Name: Taylor Mears's review of Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately by Alicia Cook
Item: Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately
Rating: 3
Author: Taylor Mears

Alicia Cook

A poet, journalist, and activist, Alicia Cook offers a soundtrack of survival. Structured like an old-school mix-tape, Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately is Alicia Cook's lyric message to anyone who has dealt with addiction. "Side A" touches on all aspects of the human condition: life, death, love, trauma, and growth. "Side B" contains haunting black-out remixes of those poems.

Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately

Taylor Mears

In Alicia Cook's second poetic effort, designed in the style of an old mixtape, she sets her thoughts to a nostalgic tune. There is no Table of Contents. Instead, there is a "Track List," making it easy to refer to them to your friends with a, "Hey did you read track seven?!" There are no chapters. Instead, the book is divided into two parts, or as one would say in the 90's, two "sides." Side A holds poetry that touches on all aspects of the human condition like life, death, love, moving on, evolving, growing up, hometowns, family dynamic, life after trauma, and make-ups and breakups. Side B holds the "remixes" of these poems, in the form of blackout poetry, also known as "found poetry." Side B gives the material a fresh twist by creating new poetry out of Side A. There is also a very special surprise at the end of each track. Alicia decided to self publish this effort after leaving her publishing house. She views this book as her "independence" and official separation from that venture. She also drew the front and back cover herself. Alicia is a contributing writer for many blogs and news outlets, including the Huffington Post and multiple Gannett Publications. She writes regularly on drug addiction and how it directly affects families. Because of this, she has chosen to donate 100% of royalties to the Willow Tree Center in New Jersey. www.willowtree.org. Follow Alicia on Instagram: @thealiciacook or check out her website: www.thealiciacook.com.

Krystal 

Jas Wang

3.75 stars 
I loved a few pieces, but most of them were quiet average in my opinion.
I like the idea of making the remixes (black-out poetry) but I felt like the ones with a lot of words crossed out just to take an alphabet from each word and make it into a word felt too forced maybe?
Maybe it's just my own critical way of reading poems.

Destiny J Tamayo

I really did not enjoy this collection at all. I couldn’t connect with it and many times I felt like I was forcing my way through.

Abigail F

Quick review: have read twice. Want to go back and read a third time. 

First read straight through, then the “original” followed by it’s “remix.” For third reading want to listen to accompanying songs. 

Only one of the orignals stuck out of me on their own as really spectacular. The rest felt like most other collections of contemporary poetry (basically life advice/cliches with line breaks). Very told not shown. Some of the remixes were cool in comparison to the original. Others made it almost worse. Interested to see how music changes perspective.

Org rating:2

Addition: had to remove a star once I realized the idea of the song felt nostalgic because it really reminds me of being in 11th grade and reading fan fiction on watt pad with the authors selected song for each chapter. Can’t after that

Elle

This book was too cliche and stereotypical for me. I just felt as though she was able to completely capture the whole internet persona and label of 2015-2016 teenage girls. This might be great for some but for me I found it extremely annoying as I hated these cliches.

I thought the idea of having this be a soundtrack was neat and I liked the attempt of it, although I also felt the music to be extremely mainstream as well. This music sharing idea reminded me of another book that I read last year, Our Demons, Best Friends. But I felt like the music in Our Demons, Best Friends was more unique than Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately.

Once I got to the second half of the book, I felt like it did get better. I found myself enjoying the music a bit more and also the "remix" part.

2/5 Stars.

Shannon O’Connor 

I liked this collection a lot. Side B fell a little flat for me but i think it’s just bc I’m not a fan of blackout poetry. So I’m still giving it 4 stars bc side A was so great

Sarah

Unfortunately I didn’t love this book as much as I wanted to.
I liked it, but I didn’t connect with the poems on Side A as much as I expected to. They were solid and well written, but I felt like something was off.
Side B definitely redeemed this book for me. I found the idea pretty creative and I liked the poems so much more.
Overall, it’s a nice poetry book, but not my favourite.

Debbie

You have no idea how impressed I am with this book. I listen to music literally everyday and this book is really captivating. I love the idea of combining poetry and music so much. The writer called each content/ part of her poetry "Track" which I think was very cool, there are no chapters, instead it was divided into two part, Side A and Side B, man, just like the old tape, and the black-out poetry, gosh, it's shame to say, but I never really know it exists. 

Anyway, that's not just the thing I love the most about this book. The poetry itself is so powerful. In my opinion, it was written based on experiences which I could relate to, mostly. It talks about family love, friendship, self-doubt, breakdown, rise again, all things someone could experience in life. This is the coolest book I've read so far this year.

Lorien O'Brien

I loved reading this. First if all, the poems were brilliant and beautiful, they ripped my heart out and then warmed it and gave me hope and then broke it all over again. Adding music to each poem added so much to the experience. Yeah, it took a while to read it because I listened to almost every song (not rap, I am not a fan) but it added so much!!! If you like modern poetry you should try this one!!!

Jessica 

Blog | Twitter | Instagram | 
  A copy of this novel was provided through NetGalley by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not effect my opinions in any way.


I am going to be the woman you fear.

As of late, I've been expanding my poetry shelves and when I came upon Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately, I knew I had to give it a read. Something about the format is appealing to me and I had a feeling I'd love it. I didn't know just how much I would. Not only is the format told in a way that sparks my interest (mix tapes and poetry?!) the prose is so full of life that I found myself short of breath on more than one occasion. I kept saying this, this collection is modern poetry at its finest.

Alicia Cook has a way to her words that leads us readers to her thoughts. Straightaway, what she writes is what we feel. It's so easy to connect with her and there's this sense of honesty to every word that is impossible to describe. Poetry is all about connecting us to a person's heart and soul and Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately is a total nod to this. You're embraced by this intimate look at her life. The good, the bad, the everything. I loved exploring every minute of it and finished it in one sitting because it's just so good.

Continued: BOOKEDJ

Gretchen Gomez

please click here for my full review and included photos of favorite poetry pieces

First off, I want to wish Alicia Cook the happiest of book birthday’s to Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately!! It is now officially published with Andrews McMeel Publishing with tons of new poems so I cannot wait to grab this edition and read the rest!

The copy that I am reviewing is her self-published version which I purchased back in January. And easily one of my favorite poetry collections. This collection was full of nostalgia, grief, loss, love, growing, and so many other things that a lot of us humans go through.

Stuff I’ve Been Lately is divided into two parts. Side A are full length of poems that talk about all the topics I mentioned. Side B are the remixes, where she takes these same poems are creates “black out” poetry out of them. Still equally and impacting as Side A.

These poems were very unique and threw a punch in each one. I loved reading Side A, Side B and then alternating as well. This is beautiful, raw, and emotional.

If you ever dealt with loss, grief, nostalgia, self-doubt, then I would recommend this to you. It really touched my heart.

Taylor Mears &
Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately by Alicia Cook

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Taylor Mears &
Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately by Alicia Cook