Mini-Reviews: Milk and Honey, Especially Amelia & Undying

Milk and Honey, Rupi Kaur

204|Andrews McMeel Publishing|2014

Rupi Kaur’s debut poetry collection is made up of four chapters, each dealing with pain, heartache, love and healing.

This is actually the first collection of poetry I've ever picked up of my own volition and I’m so glad I did. Milk and Honey is so powerful that I felt punched in the heart after only 20/30 pages and it just kept on coming. The short poems talk about abuse, sex, break-ups and love. It's a feminist rally cry. Kaur discusses the power and beauty of women’s natural bodies and the importance of having our own control over them. Milk and Honey is a beautiful collections and I blew me away. I can’t wait for Rupi Kaur to release more for her words into the world.

The Strawberry Sisters: Especially Amelia, Candy Harper

250|Simon & Schuster|2016

Little Lucy has a scheme to get popular, but if you want to keep all your hair, you’d better not ask what it is. Chloe’s facing the fight of her life and this time she can’t win it with her fists. Ella would just like everyone to stop shouting so she can do her homework.
Then there’s Amelia. The moody big sister. Except Amelia’s decided to ditch the sulks and the sarcastic remarks. But that’s not so easy when your best friend is keeping secrets, your mum won’t even let you babysit and you’re terrified to do a solo in the school concert.

I fell in love with these girls in the first book is this series and I continued to fall for them in this one! I love the dynamic between Amelia, Ella, Chloe and Lucy – they fight and clash and argue, but they have genuine affection towards each other. Plus, all four girls are really distinct from each other. There’s a huge focus on friendship in Especially Amelia as well as an introduction to feminism for younger readers which I really loved. I can only hope there’ll be more from the Strawberry girls!

Undying: A Love Story, Michel Faber

122|Canongate|2016

How can you say goodbye to the love of your life?

In Undying Michel Faber honours the memory of his wife, who died after a six-year battle with cancer. Bright, tragic, candid and true, these poems are an exceptional chronicle of what it means to find the love of your life. And what it is like to have to say goodbye.

I knew when I went into Undying that it was going to be tough. Watching someone you love suffering from cancer is brutal – and reading about it, even after a few years distance, is still gutting. Faber is honest about the brutal cruelty of cancer and dying. Undying is an agonising portrait of love, grief, illness and carrying on living afterwards. I’m glad I read it, but it was a tough one to get through at times.

Sophie