This collection is divided up into parts, each beautiful in their own right. Some poems are more memorable than others. Some border on cliche. There is an intense focus on looking inward and examining our place within the universe. The most powerful poems are when the author examines the past and how to grow from it, not be pained by it. Would recommend.

Narration is a bit slow and the music makes it seem more like a sleep story. A lot of the poems match the music, but there are some that really need a deeper dive that only the text can provide.

The Truth of You
by Iain S. Thomas
The audible version is read with an Australian accent. Making the poems full of light and mystic.
The poems are thought provoking, telling about love, life, friendship, how we must look at the world. In the audio the transcendence of meditative music add to the need and desires in the stories.
I had to reach out and get the print version of the book, only to see the divisions of the poems, since they seem to go as a transcendent thought a conversation between and elder and and younger. Between the poet, and the audience teaching, empowering and belonging. The inspiring words are something you could grow with. I could see children listening to this or having each of them read the poems aloud to each other, with thousand moments of inspiration to look not only in your self but beyond to the things that make life worthwhile.

This audiobook of poetry had such a beautiful narrative structure to it. These poems are both flowing and direct, and they explore love and loss in all of their forms in a way I've never heard before.

Read by the author, the book felt personal and captivating, as though I could trust the authenticity of the performance in a special way. However, the music in the background, while useful in setting a tone and unique, was often distracting from the innate musicality of the poetry itself, and at times overtook the poetry in both volume and presence. In this same way, the poet's narration could occasionally use more enunciation.

I really enjoyed this book of poems, which seemed to act as a single unit as opposed to individual pieces of poetry, and I highly recommend reading it in either book or audiobook form.

Thanks to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the ARC.

This book takes an empathetic approach and gives bite size approaches and allows you to have kindness and patience with yourself when dealing with life. This is so necessary for everyone to read in life. Highly recommend. Especially loved the reflection to true life to humanize my feelings and relate. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The Truth of You is a collection of poems about love, life, sadness, and hope. I enjoyed this poetry audiobook a lot - poems are beautiful, and some are quite emotional. A few of them are pretty short but great all the same. I liked the vast majority of them, and I could feel what the author wanted to say.

The narrator is the author himself, and his voice and reading are perfect. Although, speed 1.25 is the best for me. But this, I guess, is a personal choice. I always like to listen to how the author reads his or her poetry. The music in the background is excellent - it helps to create the mood. Although, I would maybe lower volume a bit sometimes.

Thanks to the publisher for the opportunity to listen to this! All opinions are my own.

I accessed this e-arc from NetGalley.

I rarely read poetry, let alone listen to it. That said, this was a surprisingly enjoyable listen. A nice way to spend a quiet weekend morning with my coffee. I thought the narration was nice and the sound editing of the audiobook felt appropriate. It was almost meditative in terms of vibe. I don't know that I will be running to read more from this author but I would not necessarily turn away from it should more of this happen come my way some day.

These poems were beautiful. So many resonated with me. Some made me so emotional. They were wonderfully written. The illustrations were beautiful too.⁣

The narration was exquisite. The narrators accent, the way he read the poetry was fantastic and beautiful. I loved the soothing sounds in the background.
⁣
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love poetry and have been reading more and more of it lately. These poems were so relatable to so many points in my life that I felt myself really letting them sink in deep and reflecting on the words that were said. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes to feel. The narration was good, but the backgrount music was a little distracting at times.

I listened to this on audio and omg I LOVED IT! The narrator was soothing and I related to every single poem... it truly made me think about my life and my circumstances and I honestly can’t say enough good things! I highly recommend you picking this book up either physical or audio because I think everyone needs to hear this!

I really hated this poetry collection, but I think the audiobook made it even WORSE! The narrator is... so... slow... it sounds like he says a word every 5 seconds (TALK FASTER, we ain’t trying be here all day, some of us have a life)