Review: The Princess Saves Herself in this One

The Princess Saves Herself in this One by Amanda Lovelace
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Series: No
Release date: February 14th, 2017
Publisher: Andrew McMeel Publishing
Length: 208 pages
Source: Netgalley
Rating: Save me from this one



From Amanda Lovelace, a poetry collection in four parts: the princess, the damsel, the queen, and you. The first three sections piece together the life of the author while the final section serves as a note to the reader. This moving book explores love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment, and inspiration.


Okay. Yeah. That was....well, not my favorite ever thing. I feel like I just read my middle school AIM away messages or 200 pages of emo Myspace updates. I need to go listen to some Dashboard Confessional STAT. (YES, I AM OLD, OLDY OLD OLD)

I love the idea. I love the sentiments and the lessons, and CERTAINLY the feminist ideas at work here. If I saw any of the platitudes expressed in the "you" section on Tumblr, I'd happily reblog them. I definitely appreciate the raw emotions that very clearly went into the writing of them, and how personal the author was willing to get about her life. BUT. Um. Ummmmmmmmm. What the fuck.

But that...well. That's just not the kind of poetry I respond to. I find minimalist poetry EXTREMELY hit or miss, and when I (VERY RARELY) read poetry, it's usual the lusher, more ornate kind--or at least the more visually creative. Because this...I mean, there's nothing new here. It's generic Tumblr platitudes. It's emo angst that should be emblazoned over a picture of a sad girl on the beach and put on Pinterest. It's beyond basic metaphors and cliche imagery about hearts and stars and oceans. It's

hitting
enter
after nearly
e v e r y
w o r d
and
m
a
k
i
n
g
it
feel
deep.

To me that's just a waste of trees, but hey, to each their own.

Again, I APPRECIATE the raw angst here, but it's pretty clunky. There's no subtlety or nuance, which is why it makes me think of 13 year old me, just scribbling out PURE FEELINGS to the page because it was the only person who'd listen and all the feelings FELT SO NEW. Which, I mean, thank you for the nostalgia, if that's what was intended, but as a book of POETRY--sophisticated poetry for the modern feminist--it's a hard pass. I mean, this book of poetry even touched on things that are very personal to me, like grief, but I got zero feels. It was all so distant and buried in cliches.

Also...it sort of didn't feel like the princess saved herself? For all that I very much agree with all the quotes pulled out of context, the driving force of the author "saving" herself was mostlty the love of a dude. Which is legit, and I'm not knocking that, but. Well.

ANYHOO. Examples:

everyone i love leaves.

I...what? What Peyton Sawyer bullshit is this? That's the whole poem?? ONE TREE HILL WAS WANGSTING LIKE THIS TEN YEARS AGO.

i hope you
treat her better
than you
ever
treated me.

Did you carve this on the door of a bathroom stall or

he loves me.
he loves me not.

he loves her.
he loves her not.

he loves me.
he loves me not.

he loves her.
he loves her not.

he loves me.
he loves me not.

he loves her.
he loves her not.

he loves me.
he loves me not.

he loves her.
he loves her not.

he loves me.
he loves me not.

- i ran out of petals.

And I ran out of fucks.