I’ve been a Halsey fan since their Room 93 EP, so I knew some day I’d get around to reading her poetry collection - despite the fact that I don’t typically enjoy reading poetry (I don’t give myself time to dissect & reflect on poems, which I’m trying to get better at).

Like all of Halsey’s work, this poetry collection is deeply personal - a deep look into Halsey’s mind, past, struggles, and more. It covers a range of topics we’ve seen them cover in their other work - her relationship to sex & sexuality (both positive & negative experiences), struggles with her mental & physical health, the hard parts of womanhood, her childhood & growing up poor, her work as an artist & how it impacts her life. I truly commend Halsey for being willing to bare it all in this incredibly intimate & honest way. They truly put so much of themselves into their work - even the parts that aren’t so perfect, the parts that one necessarily may not want the whole world to see. I think it also makes for some interesting reflection, and there were a lot of poems that truly stuck with me because of that. It was also cool to see those bits and pieces from these poems Halsey eventually used in her songs for Manic & even IICHLIHP!

I will say, however, that some poems were definitely stronger than others in this collection - and I personally thought there were fewer strong ones than there were weak ones, which is disappointing to see in a poetry collection. Although I had some poems that I really loved, I feel like there weren’t enough of them for this book to get a 4+ star rating from me - as harsh as it may sound. I think this poetry collection is great in its own way and I genuinely hope that Halsey writes one again in the future, but I feel like there are ways it falls short. It’s missing that oomph that we see in her  songwriting.

I would definitely give this poetry collection a read once some time has passed! I’m still trying to understand how to read poetry so I think maybe there were things I could have missed during my first read-through that I’ll understand better next time.