Open The Rose That Blooms in the Night with a truly open heart, and this collection of loving poetry will heal and soothe.
I had no idea what to expect when cracking open this poetry collection. If I were being truly honest, I haven't read a true book of poems since my mother had a poem published back in the early 2000s (showing my age here). I've perused the Kokinshi, listened to Sarah Blondin's spoken word poetry, but I haven't read a good book of poems until now and I am so grateful for stumbling across Allie Michelle's book. The Rose That Blooms in the Night is for the empaths. For the highly sensitive people that are told that they don't belong in a warrior king's world. It's for the women that have been told countless times that they are not what society wants, and must change themselves to be loved. It is for those of us who have forgotten our worth and have lost the way home to ourselves and our hearts. It is for all of us, each and every one of us. This is a collection of poems that will make you think about your current and past selves. The moving, nourishing, words will remind you that love, unconditional love, is the key to surviving in our ever-evolving landscape of social media, political scandal, regret, remorse--you name it. This is a book that will deeply resonate with anyone willing to delve deeply into its pages and not shirk back from their heart spaces. The Rose That Blooms in the Night will make you cry, laugh (I certainly shed a couple of tears), and everything in between. This is a book that I will be getting for all of the wonderful women in my life and one that I will be returning to again and again whenever I need to find my way back home to myself. This book was graciously given to me as an ARC by Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
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On my first trip to Kansas City, my mother-in-law took me to a metaphysical store. The place was packed with all sorts of Wiccan and Eastern items, from statues of Hindu goddesses to busts of Wiccan nature deities. Well toward the back of the store, seated on a pedestal, was a frosted crystal bowl. An attendant at the store took a mallet and softly ran it around the bowl's rim, creating an ephemeral sound that resonated deeply in my soul. A primordial sound that spoke deeply to me and made the rest of the world fall away. That was my first introduction to sound bathing.
I checked out this book on a whim, but what I was met with inside seemed perfectly tailored to people like me. As a highly sensitive person, sound and music can be as detrimental as it is gratifying and freeing. In this book, the author taught me how to tune in deeply to sounds through a practice called deep listening. She includes a wealth of science-backed information on why and how sound bathing is not only good for your body but good for your soul as well. There are beautiful graphical depictions of meridians, the workings of the inner ear, Hindu goddesses, and much, much, more. At the end of every chapter is an exercise meant to help you fully grasp the information learned. For this book, you'll want to have a journal handy. Sound Bath is a great read for skeptics, sound healers, and those just looking for another tool to add to their self-care toolkit. If you give Sound Bath a chance, you'll come away with a curiosity about sound healing and many tools to use in your own sound healing journey. This ARC was given to me by Netgalley. All opinions are my own. It's incredibly tough for me to find books where the protagonists are like myself. Nowadays, with everyone falling in love with diversity, it's not so tough. But as a kid, all I had was Alanna the Lionness and a host of other female protagonists that were all white.
I wish this book had existed when I was a teen. Needless to say, I loved it. The Sound of Stars is innovative and kind of like The Arrival meets Jane Austen. As a lover of hard science fiction, this book was...different to say the least. It covers all of the tenants of soft science fiction and I'm not knocking it for that. In fact, I enjoyed the emotional consequences of alien invasions and tech. The Sound of Stars is a sweet love story that follows Janelle, a black market librarian, and Morris, an invader who wishes he were not. The two are connected by a love of art, specifically of music and books (something I could totally get behind). Of the two characters, Morris really steals the show with his sweet acts of kindness, strength, and sacrifice all in the name of an emotion he doesn't completely understand; love. What I didn't like so much about the book is how it began to drag on toward the middle and especially the end. But if you hang in there toward the end something extremely rewarding awaits and I'm glad I kept chugging along even when I wanted to put the book down (though I did begin to skim). All in all, this dystopian road trip to the stars was unputdownable. With its amazing feats of love in a landscape seemingly devoid of it and the people and aliens that dot this new Earth that are all kinds of mean and all kinds of hopeful. If you give The Sound of Stars a chance you'll come away with a renewed belief in hope and all of its shiny trappings. I know I did. Thank you Netgalley and Harlequin Teen for providing me with an ARC of this book. My opinions are my own. Let's start by saying that I had absolutely no idea that this book was a memoir. Reading about Gloria's journey through Europe had me dying on the floor laughing at some parts, and in tears at others. At one point in the book, I had to put it down just to digest it all.
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