book – 𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗱. author – nusrat aziz mim
genre – poetry
personal rating – i can’t rate something that went over my head
𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗶 𝗴𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸
so, about two weeks ago, i received an arc (advanced reading copy) of the book “untamed” from Starlin Books BD. it is an upcoming book, written by nusrat aziz mim and starlin is her printing partner.
the author offered to gift an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. and when it comes to books, i like to be as honest as possible about my thoughts and opinion without sugarcoating anything.
𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁-
“untamed” is a collection of poetry, expressing feminism (?), the social condition of women, how they are treated, our mental state toward women, love, loss, betrayal, random thoughts, and whatnot.
𝗺𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁
there was a time, often still is, when poetry used to be a reflection of the author’s soul. even those who don’t usually enjoy reading poetry (like me), would love getting lost in them from time to time because they would make sense.
and now, some “modern” poetry is something i can never understand.
𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐢 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧
𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞,
𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧
𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧
𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬
𝐚𝐧𝐝
𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐭 𝐚 𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐦
i blame rupi kaur for giving people the wrong idea about poetry. but hey! at least some of her poems did make sense.
but i cannot say the same for “untamed”. maybe the author tried saying something so deep that the meaning never made it out of its hole. the “poems” are more like random scribble than poetry. something i would not even put up as a facebook post, let alone make a whole book out of them.
many of the poems’ overall themes seemed pretty repetitive. everything is written in small letters (like this review). and there were several poems using the word “whrehouse” without necessarily needing it.
pages of the book are wasted with only a few sentences containing a few words written. i would have looked past that if they at least made good sense or said something meaningful.
i didn’t like the book from start. but i kept on reading, taking my time, hoping that i would find something good to say about it. unfortunately, i couldn’t. my sister gave up after a few pages. even those who read parts of the book through me disliked it (which says a lot).
as an aspiring but scared-to-get-published writer myself, the last thing i wanted to do is discourage a debuting writer. yet i cannot call something good simply to please the writer and give false ideas and hope.
the writer did have some good ideas, that i must add. but the execution was clearly very poor. hopefully, she will try harder next time (?).
My bookstagram: rima_sarmin