I think I wanted to like Tyler Knott Gregson’s <i>The Never Was</i> more than I actually did.

Poetry, unfortunately, can often be rather hit or miss for me. This one more easily fits into the miss category, though as I’ve dabbled a little in poetry—both reading and writing—it’s difficult for me to ascertain if the miss is because I just couldn’t find an emotional connection to most of the poems or because I disliked the format of them. Judging poetry often has felt like a subjective venture rather than an objective one, but that might be largely because I’m pretty unschooled in this particular piece of academia.

I can judge the writing of a novel far easier than I can judge the poetry of a poem, I guess.

All of that to be said, I just didn’t connect here. And this could be entirely a me problem. I think I was also just feeling rather meh about the fact that there’s not truly any particular theming that I could see to tie all of these poems together, thus it felt like there was a lack of cohesion. And then I suppose I was just hoping for something with a little more emotional oomph given the chosen title.

I dunno.

This was a stunning collection of thoughts, poems, and prose on embracing your authentic self. I love that there was a balance of short and long pieces. The typed words on scraps of paper was a nice touch. The photographs were gorgeous, but I wish there were a few more photographs sprinkled throughout the book.

I've loved Tyler Knott Gregson's poetry for over a decade; in high school I would check his Tumblr daily even when I wasn't allowed to have the app on my phone. When I saw he had a new book coming out about being autistic, I was so excited, because I'm also autistic. This did not disappoint at all. So many beautiful poems in here, about everything to do with life and love and identity and passion and hope. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested.

Thank you to Netgalley and Central Avenue Publishing for the chance to read and review this ARC.

Thank you Netgalley, Central Avenue Publishing, and Tyler Knott Gregson for sending me this advanced review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This books is full of ephemeral thoughts and poems. Each one carefully typed out on a piece of old scrap paper. The words will call out to you, like a quiet echo.

I think the best way to describe it is finding an old shoebox full of poems and photos that you forgot about. You spend an hour or two reading them and happily digging through that old box of forgotten memories.

This one will haunt me for a long time.