First, a huge thank you goes to the author, Amanda Lovelace, the publisher, Andrews McNeel Publishing, and NetGalley for the great privilege of being able to read a digital copy of She Followed the Moon Back to Herself, which I feel is a beautifully touching poetry collection that feels both personal and universal. Each poem paints a vivid image of a woman rediscovering herself in a world that often tries to blur our identities and sell them back to us at the steep cost of our mental health and emotional stability. Lovelace’s words are sweet and empowering, full of self-love and growth, and many of the poems can easily serve as affirmations for daily reflection and practice.

The illustrations are just as powerful and complement the poems perfectly. They add another layer of meaning to the journey. The illustrations and poems blend in symbiosis to create an experience that is deeply emotional, empowering, and relatable. There is a youthful writing style that will make it very accessible and enjoyable to a younger audience. But the more mature themes of self-acceptance, authenticity, and embracing one’s flaws can be appealing to pretty much anyone.

If you’re in the process of finding yourself or seeking a bit of light in your own journey, She Followed the Moon Back to Herself is a positive, affirming read that will resonate with you. If you'd like a book full of wonderful affirmations and reminders of your strength, this one is for you!

I love Amanda Lovelaces books so very much! This poetry book while different from her usual fairytales feels more deeply profound and more humanoid in nature. The imagery painted throughout the poems is a macabre mess of inner turmoil and how to come back to oneself. I loved reading this poetry collection and I can not wait to get a physical copy to add to my collection.

Thanks to @netgalley for the ARC of this book! I’ve read all of Amanda Lovelace’s books, so I was excited to see this on there. It’s not a thriller, but I couldn’t resist 🤪 This will be released on October 29th 👻

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

#amanda #amandalovelace #poetry #newrelease #arc #netgalley

I have been following Amanda Lovelace since they posted The Princess Saves Herself in This One, on Tumblr. I downloaded it on Kindle and was moved to tears. This collection feels like a culmination of all the growth this poet has gone through. You feel the growth, the change, the metamorphosis, and the hope. This is a great read, especially for her fans and lovers of her work.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

A sweet and empowering poetry collection that I definitely recommend for anyone in the process of finding themselves. The illustrations in this book are amazing and go wonderfully with the poetry.

Thank you to Netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Amanda Lovelace has created an ideal collection for the confused and new mind of the teenager. With accessible language and thought processes “she followed the moon back to herself” is a mind opening read.

I have been a fan of Amanda Lovelace's for such a long time and am so thankful for how she keeps giving. Reading the note at the beginning how she was ready to walk away from poetry broke my heart and to think we would have missed out on "she followed the moon back to herself" would have been a tragedy. The beauty of it was her writing for herself but SO MANY of the pieces felt so personal to the reader as well. So much of it was validating and heartbreaking to know so many of us experience the same problematic behaviors--in others as well as ourselves. Here is to living authentically and lifting up other women when they have strengths or louder voices where we have none.

Amanda Lovelace does it again! In her new poetry book, she followed the moon back to herself, she talks about growing and evolving and change. She talks about her happiness as of lately. I applaud her for this well done poetry book. This was much-needed!

I’ve been eyeing lovelace’s poetry for a long while now after finding her oracle and tarot decks, and I was so happy to finally pick one of her books up. I loved this collection. The poems invoked many feelings and brought tears to my eyes, and they were exactly what I needed. Fantastic book, can’t wait to read more from this author.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Literally so many good poems, if I could I would share so many on my socials. & I will definitely be buying this book for my daughter & the ARC copy I read on Netgalley is so beautiful. I felt it them in my soul.

As always, I really enjoyed this collection of poetry from Amanda! Their writing always makes me feel understood and right at home in my life. I will forever read whatever she writes no matter what stage of life I am in. Their poetry is absolutely beautiful, and I never want the collections to end while I am reading them. While I was not able to connect to the entire volume, I understand these poems are about her growth as a person and i respect that.

I wasn't over the moon (get it?) with this one, but I could definetly see the self-love and beauty in it. I love how it's unapolagetic.

Beautifully book with very beautiful quotes.
Of course you can't with every poem but with many of them and I think there's something for everyone

I've ready several of Lovelace's work and always appreciate the experience (indeed flagging at least a handful of poems to return to in the future) but almost always also find them to be a bit of a mixed bag. I'm no expert in poetry so only evaluate it based on my own enjoyment/ability to connect with the words and sometimes find Lovelace's work to be vague. Rather than inviting me in, the poems come across blunt and unfinished. I recognize the irony of not being able to describe it well myself, but I guess I wish tha tLovelace waded more into the specificity of the experience: instead of describing society, can you show me the imagery of it?

Amanda Lovelace has created another book of beautiful and inspiring poetry that looks back on her life and the lessons she's learned. I loved it!

NOTE: The artwork was a little frustrating in the digital copy, but I'm sure the physical copy is gonna be absolutely gorgeous.

Empowerment through sugar-laced words. About being authentic with oneself, practicing self-love, and embracing flaws. It blends a youthful writing style that would appeal to a younger audience with more mature topics, resulting in a widely relatable collection.

Highlights: pg. 31, pg. 55, pg. 73, pg. 99

My preferred poetry is a bit more al dente

Thank you, Andrews McMeel Publishing, for providing a review copy via NetGalley.

Thank you Net Galley and publishers for letting me read an arc of this book in return for an honest review.

I enjoyed reading these short poems. They were nice and emotional at some parts. I really connected with what she was writing about her life. None of the poems really stood out to me as memorable but I could tell she wrote with her whole heart and soul. Overall nice poems to read.

I wanted to love this and I'm so bummed that I didn't! It was my first foray into Lovelace's work although a number of her volumes are in my Goodreads TBR, I was so excited to come across an advanced copy that I read it straightaway, but I found that it left me wanting, unfortunately.

Poetry that is condensed into easily digestible stanzas at most, but more often than not sassy one-liners, doesn't take long to read, and for a 200-page book I was pretty dismayed that every second page was an illustrated filler page (with the same illustration throughout). There are pages of unique illustrations at the beginning and end of the book, though these wouldn't make me want to have the book on my shelf. Start to finish there's maybe 15-20 minutes of reading, and I don't feel pulled to revisit any of the poems.

I used to eat this style of poetry up (yes I loved Rupi Kaur yes I spent too much time in my formative years on tumblr) but a lot of this fell flat for me personally. Maybe I've just aged out of the genre, but I expected more from somebody's 10th volume of work, this could have been a teenager's debut and I wouldn't have known any different.

It does come across that the author found catharsis during the writing of this, and I love to see someone embracing themselves for who they are and loving themselves without apology, it's a shame I couldn't resonate!

I remember reading her first few works, this brings the same energy into them. I loved the re-occuring themes. As someone going through an identity crisis I definitely resonated with a handful of these works.

4/5⭐️

“She followed the moon back to herself” is a feminist, fat-positive, queer collection of poetry focused around self-love, growth and finding yourself and your own peace and happiness. While I love all of Amanda’s books, I especially enjoyed how this one mentioned all of the heavy topics she’s covered in the past but in the light of coming out on the other side and being better and stronger for it. It was such a positive and affirming read, empowering at its core and I ate up every bit. While I did slightly miss the fictional/storytelling lens they’ve used in their past works (I love when poetry has a story), I really enjoyed how we got to see directly into their personal experiences/thoughts/emotions firsthand and hopefully learn from them. Can’t wait to see what she does next!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an open and honest review! All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.