Amanda Lovelace

the princess saves herself in this one

chantelle beattie

a fragile, watery imitation of what once was.

Mary Carmona

   - don’t allow the world to take your kindness.”

“- silence has always been my loudest scream.”

        - what i know now that i wish i knew then.”

"From Amanda Lovelace, a poetry collection in four parts: the princess, the damsel, the queen, and you. The first three sections piece together the life of the author while the final section serves as a note to the reader. This moving book explores love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment, and inspiration"--Publisher's website.

The princess saves herself in this one

Emma Wolfe

you did absolutely nothing to deserve it.

over the decades, her books became such a part of her

& bloomed her favorite words & images onto her skin.

how many funerals can someone attend before they turn nineteen?

everyone urges me to hold on to my dreams to pass the time,

what happens when your dreams are nightmares stuck on

i have to believe the day will come where i don't

you may not have left (many) bruises on my skin, but you left giant blackberry bruises all over my soul.

when i had no friends i reached inside my beloved books

Lindsay

sarah

a collection of poems in which I appreciated the message it was trying to say but not entirely sure if it got there. Sometimes I had felt like the author was repeating the same thing, and at times it felt like the message she was trying to drive home missed the mark a bit. Overall, enjoyable, but nothing entirely memorable.

kelsey

when
someone
offers to
save you
make it
your mission
to
save yourself.
- i believe in you. 


i'm not usually huge on poetry, but   wow. this book told poems of many hard things that a lot of women and girls have went through or will have to go through in their lives. it was tough to read without tearing up.


but i'm glad i read it. it reminded me that i don't need people's approval and i can still love and be loved no matter what anyone says. sometimes we all need reassurance even if it's from a stranger.

gülefşan 

There was a few poems i liked it but still
this
is
not 
a poem 
and it'll never be
when you 
write like this.

chloe rae

I enjoyed this! Some poems I found to be absolutely stunning. I felt I connected with them and they were very profound. I found a lot of them to be extremely relatable and I already want to go back and tab my favorites.
However, some poems I found to be...meh. They felt very basic. They seemed to follow the same format as other ‘modern’ poets and talk about similar things but not really in a new way. I felt like they weren’t saying anything new, she was just stringing along a somewhat pretty sentence. I definitely felt some missed the mark for me.
Overall, I enjoyed this and I do see myself picking up her next poetry book in the future. This just wasn’t a favorite.

azliana aziz

i really don't get the appeal of this sort of tumblr-ish poetry so reading this one was an okay-ish experience. i think i don't fall in the demographic of the targeted readers for this kind of book. well, at least i did try to see what is all the hype. 
i thought the first two sections were very personal, really really personal that made me feel a bit uncomfortable like i was some uninvited guest that peeked through someone else's window and saw something very troubling and private. i love being able to experience something while reading but i don't know if what i felt was good or not. i adored the third section, the queen so that's that. 
not a truly bad read but still failed in convincing me to read more of this type of book

Melissa Palmer

Book # 84 Read in 2017
the princess saves herself in this one by Amanda lovelace

This is a book of poetry, detailing a young woman's journey for strength. The poetry talks about such heavy topics as abuse, rape, suicide and self-esteem issues but the overall message of strength makes this a powerful read. I recommend it.

ladybookmad

From Amanda Lovelace, a poetry collection in four parts: the princess, the damsel, the queen, and you. The first three sections piece together the life of the author while the final section serves as a note to the reader. This moving book explores love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment, and inspiration. the princess saves herself in this one is the first book in the "women are some kind of magic" series.

Hannah Yang

Edit Dec. 16, 2017: Dropped my rate to a 3. 

I was going to rate this a 3.5, then a 4, but you know what? I'm rounding all the way up because there's something about The Princess Saves Herself in this One that I love. It's deeply personal but at the same time so, so relatable. It's Amanda Lovelace's story but at the same time, it is also mine and yours.

These poems are about everything. About life, love, loss, and everything in between. The poems are a visual experience as well as a 'spiritual' one (the heart shaped poem was very cute) and are either heartbreaking or lovely to behold. I loved the cute poems, I loved the angry and sad poems, I loved it. Maybe it's not truly classic and fantastic literature to be analyzed in classrooms for decades, but it is a beautiful collection of words all the same.

I would recommend this to anyone, but especially girls, and especially girls that don't feel understood. I cannot relate to many of the poems in The Princess Saves Herself in this One but for the poems I could relate to, I felt like I was looking into a mirror. 

I'm really not sure what else I can say, and I admit I find poetry very hard to review because it's like judging a piece of the author's soul. But. Give this a read. It's a quick read and only took me 22 minutes (according to my Kindle) but I can definitely see myself flipping through the pages again (many, many times).


  who would i have been without the inspiration behind my demons?
 - probably not a poet.

Moth

I did not love this simply due to knowing the author. I loved this because of how well written and awe inspiring the poems were. I knew from hearing about this project that it would be good, but it didn't prepare me for the tears that it brought to my eyes and the echoing ache in my chest from the feelings I've felt over things so similar. If I could have, I would have highlighted the whole book. It was well crafted and in being able to make people relate is one of the things writers strive for and she managed to do so easily. I know her words will stay with me and will be at my side through the good and the bad, echoing their messages again and again.

kaitlan

lol i’m 20% in and i am not going to force myself to finish this

i’m sorry but this isn’t really poetry — or, i mean, anything can be poetry, but i really don’t think this is well-thought out (i.e. good) poetry. i feel like she could have written all of this in a day. i feel so mean and bad saying that but :((

i thought it might have been a cute first love feminist read or something but. if you like rupi kaur maybe you will like this, and truly i will not judge you for it, but i am not a huge fan

for example, this poem might be the best (?) one (?):

the princess
locked herself away
in the highest tower, 
hoping a knight
in shining armor
would come to her rescue.

- i didn’t realize i could be my own knight.


but i think taylor swift’s “i’m not a princess / this ain’t a fairytale / I’m gonna find someone someday / who might actually treat me well … it’s too late for you and your white horse / to catch me now” is better poetry.

Amanda Faith

I personally think this book of poetry wasn't really a book of poetry but rather the author writing her many poetic-sounding thoughts. Honestly, anyone could write someone as beautiful as this piece by experiencing things of the same degree of emotion as the author. If anyone got that. 
It was still nice to read, although I don't think it's the most creative or captivating work.

Sofia Nunes

“ah, life—
the thing
that happens
to us
while we’re off
somewhere else
blowing on
dandelions
& wishing
ourselves into
the pages of
our favorite
fairy tales.”

  Stunning.

dija

Jamieson

i have
so much love
to give
but no one
ever wants it

--- a cup overfilled

honestly I sit somewhere in the middle with this poetry collection. I don't think it's 'bad poetry', and being mad at modern poetry for having lots of space bar use and short poems is just .. dumb. Thats what the genre is (it's like being mad at contemporary for not having dragons)

but I did think some of the poems were cliche, especially in the first section. Lots of pretty words that, actually don't mean anything. faux deep

But in the second section (my favourite) this really started to pick up and hit me with some good words. I think the second and third parts are told with much more emotion and meaning and I really enjoyed some of the poems enough to go out and find tabs

the emotion behind the poems, and the way amanda lovelace has chosen to go and bare her own trauma and thoughts and history onto the page is something so deeply personal I would be uncomfortable critiquing it. But I don't really feel I need to because these poems worked for me, and lots of them really moved me

Overall I did really enjoy this collection and I'm excited for her second collection

some poems

once upon
a time, 
the princess
rose from the ashes
her dragon lovers
made of her
& 
crowned 
herself
the
motherfucking
queen of
herself

--- how's that for a happily ever after?


the love 
some girls 
have for 
other girls 
is 
so gentle 
& so soft
& so fucking 
beautiful,
& 
these girls
deserve
to have
better stories
than the ones
where they
are murdered
because they love
with too much
of their
hearts.

victoria

This week I had already reread another book of Amanda and it was really good but this one >>>
I don't know if it's cause I identify more with the themes, but this one seems so much more intimate, in some poems she even mentions issues similar to those of the other but here it seems much more personal. It was a great read. I identified with several pages in a row and she exposes it so well, I felt a relief to see someone else feeling what I already felt. Maybe not everyone is gonna like it since Amanda's books are for begginers in poetry!

Arturo Hernández

I appreciate the openness this book tries to showcase, however I feel like its objective got lost in translation. Chapter 2 almost got there, but the rest of the book seemed afraid to really talk about what the author wanted to say in the beginning. Will keep reading though...

Sintia

** spoiler alert **
           3.5 stars

It's my second poetry book by Amanda Lovelace and I enjoyed it. 
Even though I'm not a fan of the format of the poems and the fact that some of them reminded me of Instagram quotes, I really liked this collection. There are some poems that I loved and that left me speechless.

Really good, very easy read but also hard? Bc of the themes that are brought up

Ary Dias 

Haylie

I got freebies of this and her other book of "poems" because of all the buzz surrounding her. It seems she's cashing in on the same style as Rupi Kaur, but in THIS book there were instances of her writing ONE SENTENCE on a page and calling it a poem. I find that a tad ridiculous. Yes, there were some decent works in these 160-ish pages, but overall I was really underwhelmed. 

It seems in the present, you really don't have to try to be a poet - or rather a "poetess" as Lovelace is referred to in her author bio. If you can make a sentence, then hit enter/return after 1-2 words in each sentence, you're golden. You can write one full sentence without special spacing on a page and call it a poem. You can disguise two sentences in the shape of a heart and call it a poem. You can stretch out a word in this r i d i c u l o u s way and call it a poem. The styles and structure of poetry that we've been exposed to in the past is just thrown out the window for sticky note/Instagram caption "poetry".

Another funny thing: I read this and thought: wow I'd see this as a caption on Tumblr, and lo and behold she writes this stuff on her Tumblr.

To be polite to the person who gave these books to me, I'll read her second one. Witches were more up my alley than princesses anyway.

There were parts I loved and felt in my vertebrae & words that slipped through the slippery slopes of my brain

Kate B-L

tina

Am I supposed to appreciate a poem that's like this??????

“i bet
you regret
making
an enemy
out of
me.
 
- 1 back, 2 knives.”


Surprisingly, this book snatched the first spot on the goodreads awards (another reason to believe that the goodreads awards is nothing but shit) when the poems here are like words carelessly thrown on paper. I liked the idea of this being a feminist book, i like how the character development was evident as I read further. The execution was just bad. I don't know what's happening to poetry but I am honestly not here for it. When did poetry stop containing in depth, and metaphorical content. It makes me sad that contemporary poetry is nowhere near as how classic poems were written.

Pien van Nunen

Marloes

DNF’d around half way through. This was another reminder that poetry just isn’t for me.

Claudia Ganea

I'm usually not the biggest fan of poetry - but this book made me cry about 10 pages in, so that should give you an idea of how much I loved it.

While it does come with a trigger warning due to its approaching topics such as abuse, eating disorders and rape, I adored how raw this was. Some poems felt like they'd been plucked straight from my own soul. And it's not often that I have that experience, so I absolutely loved reading this.

I'm currently onto the next part of the series (I have both in eBook format) and loving it just as much!

the princess saves herself in this one

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