Name: Adultolescence
ISBN: 9781501178320

Gabbie Hanna

Comedian Gabbie Hanna brings levity to the twists and turns of modern adulthood in this exhilarating debut collection of illustrated poetry. In poems ranging from the singsong rhythms of children’s verses to a sophisticated confessional style, Gabbie explores what it means to feel like a kid and an adult all at once, revealing her own longings, obsessions, and insecurities along the way. Adultolescence announces the arrival of a brilliant new voice with a magical ability to connect through alienation, cut to the profound with internet slang, and detonate wickedly funny jokes between moments of existential dread. You’ll turn to the last page because you get her, and you’ll return to the first because she gets you.

Adultolescence

Jenna

Bria

Yea, I didn't enjoy this. I feel like I would've written these poems in 9th grade and not as a 27 year old woman.

lauren

The Myth Echo

Felt like a fever dream reading this. Also I didn't know the name of this book for like a year bc my sister gave it to me and she painted the cover, and I never bothered to open it until a few days ago. The poems ranged from funny to deep in a matter of seconds. I see a lot of people ranting abt how it "didn't rhyme", but poetry doesn't need to rhyme. EPIC poetry usually doesn't rhyme. All it needs is some sort of rhythm. I would classify this as interpreting poetry. I can understand why people wouldn't like it, but I personally really do!

Danny Werhane

This book had a lot potential to be really good. There for sure some great poems in there, especially the ones about depression and anxiety. Some of them just weren’t really poems. The advice annoyed me because they were just all really long run on sentences? I hate to say this sense this sense I love Gabbie, but I just feel like she like was trying a little to hard to be funny. I think if she writes another book and focuses on the serious poems, it would be really great.

Tish

I ignored the bad ratings because I thought maybe it would be like rupi kaur because there were illustrations with poetry. This is, objectively, not very good. I liked a handful of the poems in this book and the rest were just bad. It just seemed like the author didn’t really care and was just doing this for money and recognition. Not my cup of tea. I did give it a second star because I liked a lot of the illustrations and a few poems.

Adriana Gómez 

-10000/5

good lord, that was the worst book I've ever read, not even joking. for the love of God, don't read it, any trashy problematic wattpad fanfic would be a smarter choice.

Susan 

I liked a good amount of this books. There were some pages, I related to and some I simply liked. The drawings were great.

A lot of the pages felt they were ripped from her diary and placed on to a page. Not much felt like poetry. Maybe it was meant to seem that way.

brianna

this was the biggest fucking joke and fr the worst book i read in 2017

Micah

There are some hidden gems in here, but most of them are too farcical for me to enjoy. Also, I really, really, REALLY hate rhyming poems. Especially when the entire collection is 99% rhyming poems. But go off, I guess?

Amanda

3.75

I related to so many of these poems.. there were some that I didn't really like others that were funny and some that I just felt on a personal level.

Maggie Gordon

I really must learn to be more discerning about the books I take out from the library as this one was truly atrocious. Worse than Love Her Wild by Atticus which I called the "doritos of the poetry world" last year. If I were to sum up Adultolescence in a similar manner, this book is like the off-brand Doritos of the poetry world. The chips you buy from that terrible dollar store on the corner because you're broke, but you want some salty deliciousness. Unfortunately, the bag is dusty and off-coloured, and the flavours are not quite right. The chips taste like an approximation of junk food, but more just like cardboard. Obnoxiously flavoured cardboard, and you spend the rest of your evening feeling queasy and regretting your life choices. 

I know the book is supposed to be "ironic". It's emulating shit posting online. Except shit posting is often funny. It's often a delightful mix of neo-DADAism and black comedy. This book... well... Here's an example:

"ADVICE 6

dont believe everything u read i could write rn that i/like tapioca but i hate tapioca it's the devils snack so/ya dont believe everything u read unless u read that/im cool u can believe that"

I don't even know where to begin with this one. Is there some kernel of interest buried in these words? Sure. Does Hanna even come near anything insightful? Hell no. It's just a nonsense bunch of words stating something obvious with some silly egoism at the end. It's like a script of what someone thinks talking on the internet is like, but no. Just no. 

Most of this book is filled with short "poems" that are meant to be insightful, but it you are relying on deep pseudo-koans (that are a disgrace to actual koans), you probably have nothing of value to say and don't deserve a book. Adultolescence is crap. Pure, unadultered, publishing market tripe. I understand that Gabbie Hanne is famous, but give someone else your money. Read some real poetry.

Monika Mezei

It is so stupid that its funny. Good when you are depressed or bored really🤣

Caitlyn Hagen

Borrowed this one from a friend. Glad I didn't buy it. It wasn't very good. That's it. No thanks.

Caroline Lewicki

This was just okay. A small, very tiny handful of poems had some depth but many of them were just silly. She even has a poem about needing to make a deadline and fill a page quota. Anyone who has some small sliver of fame and access to Microsoft Word publishes poetry anymore. It certainly doesn’t mean it’s all worth reading.

Yessenia Lara

It's like reading her tweets (and it is not that great). I gave it 1 star because I can't give it less. Honestly, it was a big waste of time (and this is coming from someone who read 2 books of Michael Faudet, so that's a bummer). If you do bad poetry, don't publish it.

Gabriel Noel 

Cute. Some poems were very well written and poignant while others were very hollow and empty. I feel like the transition from internet slang and poetry is what made some stories/poems seem more disconnected. Otherwise a very lovely selection of writing by Gabbie.

Xiana Marriott

I had read this in a day and I honestly only liked one or two of these poems. Out of the 200 "poems" a vast majority was shit like (k. k.) or just some bad tweets. She also doesn't have a good sense of rhythm in these so called poems and metaphors. When it comes to the illustrations, I felt that lots of them were lazily done or mediocre at best. Most of the humour present in this book falls flat and is boring, as the themes and jokes are reiterations.

In general, all of the book came of as it was done in a rush (in the book she states multiple time that she was reaching her deadline), many ideas were underdeveloped and she told and didn't show

libby g

It felt like it was part of a school poetry assignment. I wanted to like this poetry collection, but it really fell short. The concept of “adultolescence” explores what it means to feel like a kid and an adult all at once, which i find super relatable as someone in their 20s. The poetry ranges from singsong rhymes to confessional free verse.

Her poems are filled with punchy one-liners, rather than being eloquent or beautifully written. This style worked for a couple of the poems (I highlighted my favorites), but most of them honestly felt like they were just thrown together — she even includes a poem acknowledging some pieces were out of inspiration, while others were because she had to meet a deadline. Ultimately, I think it would’ve been better if she narrowed her best into a much shorter collection rather than forcing 248 pages of less quality work.

All in all, I wouldn’t recommend — but I appreciate the potential and did like some of the poems! I think this just didn’t work as such a large collection.

Anja Vuletic

Maybe I should start off with things I did like in this book: THE ILLUSTRATIONS. I loved them a lot and thought they were better than most of the poems, if they can even be called that. Now, I understand this was written by a YouTuber and I'm assuming it was supposed to be relatable, but some poems felt like a bunch of random words thrown together just for the sake of having more pages. Maybe I would've liked it more if I had read it in English, I don't know. What I do know is that I'm glad I read it (it was on my wishlist), but I'm even more glad it wasn't me who spent the money on it (thanks for the gift, friends).

Michelle Boyea

What on earth did I just read?!

I loved that the format was all poetry, and different kinds of poetry. But I really don’t understand what the purpose of this book was. 

Some of the poems made me laugh but overall it seemed like a school assignment that someone wrote 30min before it was due. I’m glad I borrowed it from the library and didn’t buy it.

Shannon O’Connor 

Came across as very childish like the author was trying too hard to be funny. A lot was just “advice” poems but it was basic stuff and she tries to make it funny. I couldn’t finish it I got so annoyed.