Book Review: The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One

Title: The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One

Author: Amanda Lovelace

Series: Women are some kind of magic

Genre/s: Poetry

My rating: 5/5 stars

Goodreads synopsis:

The witch: supernaturally powerful, inscrutably independent, and now—indestructible. These moving, relatable poems encourage resilience and embolden women to take control of their own stories. Enemies try to judge, oppress, and marginalize her, but the witch doesn’t burn in this one.

At the end of last year, I made sort of a vow to myself that I would try to read more poetry books. I wanted to discover this new genre of books. And also because I found it personally weird that I used to be a literary writer and editor in college, but I have never read a poetry book like this! Hahaha!

This book was a rare find. I’ve had my eyes on this book for a while (the whole series/ poetry collection of Amanda Lovelace, to be honest), but our local bookstores do not have stocks of it. But then, I did find one! A single copy. I was so, so thankful! It was unfortunate that I only found the second book in the series, but I was still so happy.

Last week, I finally read it, and fellow book nerds, I am amazed! This book is fierce, provoking, and oh so lovely in every way.

The poems were easy to read, easy to follow. Other pieces were a bit too short for me (or rather structured too plain and short), but I understand that that structure is the writing style of the author. Every piece holds so much emotion and experience that it just sucks you into the perspective of the narrator. I also love the imagery conveyed in some of the pieces, it just makes it more powerful. I also love how all of those poems and prose depict different aspects of a woman’s life. We have poems that talk about weight, poems that talk about toxic relationships, poems that talk about traumatic experiences, poems that talk about women being judged because of their emotions, poems that talk about the struggle of women being treated unfairly just because they are women, just because they exist.

I believe this poetry book succeeded in empowering us, women, inspiring us, and encouraging us to stay fierce and vigilant, and to show people what we’re made of and what we’re capable of. That for me, is beautiful and powerful, and I loved it. This is the feminist book that I needed. Now, I really want to read the rest of this poetry series.

Quotes from the book

gods, i hope i terrify you.

Curves and fat and rolls are a colossal ‘fuck you’ to the patriarchy – our accidental rebellion.

if
the very
idea
of
standing up
for myself
frightens you
so
damn much
then
i guess
the power
you thought
you held
over me
wasn’t that
impressive
in the
first place.

-fragile masculinity