Just gorgeous and empowering. Everyone needs to read this when they need to be lifted up emotionally. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Be(loved) by Dakota Adan is poetry that is so powerful, mature, and succinct that I am struggling to wrap my head around the fact that this is a debut collection. This is a book about the quest for self-love, and finding the truest version of the individual experience. The collection is a deeply personal account of loss, but at the same time offers an antidote to heartache, a searching of the soul leading to self-awareness and love. This is a beautiful and hopeful collection that I can imagine myself reaching for over and over again.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Adan's poetry collection is painfully sincere and feels both intimate and universal; thematically his poems delve deep into self-acceptance, love, sexuality, and race, subjects inextricably interwoven with human experience.

I could say that this book is a journey to love, to home, to that place where you can be whoever you choose to be and still feel right.
But, if I say just that- I miss out on how this debut collection questions love, loss, grief, the desire to belong and slowly unravels the journey to love and our understanding of what it means to love, be loved and your beloved. I believe that anyone who reads this book is bound to unlearn some beliefs on love, and in so doing enjoy each piece as it connects to the next and the next until you get to the end.
The illustrations complement the poems as well.
Thanks Netgalley for the eARC.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was around 3.5 stars for me.

Some of these poems are truly phenomenal. Most are about love or acceptance in some form or another. A lot of the poems are about heartbreak. The collection its self tells a tragic story of heartbreak and coming out and growth.

This is a thoughtful collection of short and long poems that may speak to your soul.

Thanks to Andrew McMeel publishing for making this book available to me via #Netgalley.
I absolutely loved this book. This is a collection of poems exploring self-love, spirituality, sexuality, acceptance, heartbreak, healing, and a quest to find oneself.
There are so many poems that I loved in this book
"I will no longer abandon myself for someone else's vision of who I could be"
"The moment I let go, I realized my hands were on my own throat"
I really enjoyed this book and I would be recommending it everywhere.