Book Review: The Smallest of BonesHolly Lyn Walrath
The Smallest of Bones
Holly Lyn Walrath
This is one of those instances where I wish publishers would consider making a little bit more effort with arcs. Poetry needs the formatting, but the version I got was a little bit too much of a mess for the poetry to be fully and completely appreciated.
Anyway. I was expecting really good stuff from this, based on blurbs, and I’ve read some absolutely wonderful horror poetry previously. The concept for this is intriguing, and I did like the small snippets of information before each poem about different bones in the human body.
The blurb claims these poems cover “a wide range of topics such as love, romance, relationships, queer sexuality, religion, death, demons, ghosts, bones, gender, and darkness.” Which is a lot for such a small space. Poetry, when done well, is a wonder to behold. Something about this collection just fell a little flat. There were elements that worked well, but there were parts where some of it felt almost forced, like there were tick boxes of themes the author was trying to cover. It felt like the poems themselves needed just a little bit more space to breathe.
A couple of poems are good, but I think this would have benefitted by more care over arc formatting and by the collection itself maybe being a touch longer. But then again maybe it’s me, and maybe there’s some who will claim I just don’t “get” this. Walrath is a talented poet, but this collection just felt like there too many different ideas vying for space.
Grade: D
Review by Elle Turpitt
Twitter & Instagram: @elleturpitt
I received this ebook from CLASH Books via NetGalley for review consideration.
