Well... I’ve never read anything like this. This novel is a set of poems that are centered around our bones, but it’s so much more then that!

It’s about love, hate, passion, fear and wants.

This is a very intriguing novel of poems.

Yep... I liked it a lot.

A small collection of lovely poems. I really enjoyed reading the poems in this book and this would make a great read for anyone who likes poetry.

*Thanks Netgalley and CLASH Books for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

The poetry book was not what I expected but there was some lovely poems in there and it is easy to read this book that I will come back to again .
Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this book.

I retesting concept for a poetry book. I was expecting more than I got, but it wasn’t bad. I would read her again.

**I was provided an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**


Holly Lyn Walrath presents a poetry collection, The Smallest of Bones, discussing a broad variety of topics including relationships, queerness, ghosts, and darkness. NetGalley also chose to classify this work as Horror in addition to Poetry.

I find poetry in particular to be incredibly difficult to review. A reader's experience with poetry is so incredibly subjective and the composition of poetry is so widely varied that it is hard to point at a poem and differentiate between a "good" or "bad" poem, let alone a "well-written" versus "poorly-written" one. That being said, I will try to present facts as I see them to guide other readers who have interest in this collection.

Walrath's poetry style is consistent with the short-form "instagram-type" poetry which has been popular in recent years. Some poems may have a few stanzas, and others may have a line or two with deliberate formatting. Walrath also writes in a manner that I perceive as being raw and laying the words bare rather than engaging in a lot of double entendre or wordsmithing. I do not have any particular personal complaints about Walrath's poetry style.

Each section of the collection was broken up by Walrath addressing a particular bone of the body. These paragraph style installments were most enjoyable to me.

Overall, I didn't find myself particularly connected to this collection, but that would not prevent me from recommending it to others. I appreciate the content of the collection and wish Walrath much success with its launch.

I loved the description of this poetry book, but I just couldn’t get into it. I expected more from it. Nothing was relatable to me.

The Smallest of Bones, Holly Lyn Walrath 3/5

A small collection of intimate poetry framed around the bones of the human body.

This beautiful collection manages to cover love, death, gender, darkness, sexuality and love all within a small scope of intimately carved poems. Haunting and timely, this small collection will remain on the mind for a long time.