my reviews of poetry collections often harp on the fact that i struggle to find poetry that i fully get. and now i'm so happy to be able to say that i've found a poet whose work hits me just right and resonates fully. i guess i just needed a quirky queer poet with a huge heart 🖤

gibson writes about trauma, identity, vulnerability, environmental destruction, heartbreak, and above all else, love. so much love.

"queer youth are five times more likely to die by suicide" is a painful and hopeful standout poem. gibson is a vitally important lgbt+ voice. "the museum of broken relationships" made me fucking cry. and "note to the stranger six feet away" is an achingly cathartic pandemic poem. and "homesick: a plea for our planet" is something that i wish everyone would read and take to heart.

"wellness check" is such a good reminder that it actually resulted in me going no contact with someone who had been taking too much of my energy:

In any moment,
on any given day,
I can measure
my wellness
by this question:

Is my attention on loving,
or is my attention on
who isn't loving me?

🖤🖤🖤

it's hard to even talk about my favorite poems of gibson's, since the majority of them make me feel something deep in my heart. for now i'll just say that this book is wholeheartedly recommended, in all its beautiful raw tenderness.

Thank you to NetGalley and Button Poetry for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review. All quotes are from the ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

I loved this one. I'm not familiar with Gibson's other work, but after reading this, I want to be. I read it at my desk in two sittings and I have no regrets about my diminished productivity at the office. I ended up highlighting just about every other line. I really have nothing bad to say about it. What a boring review.

One of the first books of poetry I've tried and I really enjoyed the style of writing and themes within Andrea Gibson's work. Would absolutely recommend to those wishing to get into poetry, and particularly those looking to read queer poetry. I think this is a collection I will revisit. 4 stars.

A nice rebound for Gibson after a couple dud collections. 3 1/2 stars, and there are still a few instances of hard-eye-roll insta-poetry, but she has mostly tempered that terrible ($$$-driven) sell-out texture here. Good for her.

I really enjoyed this book - not all of the poems hit the same for me, but the ones that were good were very, very good. The author has a way of writing simple, poignant lines that really stuck with me. I found myself jotting down favorites and telling friends to read them as well. I particularly appreciated "Life Sentence," "Wellness Check," and "Queer youth are five times more likely to die by suicide." I've ordered this for my library because I feel like it's an important book to add to our poetry collection.

What a beautiful collection. A. Gibson consistently knocks it out of the park and punches me right in the solar plexus.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this collection in exchange for an honest review!
Andrea Gibson's newest poetry collection has some really amazing moments. Stunning lines about love and loss and trauma, they never disappoint. Unpopular opinion, however, this is not my favorite collection of theirs, and I've been avidly reading their work for years. There were some incredible poems mixed in with a bunch that were fine. But overall this was a great collection, and I would absolutely recommend!

As with her other works, Andreas poetry speaks to me and touches me in really emotional ways. Unlike the much shorter pieces in Take Me With You, the poems in You Better Be Lightning are much longer and play with words in evocative ways that fit her style of slam poetry and the spoken word. reading these poems, I could imagine her delivering them herself with emotional impact in spades.

A few of the beautiful lines that resonated with me most:

“On Earth I was a work in progress, was comforted in the knowing that I had a million mistakes still in me to learn from.”
“I love you because we have both showed up to kindness tryouts with notes from the school nurse that said we were too hurt to participate.”
“I can measure my wellness by this questions: Is my attention on loving, or is my attention on who isn’t loving me?”
“The world needs those who know how to … find a tunnel with no light at the end of it and hold it up like a telescope to show that the darkness contains many truths that can bring the light to its knees. Grief astronomer, adjust the lens, look close.”

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

I received this e-book at no cost in exchange for an honest review.

The last book of poetry I read was Zig-Zag Girl* by Brenna Twohy Wait, actually, I lied; it was The Age of Discovery by Alan Michael Parker, but that was for school. The last time I listened to any of Andrea Gibson’s poetry was when I was in my senior year of high school, and also sometimes when it comes up on my Spotify, but that’s involuntary. My favorite poem is “Sorrow is Not My Name” by Ross Gay, and most of my poetry reading comes from either poetry I have to read in school or screenshots that my friend Noor sends me through Discord DMs, or tucked into the body of a letter.

Andrea Gibson was also probably the first person I heard talk about their gender in any way that felt meaningful to me, and it would take me another three years to find pronouns that fit me, even though the year I first heard them speak was the year I found my own name and told other people about it.

Some poems start off a little silly before they move into heartrending, like “The Museum of Broken Relationships”, some poems start off heartrending and stay that way, like “Time Piece”; all would be better read out loud to me in a little bookshop downtown while I hold a cup of overpriced coffee in my hands.

The following poems made me tear up:
QUEER YOUTH ARE FIVE TIMES MORE LIKELY TO DIE BY SUICIDE
EVERY TIME I EVER SAID I WANT TO DIE
WHAT LOVE IS
MY GENDER IS THE UNDOING OF GENDER
THE NIGHT SHIFT

If you’re looking for a queer book of poetry, you can’t go wrong with the hundred and twenty-eight pages that belong to YOU BETTER BE LIGHTNING. (4 stars)

Full of engagement, but sometimes veering a bit too close to prose and stories. The reflections on queer life, chronic illness and above all love are well done but in a sense made me also feel a bit claustrophobic while reading the bundle
Silence rides shotgun
wherever hate goes
- No such thing as the innocent bystander

In You Better Be Lightning Andrea Gibson draws deeply from personal experiences, ranging from dealing with dialysis and lyme to working in crisis wards for evicted queer youth to discrimination and love not turning out as one would hope. Queer youth are five times more likely to die by suicide is a breathtakingly sad poem that shows the societal engagement of the poet.
The bundle is definitely powerful in what it tries to convey and sometimes poems are 4 to 5 pages which essentially tell a story of the history of the poet. This feels very candid and raw, but at times the themes felt almost oppressive to me, since not much seems to be going in favour. Still an old saying is that there is no shone with out friction, and this book manages to convey that with some very well found similes, excelling more in short length at times than in longer narrative stretches. 3.5 stars rounded up.

Quotes:
My grandfather was a clock
who stopped before I met him.
- Time piece

Sometimes grief is the fastest route to truth.
…
What if we don’t have to be healed to be whole?
- Every time I ever said I want to die

But you’re done making vacations of people.
- Climate change

This book of poetry was unlike any I’ve read. The first thing I noticed was that the structure of the words; they really made you feel like you were taken on the authors stream of consciousness with them. Which have such an organic feel to the emotions that were being conveyed. I usually feel like I’m giving a fully conceptualized poem to read, but this gave the reader room to find their rhythm and feeling with in the stanzas. As well I appreciated the way that the author used imagery differently, it felt like they described an object but spending on who the author is something different might appear in the mind of each reader. Over all so refreshing and amazing to read!

I can always trust Button Poetry to publish incredible collections and this one is no different!
I knew Andrea Gibson's material, as I often watch their performances on Button Poetry's YouTube channel, but this collection is too great not to amaze.
A few went over my head or weren't for me, but I think every single one is incredibly good and for 99% of them I felt deeply moved.
While I think there's a particular soft spot that will hit queer people more squarely, this collection talks about all types of love and, thus, i think all people could benefit from it.

<i>when I say </i>god<i> - I mean everyone
down here who understands why
when I get to heaven,

I will refuse to call it heaven
if the pople I love
(who put me through hell)

aren't there.</i>

CW: Suicide, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, mental illness, sexual assault, child abuse, homphobia, transphobia

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC.

What a rueful experience this collection was. I'm not typically a big fan of modern poetry, but I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would have. It explored LGBTQ themes, a rare find in the literary world especially within that of poetry.

"Beauty caught me and never let me go."

You Better Be Lightning is a gorgeous poetry collection, touching on themes of gender and identity, loss and healing, and all kinds of love-- for oneself, for others, for the planet. it is equal parts hopeful and heartbreaking, focused on moments of both pain and joy, both raw and impeccably polished. It is honest, profound, observant, and honest. I enjoyed this collection immensely.

'You Better Be Lightning' is a powerful poetry of self-rediscovery and embrace.

It is brilliant in its execution of stories and, most especially, beautiful if read in a slow and steady pace. The stories are better digested if you read through them by absorbing each of the story first before you move on with another.

What did not work for me is the length of these poetries. Granted, there are short ones in this book; however, I was not particularly affected by these as it took me a while to really have them seep my skin. It is definitely an error on my part for having fast read the book, though.

Overall, it was truly wonderful!

You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson is a deeply self-reflective collection of poetry. Queer, feminist, political, and close to the heart. The language is breathtaking and the stories told within the poems are at turns joyous and tragic, but never losing their hopeful edge. Gibson remains one of my all-time favorite poets.

What I know: this is exactly the kind of poetry I love, and I should read more of it.

What I don't know: how to accurately review poetry collections.

All I can really say about this is: this collection really spoke to me, made me pause, made me cry, made me reflect, taught me things.

I was first introduced to Andrea's poetry in "Lord of the Butterflies" and I remember liking it but I cannot even compare it to how much I absolutely loved "You Better be Lighting" and how much growth I saw in their poetry. I think of this book as such a loving piece both when it comes to self-love, love for the land, the planet, queerness and just humanity in general while never straying from speaking about all the dark parts of life. I can barely wait for their next collection.

Thank you to NetGalley and Button Poetry for this DRC.

Rating:5/5

I read this book through NetGalley.

This was one of my first tries reading poetry and I absolutely adored it! I didnt expect to like it as much as i did, but their collection left me aching for more. Andrea Gibson has a unique way of writing about love, queer one especially, and it made me feel understood, especially being a queer teen myself. It was my first experience with this author and I will definitely be reading more of their work.

I don't think I have read any poetry since high school, but after reading You Better Be Lightning I think I may have to start reading more. These poems were so beautiful and powerful. I highly recommend giving this book a shot, even if poetry is outside your comfort zone!