I really enjoy amanda lovelace's poetry, and the You Are Your Own Fairy Tale series is my favorite of her work. This is a lovely retelling of Cinderella that isn't cliché or predictable at all. It has a lot of good "big sister advice" that I could see being especially useful to younger readers. And the illustrations make the whole thing so much more fun to read.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me an eARC in exchange for an honest review. I was so excited to get this one early!

I really enjoyed reading this! I loved the way magic and fairytale vibes were woven into the poems. The tone was a nice combination of melancholia but still also hope. I'm sure teenage me would've gotten even more out of this as these words didn't necessarily offer me anything new that I wouldn't have read (or realized myself) before, but it was still a very good read nonetheless.

4/5 stars
Amanda Lovelace delivers another heartfelt book that speaks about the pressures of society. I truly enjoyed the artwork that also went with poetry. This is an empowering collection of poetry that I will read again and again. Thanks to NetGalley and McMeel Publishing for this ARC.

I'm not one for poetry but I really enjoy Amanda Lovelace and the style of poetry she writes.

These were read right when they needed to be.

I voluntarily agreed to read an early copy via Netgalley. My rating is 4 stars.

I can’t express how much I love reading Amanda Lovelace! I’d like to say this one is her best so far, but they’re all just always so good.

This collection of poetry is completely relatable and exceedingly empowering for women everywhere. Every women and girl should read these poems, because they hold strong messages that we need to know and be reminded of. This is one that I’ll go back and reread a lot!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early arc of this one! I will be purchasing it to ass to my collection.

A beautiful work as always! Lovelace has a knack for writing words to empower women. Her mix of prose and modern fairytale elements is what every woman needs when they are not feeling like their true warrior self.

This collection of poems, like the others that I have read by Amanda Lovelace, has a message of female empowerment and self-love that comes very close to me.

It speaks to us of loving oneself, of not depending on the affection of others, of not allowing what others think to affect us. It tells us that it is okay to want to have a fairy tale without a prince, that it is okay not to want to reproduce it, that we should not judge each other but support each other regardless of the decisions we make.

I'm dying to keep reading more than Amanda writes and I can only say THANK YOU.

As a huge lover of Amanda's work, I was really happy to learn that she'll release a new collection of poems in 2021!
"Every night she hears
a small, persistent voice
that tries to convince her that

no one has ever felt
as sad or as lonely
or as insignificant

as she does right noc
- snow princess"
I loved as always the construction of shine your icy crown. The messages are. strong and important. Yet, this time, I had issues being really into it. It seems a little too familiar with her previous works and I would've like changes!

It is still a really great book for all my poetry lover!

(3.25) I've never been a huge fan of Amanda Lovelace (see my previous reviews of her works), but this was a clear step up from the first two books in her 'Women Are Some Kind of Magic' series (which is what I have read from her). The poetry in this book is not as repetitive as a lot of its peers, which is a fresh breath of air, and I wouldn't say this book is repetitive in the first place. As always, the messaging is good. There were plenty of ideas that Lovelace brought up, which I appreciated, and I think she was able to explore them, even in such a short book. The only big problems I had with this book were the same problems I have with the rest of this subgenre of poetry, so that's more of a me thing than an authorial mistake. Plus, one thing that surprised me was that I actually related to some of the poems. I practically never relate to "Instagram poetry" (Lovelace might not post on Instagram but either way, she falls into that style), but there were a few poems that hit me a little bit, and that was a massive step forward for my thoughts on Lovelace's writing.

So, overall, this was a book that redefined my relationship with the author. It wasn't my favorite thing ever, but I'm excited to see how she improves down the road!

This is not the first collection I have read by Amanda Lovelace, and it will not be the last. I own previous volumes and enough of the content in this one made me go "oh yeah", or want to write it down as a daily motto, that I may even purchase a physical copy of this collection too.

The structure follows a modern twist on a fairytale, with bits of "big sister" (think female to female) advice and motivation interspersed throughout.

It made me think and made me feel empowered.

Yes, some of it is stating the "obvious" but women often need reminded of things like our independence and worth.

It is also not what you'd maybe consider "classic" poetry, but more in line with the popular instagram poetry movement, and also includes prose. In that sense, it is almost like a collection of micro-essays/letters to uplift and motivate.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my eARC of this latest collection.

I loved this book so much! I loved telling the story through a fairytale and a big sister. I am a big sister and have told my sister so many of these things. I kept sending them so many of these poems because they resonated.

This was such a beautiful book. Rather than ignoring the social political context within which we all exist, it leans into the curve & provides a beautiful argument in favor of body autonomy, inclusive feminism, and unconditional love.

I think the overall message of this poetry collection is so important and necessary for everyone to hear, but younger girls especially. However, at times I found the prose paragraphs to come off as a little preachy. There were many instances of telling vs showing. The illustrations were beautiful and I think they were a great addition to the text!

*1.5*

As someone who would generally describe themselves as a "poetry lover" I was interested in dipping my toes into what the contemporary poetry world has to offer and was sorely disappointed by what I found. I have never read any of Amanda Lovelace's other collections, but the other glowing reviews I read across platforms had me excited for what to expect. Let me start here -- if you are a lover of the classics like Plath, Louise Gluck, or even Emily Dickinson, or Robert Frost -- this collection is not for you.

This book is definitely a part of the ongoing and growing ( :( ) trend of what is dubbed "instagram poetry" where the "poems" are short, on-the-nose thoughts that are presented as sentences split into multiple lines to make it look like a poem. While there are a lot of good thoughts and good messages (albeit a bit cliched) that I think could benefit little girls during those painful, confusing stages of growing up, none of it really feels like poetry. And I'm not trying to be a gatekeeper here -- and sorry if I'm coming off that way -- but many of the "poems" in this book felt like the note you would write down when you have an idea for the core message/theme that you want to build you poem around, bolstered with metaphor and wordplay and other literary devices that allow the reader to come to their own conclusions and glean multiple things from it with each successive read.

"the only time
a boy ever
asks her out
is for a laugh.

after so long,
she begins
to see herself
as the joke too.

-punch line."

"'you'd be so much prettier if...'
you'll never get a boyfriend if you don't...'

-what they tell her."

Neither of these poems leave room for personal interpretation. They are simply thoughts that exist that many of us have thought before. Sure, that makes it #relatable, but is it profound? Is it "beautiful" (as many reviewers have described her work)?

As I said before, there are a few great tidbits of wisdom that many of us learn as we grow up and mature, and I appreciate the feminist messaging, but it saddens me a bit that this is what we are calling poetry today. It would be better labelled as a self-help book of positive affirmations for little girls.

I realize now that I am not the intended audience for this book, but these are my honest thoughts while reading. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in return for my review.

This is a beautiful poetry collection highlighting feminist topics and learning to love yourself as you are. The art in this book is beautiful and I think all of the poems flow together really well within the fairytale theme. There is a warning at the beginning that certain sensitive topics will be discussed, which I also appreciated greatly.

The latest installment in Amanda Lovelace’s poetry collection, shine your icy crown, is absolutely stunning. The collection glitters with beautiful art, short and sweet poems, and an elegant balance between the voice of a younger vs bigger sister. I like that you can really interpret the voice of the big sister however you want: a friend, sister, kind inner voice? My favorite poems were the ones which encouraged bravery, kindness (to yourself and others), and independence. This would be an excellent collection for someone looking to learn more about poetry or for a Lovelace fan. Shine your icy crown releases on January 26, 2021. Thank you to Amanda Lovelace, Andrews McMeel Publishing, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For the publisher: My review will be posted on the publication date and I will publish it on Instagram, Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble etc.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this work of poetry. I have read everything from Lovelace and I was very excited to see she had a new book coming out! Just like her others, I LOVED it. It is all about the reasoning that a princess does not need a prince. I really like the messages coming from this one. Definitely recommend.

I have seen Amanda Lovelace's books EVERYWHERE. (I mean, who hasn't.) And the simple covers have always drawn my attention. Then the titles. Just so creative in their simplicity.
This, however, was my first read of hers.
I like that they are not just individual poems compiled into a book, but that they are in fact a story. The first part especially is a story of two sisters: one who has learned hard lessons that she is trying to pass on to her younger sister, and one who is learning...but not from her sister's mistakes, but by listening to the lies and voices of others. It's really creatively put together. It's almost like the two sisters are the two sides of every girl. The one who knows the truth, and the one who hears and believes the lies around us. I felt like I related to both sisters at different times of my life...or my day.
Some of the poems were outright stunning.
Some of them were too in your face feminist for me, too in your face agenda-y. But that's the lovely part of poetry. Poets get to do that. They get to bleed on the page and be in your face, because of the nature of the writing.
Some of the poems were just two lines. Some filled the page. Some were prose.
Many of them were just pieces of advice. Not in a bad way, but also not necessarily in an original way. She just so happened to put them in poetic format and coin them as her own.

I don't know if I'll read another of Lovelace's poetry collections. It intrigued me. And it still does. But I don't know if I'll read through an entire collection again.

I was hoping for more.

I'm going through a rough time, so a feminist poetry night with scented candles and hot cocoa was felt like the ultimate comfort. Unfortunately, shine your icy crown didn't work for me. I am fully behind its ideology - however, the content was just not satisfying. There two or three passages I highlighted and sat with for a while, which is not quite enough. The rest felt superficial to me.

This was my first book by Amanda Lovelace and I'm really nervous about reading her earlier work - although I'm pretty sure the first book will be good.

This review reflects my own reading experience, not the author's talent, thoughts, feelings, beliefs or experiences.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked this one. It is about empowerment, feminism, being authentically you. It talks about self-care, anxiety, depression, feeling out of sorts, losing yourself to your mental illness and how that can be okay sometimes as long as we can get ourselves out of that place.