I really enjoyed this selection of poetry and have even since read it 3 more times. I really liked how calming the selection was to me even though it's been a little while since I have read it.

Firstly, I'd like to thank Netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for an eARC for an honest opinion.

I haven't read any of S.K. Williams poetry before so thought I would give this book a read. I think the cover is really beautiful but that is probably the only positive I can say about this book. Apparently each poem was from the perspective of either the male or female of the relationship but this wasn't stated in the book anywhere and wasn't clear at all, only when I read other reviews that said it was the case. It's a collection of love poetry that seems to go through all the stages of the relationship. It really dragged and took me over a month to finish even though it was under 200 pages.

I found all the poetry very cheesy and simple and not really poetry at all. Just really cheesy pieces of writing. I didn't connect to the writing and just felt it was rather simple and generic. I've read collections of good love poetry before and this was not it. I really just wanted more from this collection and didn't get it. I can see this has very mixed reviews so some people obviously enjoyed but this wasn't for me.

I am a sucker for poems. Generally by any author that I can find. This collection of poems here is absolutely perfect! There were several that I had to stop and sign for a moment afterward, or stop and think about what I just read. I’m completely wrecked when poems to connect with me in that certain way that some of these ones here did.

This is a very sweet book. The poems aren't quite to my taste but I thought it was a really lovely read.

This book hit right down the middle for me. Some parts spoke to me, but others missed. Overall, it was a meh read for me. I wouldn't recommend it to others.

Too sickly sweet and romantic for me - which is cute in a way for their relationship (if it's based on a real thing), but there's more than this I did not like.

Firstly, it is confusing... it took me a while to realize the poems are from the POV of the two lovers and by the time I did, I was already so not into their story... Because there isn't much of a story. There isn't much depth here. They like each other and they dream about each other and all is nice and pink and fluff in their world. There is no ooze of desire or passion flowing from these poems and that did not work for me...

I am also getting tired of these minimalists poems who are not really saying much.

I liked the smoothness of the poems and it was unisex. The voices i heard while reading this were male and female

A selection of long and short poems. Some really good poems on love or thinking about a loved one. Some really nice and simple watercolour art on a lot of the pages.

4.5/5
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this collection!

This poetry collection was beautiful. If you want a love story but with the perspectives of both/all parties, this is for you. I did not know what to expect when I saw this but poems about love. What I got was a collection about what it is like to fall in love and the fears that come along with that. I think my favorite part of this collection, is that it is like a conversation between this couple about how they fell in love with each other. This was so stinking adorable, cute, and gives you all of the warm fuzzy feelings. Everything about this collection was amazing. Their voices, the art, the stories they share about their love for each other. Everything. This is one of those things that make you love, love. I hope we get more from this couple in the future!

Love by Night is an artistic poetry collection, compiled by the famed Instagram poetry account. Divided into 5 sections and each a phase of the moon starting from new moon to full moon, this cozy and tender poetry collection explores a heartwarming romance that you can read snuggled up in your bed, with some music that evokes a deep yearning for love, in the twilight.
This book of poetry was so sweet. I honestly usually don't love romantic poetry. I tend to prefer poetry about more hard-hitting topics but this collection was very unique, featuring the voices of both people in the relationship instead of just the one person who's pining or heartbroken. That in itself made this collection really enjoyable for me.
What I loved about this collection of poems is the parallels of two people in a committed relationship. From the early, nervous interactions, to the growing old and grey of forever, this collection has both sides speaking their minds and exploring their hearts.

A book of love poems shown from both perspectives in a relationship. Beautifully illustration goes along with the poems and add to the overall experience. It's a quick book of poetry but we'll worth a read if you want to remember what it's like to first be in love.

Every year, I set several types of reading goals, usually some combination of a specific number of books, a reading challenge, and a certain genre of books that I want to expand into. 2021 was no different. I recently became obsessed with Tik Tok, and somewhere amongst the hours and hours of scrolling, I came across the account of an author who had recently released a book of poetry. I became obsessed, mostly because the subject matter in the book seemed to align exactly with what was going on in my personal life. Inspired by this book, I decided to set a goal in 2021 of reading more poetry. To help me achieve this goal, I went to NetGalley, and asked to review the book, “Love By Night” by SK Williams.

I chose this book because the description of the book seemed to fit closely with the book that inspired this sudden interest in poetry – a longing for a certain person that is so deep you find it hard to breathe sometimes.  Am I the only one who's a glutton for misery in that way?

Love by Night is written from dual perspectives - a male and female navigating a relationship from meeting, to being friends, and developing into something more. This is something I love in the novels I read, but something I found hard to follow in this piece of work. Maybe it would read differently if I read the actual book, but on my tablet I had a very hard time differentiating between the voices. Some of the actual pages were different colors, and I found myself assuming a different color meant a different perspective, and that wasn't always the case. On every page, I had to read ahead to find gender indicators.

Aside from my small rant about something that is probably petty to most people, the writing in this book was superb. There were several lines I read that I re-read over and over a gain because it seemed to convey exactly what I'm feeling. Some of those quotes are:</p>

"You sit just inches away, but the inches feel like miles and though we aren't even touching I can feel you."

"You tell me I don't have to come over, I don't have to stick around, I don't have to love you. But you're wrong, you see, because every part of me wants to stay, wants to be with you, and wants to love you. So please, just let me."

In summary, this piece of literature is very emotional, very profound - a little hard to read, but the content makes up for it.

Disclaimer: I was given a free e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts and opinions in this review are mine and mine alone.

This was an okay book full of love poems. I liked a few of them, I related to some of them. But overall, I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me a copy of the book.

Thank you NetGalley and Andrews McMeel for giving me an ARC of this book.

When I was browsing poetry books coming out in 2021, this one caught my eye suddenly. Night, being the most used element in poetry, is used by a lot of poets to discover what is hidden from the human sight. Unlike most sorrowful night poems, this collection has a more cheerful undertone talking about connection between two people as well as with others.

Love By Night is more about the developing love interests between two people and the fact that it was written in poetic style makes it quite beautiful. It is almost a short novella written in poetic style , which came across so genuine and nor forced. What I found to be great was how each poem felt so simple using stream of consciousness. As a reader, the poems lure you into two people’s conversations about their vulnerable moments, hence why I believed the fact that these poems were written at night. There is something magical and sorrowful at nights: the sounds of silence presents you naked to the world.

What makes love so genuine is the themes surrounding it such as worries, future, and being able to be vulnerable to open up to each other. I really loved the fact that, love was mentioned in a more mature way in this collection. The entire collection opens up a window into the life of two lovers for us to watch them silently.

I really loved the concept/format of this book of poetry.

It's also beautifully packaged/ illustrated.

Although I did feel a bit of a disconnection with some of the poems and that they did not flow together as good as they should have.

I found the poems overall were nicely written, touching and a bit sad sometimes. Overall I did enjoy it.

I was hoping for more from this book unfortunately. I was hoping that it would explore more of the hardships of being in love, but it really only focused on how good it feels and how you are wanting to always be with that person. There were some great passages, but I felt like it started to get redundant. It was a good read and I know others will appreciate it more then I could.

Memorable quotes
"Please, be slow to remind me of my mistakes. Be gentle in telling me when I am wrong. Be kind when you feel like I don't deserve it. Please remember I am not always right and I can't always be strong"

"Your hand is the safest place I've ever known"

"When you go, come find me up on the stars. I'll be waiting for you up there"

This book was a sweet, sometimes saccharine, collection of poetry told from the perspectives of two people as they fall (and remain) in love. These are people who have experienced dark times, and the themes here are often about how we love others when they can't currently love themselves. It's imperfect and messy and honest.

There was good representation of depression and anxiety in these pages.

The illustrations were beautiful, and there were several poems in this collection that stood out as exceptional. I know that poetry elicits deeply individual responses, but I personally found a lot of the material here to feel like unrefined filler. It's difficult to fill 200 pages with love poems, but I feel this would have benefited from losing approximately 50 pages in editing.

This is simultaneously a good read and a confusing one. It honestly reads like it should have been formatted as an epistolary novella, with alternating correspondence between the two love interests. I'm not sure why this was done as poetry, but it just doesn't work for me at all that way.

However, if you consider only the story told between the two people, and consider the alternating 'poems' as their points of view, it works much better. The story itself it cute, as we follow each partner through their feelings in the romance.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5

This was a sappy, sweet book of poetry that was a fairly short read. No poem really stood out in particular, it was the overall story that was really nice. The first two sections in particular I thought were really sweet and good, but the third section kind of fell off in my opinion. I also thought that the beginning was a little confusing when I wasn't sure exactly what the form was in terms of the switching perspectives. Overall, this was a solid and cute collection about love.

This book of poetry was so sweet. I honestly usually don't love romantic poetry. I tend to prefer poetry about more hard-hitting topics but this collection was very unique, featuring the voices of both people in the relationship instead of just the one person who's pining or heartbroken. That in itself made this collection really enjoyable for me.

Next, I saw someone compare this style of poetry to Instagram poetry and I have to completely disagree. While some of the poems are shorter, there are other longer ones which take up a page or two. This isn't something you'd see in Instagram poetry!

Lastly, the illustrations were amazing. The collection is broken up into sections corresponding with the phases of the moon and the drawings in between and throughout were so beautiful. These types of books feel like hydration for my soul! Well done.

Thank you to the publisher & NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.