downs of a loving relationship.
Personally I didn't connect with the writing, it just didn't touch me as much as I wanted it to because some of the poems were so powerful and beautiful.
I feel that love is different for everyone and rather than these poems making love general and more relatable, it was plainly from the perspective of the writer (which is not bad, it just made me unable to connect to the soul of the writer, we seem to have not a lot in common).
But I did love how passionate the writer is and how explosive her emotions are on the page, you could feel the hurt and loss of every relationship through each poem which is for me the power of poetry.
My favorite part of this book is in "all in a conversation" which tells the story of finding lost love and how painful and hard it is rekindling that love, it seems to be more painful rekindling old love than it is finding a new one.
I hope you check it out.

2/2.5 stars.

This collection of poetry was not for me. While I do not claim to be a poetry expert, I think I have read enough to know what I like and what I do not. And what I do not like is poetry that is just a normal sentence with line breaks. I do not like poetry that is overdramatized and over the top in the feelings.

Hancock wrote in the first couple of pages that people “discredit” her work because of how young she is. And maybe I am one of those people, but I felt like this collection of poetry was something I could find in my own middle school journals. The author is 20 while writing this and it did not feel that mature.

The chapter I had particular problems with was chapter 5. While I have no idea what went down in the relationship she is talking about, it felt like she spent the entire time talking about how great she is and is very defensive about someone having certain feelings towards her that she doesn’t like. People are entitled to their own opinions and feelings. Then in chapter 6 she had a few lines that felt contradictory to what she was saying in chapter 5.

With all of that being said there was a few lines from the first chapter I highlighted because I enjoyed them. Maybe I am the wrong audience for this collection. Maybe it resonates better with teenagers.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC; all opinions are my own. And thank you to Catarine Hancock for composing such an emotive book of poetry.

Wow. I felt so many things whilst reading this: I smiled and I cried. The five stars that I'm giving this book is well deserved. I hope in the future that I will pick up more of the poet's works.

This was incredible.

I wish there was something I could say that was thoughtful and made this poetry collection it’s justice but I find that I fall short.

I think that the structure of this and the colors given to this was incredibly smart. I liked it very much, I think I mostly related to the first love & the chaotic love. Most poems resonated with my past loves and the impact they had on my life, body and mind. They reflected the thoughts that I once had, the not feeling enough, the insecurities that come from basing your worth and love on someone and having them betray you. The emotions of that are brought out when you continue to ignore yourself because you’re too busy trying to heal and be with someone who only brings destruction.

I will say this once more, it was incredible and beautifully done. You can’t help but the reflection that comes after reading something so deep and heart wrecking. You can’t help but be transported back to those moments of happiness, heartbreak and unconditional love. I think that this has something for everyone.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity and a big thank you to the publisher!

Now, I usually find 'love' poetry a little bit pretentious - however this truly gave me 'all the feels'

Hancock's prose is fantastic - she has a way of writing that feels so original, yet is so relatable. I felt like I could relate to all stages of romance, and love within this collection. I really love the way she writes about different relationships and the different way these relationships made her feel. Not only how she felt overall, but how her relationship towards herself changed - depending on the relationship she was in. I found this fascinating. It made me think back to my past relationships and where my own life could fit in with that of Catarine's.

To me, poetry MUST make you feel something - and this book definitely makes me feel! It goes through a variety of emotions - but I am very glad that it ends on a positive not.
I cannot believe that Catarine Hancock is only 20!! Her relationships within this book feel like they could have been a whole life's worth of love and heartbreak.

I will definitely be reading more of her work!!

Before stumbling upon this book on Netgalley, I had never heard of The author (though apparently she is decently famous). Now that I have experienced her works, I am looking forward to reading everything she puts out after this.

Hancock’s prose is intense, honest and deep, making all the poetry scream life and loss, I think for anyone, this would be an enjoyable read. But for those who have experienced things similar to what she writes about, it is cathartic and stunning to read. She mentions age and how people do not see her as worthy due to it, but there is a raw maturity about her, work, as well as a good deal of gorgeous and intelligent metaphors within the poems. I loved the fact that it is set up as an anthology of sorts, each ‘story’ another lover. It’s clever and beautiful, and I enjoyed reading it all in one sitting.

Just another complete success from Central Avenue Publishing. This is my first taste of Hancock's writing, and it is as heartbreaking but uplifting as I have come to expect from this publishing agency. The eloquence found within the pages of this book hit straight to the soul.

Shades Of Lovers
TW: poor mental health (anxiety & depression), mentions of suicide, poor body image, an abusive relationship, cheating and manipulation - all warned at the start of the book as well.

This book consists of six short poems that are about an ex-love fulfilled with anger, distress and about closure to the end of a bad relationship. Each follows teenagers, mainly their first 'real love' and how they are feeling later on in life. Each poem is unique in their way each is great when you become emersed into them. This book is easy to get through and really short.

I liked the inclusion of the same themes of what a person remembers them by, what they missed and the realisation that the relationship was not the best for them. Each person realised the mistakes they had made and took accountability for their actions.

Overall it's a great anthology of love poems and worth the read. recommended to anyone.