Flower Crowns and Fearsome Things is a collection of aesthetic, feminist poetry typically found on social media platforms like Instagram. It addresses themes of abuse, sexual assault, cheating, trauma, death, violence, misogyny, body image, easting disorders, among other topics, and generally appeals to a young female audience. Although it strays away from traditional standards of poetry, its core message is beautiful albeit repetitious to Amanda Lovelace's previous works.

Thank you NetGalley for the early access to this book.
I must admit I’m happy I decided to keep trying Amanda Lovelace books. It’s been a ride, but some poetry collections just hit in a way some don’t. The artwork in this book is so beautiful, it goes so well with the poems.

You read along, experiencing every pivotal part of this poet’s life. You understand their heartache, you relate to their bravery.

The realness of their story makes the realness of my own pain feel so validated.

I am of two minds on this poetry collection. Amanda Lovelace is a successful poet who clearly has an audience and has brought poetry to folks who may have previously felt locked-out of the genre by snobbery (of which there is much in poetry!) There's some fun, very approachable poems here that I know some of my customers would love, and this book would certainly be excellent and empowering for a younger reader, particularly femme-identifying.

On the other hand, some of these poems felt so heavily wrought, riddled with an endless amount of italics and an unnatural heaviness. It felt clear to me as a reader when Lovelace went into a poem ~trying really hard to say something~ and I didn't enjoy those poems. I am right there with Lovelace on her views and love socio-politically-charged work, but many of these poems feel just like a few simple sentences slapped together with no real point of view. This is a definitely a book firmly in the category of Instagram poetry. I love how accessible it and the themes it discusses and its centering of women's experiences. I just wish it went deeper, dug its heels in and really considered the slant and hum of language, and all the possibilities a poem holds.

Amanda Lovelace is my favourite poet and this new collection is my favourite of hers for sure!! I love Amanda’s use of words, and how she perfectly captures even the most difficult of emotions.

Her poetry always speaks to me and this one hits home the most, it’s absolutely incredible and i will read it over and over for years to come.

I have always been a fan of Amanda Lovelace's poetry, it's really the only poetry I will read, and so when I got accepted for this ARC, I immediately started reading it. Flower Crows and Fearsome Things was every bit as beautiful as her previous works. With a gorgeous cover and equally gorgeous illustrations, Lovelace talks about a wide variety of topics in today's world, such as feminism, gender equality, abusive relationships, along many others.

Their writing emotionally destroyed me in the best possible way, and I literally sped through the book in under an hour because it was so addicting. Her prose has always been so beautiful and this book is no exception. If you are new to poetry, highly highly recommend picking up one of Amanda Lovelace's books, including this one.

5/5 stars. Thank you to Netgalley and Publisher for this gorgeous ARC!

Big fan of Amanda Lovelace. I like the conversational style of her poems and the subjects always speak to me. The feminist themes of this book I think would have a pretty wide appeal to readers regardless of their own life circumstances. This book was such a good mix of poems: some of them hurt, some are uplifting, and some make me feel very seen. My favorites included "goddess of spring," "you're never even considered," and "wild violet."

This entire book is beautiful. From the illustrations to the writing to even just the format of this book. This is my first book by Lovelace and she definitely lived up to the hype with her beautiful prose. I was quite happy to settle down with this one and get lost in the beautiful pages. It's a wonderful reading and I love that it gives proper warnings prior to reading. Its much appreciated.

Amanda Lovelace’s new poetry book taking inspiration from Persephone, and how she is both soft and fierce.

While there were some good poems once in a while, the majority were unfortunately disappointing.

There would be poems about independence and how women didn’t do everything for men, and the next poem would be about how the author is willing to change herself for a man. A lot of the poems were conflicted in that way, and it honestly felt weird to have poems that encourage self love and feminism right next to poems about heartbreak and begging for love. If it was supposed to be ironic, then it was lost on me and honestly didn’t work, as it just felt discouraging.

I enjoyed some of the empowering poems, and I think a lot of the poems have a great message. If you enjoyed other Amanda Lovelace books, then you’ll probably also like this one, as they are similar in many ways - poems that encourage ‘girl-power’ and self-love, and poems with messages about heartbreak, abuse, toxic relationships, rape culture and sexual assault.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

Amanda is a great poetess who always speaks and defends important issues such as feminism, but I found this book unnecessary. It seems like a bunch of scrapped poems she put together into one book. If we want to read about important issues, we already have her other books. I really wish Amanda could write about other things than just that.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this before publication date.

So, this collection is fine. Personally, I thought a third of the poems could have been cut, I really liked a third, and the final third were just okay.

Lovelace's critics point to her formatting regular prose sentences vertically and calling it poetry, and while there is some of that in this collection, there's also a lot of honest-to-goodness poetry that will only be criticized as above by people in bad faith.

At this point, on her eighth collection, most people interested in reading Lovelace kind of know if they like her stuff or not, and for those of you who like some collections and not others, this one's worth a shot. This has some really solid stuff, a ton of the Lovelace flair, and a lot of the same themes as her other poetry. On the other hand, there is a lot less anger in this collection than some of her others, so if her anger is what you're seeking, this one might let you down.

Regardless, if you like Lovelace, you'll probably like this. If you don't like her previous collections, you probably won't like this. If you've never read her stuff before, this isn't a bad place to start, in my opinion.

Another amazing collection from Amanda Lovelace! She is quickly becoming my favorite poet and I think this may be my favorite collection thus far.
For starters, this book is aesthetically pleasing. The cover and full color art between poems are so beautiful. AND I love that this collection is a loose reimagining of a modern-day Persephone and her thoughts/perspectives, which are powerful and relatable. I love the way Lovelace showcases the both the vulnerability and strength of female power and experience.

Amanda Lovelace is consistent. If you want to read poetry that is self-affirming, self-reflective, about mistakes and moving forward, about self-care and sometimes self-destruction, than this is for you.

This is a slim book of poems. It sometimes feels hard to determine if I’ve read the poem before (in a previous book) or if it is complete brand new. All her poems kind of run together (that’s not a bad thing but also not a great thing…). Some of the poems are very short (2-3 lines) and there is a lot of art filler (the same 2 images repeated). It would have been cooler if the art changed through the book or reflected Persephone (a theme/subject in the book)

Overall, I’d recommend if you like her work.

I  received a free digital copy of this book from Netgalley for an honest review.

This is my sixth poetry book from this author, and she still has the same magic as my first time reading her. Not all poems hit me, but those that do...woo boy.

"never once has she felt as if
she's interesting enough to be
the daring heroine of her own story,
& she's oddly okay with that.
-she likes being nobody"

First of all, the artwork in this was beautiful! Second of all, the words were equally there too! This was a major pep talk for all women to stand up, respect themselves and give themselves a hug. Love the positive vibes and the themes throughout, really well written and put together,

This was great, but I'm growing tired of the "Instagram" poetry from Lovelace. I feel that nothing is new with her, and everything is the same.

who said you can't wear a flower crown & still remain a fearsome thing?

this was my first Amanda Lovelace book and it won't be my last but unfortunately, I just didn't connect with this one specifically.. There are still a couple of others on my tbr so *fingers crossed*

oh, and one more thing, women. *claps*

for those who wish to raise hell most elegantly

Before you begin reading, you are presented with a most considerate trigger warning, which is not something I often see in books, and I do appreciate it because we all have different levels of tolerance and I would never want to see someone blindsided with something they are unprepared for. A kindness.

The poetry is largely inspired by and an ode to the Greek Goddess of Spring and Queen of the Underworld, Persephone, and to paradoxes like her.

Beautiful artwork, but I wish there was more variation to the two pieces we get to see. I would have loved to see multiple pieces.

One of my favourite of the more simple poems is about karma, and it expands on the cliché of “karma’s a bitch” and the author will leave everything to her “all-too-eager hands.” The poem is stunning in the way that it flows from the reader’s mouth, but it’s also quite simple, on the nose, and very unoriginal.

Despite so many collections of poetry that came before it, I don’t feel like the poet has improved her work, but rather is stuck in a perpetual state of giving her audience the same type of poem over and over. I would truly love to see a longer collection, even touching on the same topics, but highly edited.

I find some of the poems more impactful when I make mental edits. For example, in a poem discussing girls putting other girls down, the author writes “just support them instead.” I think we all learn in freshman English to leave out the filler words to leave a more impactful statement.

I would like to see a collection of the poems that hit the hardest. Just when I feel like I am about to be moved by the words in this book, I’m slapped in the face with a cliché. It has so much more potential than to reduce itself to this. A grand idea may be to post the clichés on Instagram where they belong, and can still be enjoyed, and then only include the absolute strongest, most moving blips of poetry on paper.

Instagram poetry is not without value, it’s just not for me.

My reading experience:
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I really enjoyed this collection a lot. You can tell how much Amanda’s poetry has improved over the years and continues to get better. She writes a lot of things that you can relate to, they make you feel things and I think any poetry that can do that is good. Also the art work in this book was absolutely amazing. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

A perfect read (or re-read) for the moments you're not feeling strong. Lovelace's new collection urges women to embrace themselves as they are - the flowers and the fire.