Today’s poetry collection reminded me of a struggle I have with book reviewing – ratings.

Rating books that are quite personal to the author: where do you stand? On one hand, you can have your own thoughts and feelings about a book. On the other, it is someone else’s life that we are rating, or maybe the portrayal of it. It feels strange to give it a number, as if we are right to decide.

Where do you stand on this topic? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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The Soulless Shoe
by Mehak Goyal

BOOK SUMMARY

It is a chapbook on poetry divided into 3 parts: tattered, stitched and adorned.

The first section deals with the agony of heartbreak.
The second section focuses on healing and recovering.
The third section captures the desire to fall in love clouded by the doubts of being broken again.

BOOK REVIEW

*An e-copy was given by the author in exchange for an honest review.

The Soulless Shoe is a short poetry chapbook, good for a quick read that you’re able to finish in one sitting. It is divided into 3 parts covering despair, hope, and finally being mended back together, and it begins with a poem that illustrates the scene, and the following poems after that enhances it.

It seems like a whole story told through 21 poems, however, because of how there wasn’t any clear indication that there were separate poems, it could be just 3 very long poems and that is very impressive.

In terms of the design and layout, a line art accompanies every poem, and the layout was unlike any other that I’ve read. Traditionally, poems would either be centered in the middle, or aligned left, but there’s variation throughout the pages which I really liked. It’s extremely rare to see a poem aligned to the right, but for all 3 layouts in one book? That’s new.

It feels strange to write a review of this collection. On one hand, it is only 36 pages from cover to cover, on the other hand, it is so personal to the author. For someone to write poems as perhaps a form of catharsis, it is difficult to give it a number rating (but in the end I did).

For the sake of a review, from a reader’s perspective, I appreciate the hope, joy and strength towards the end of the book. Other than that, it is quick and sweet, but left more to be desired.