Raw, emotional poetry organized in four sections: The Princess, The Damsel, The Queen, and You. The first three sections seem to tell a story about the poet's life; the final section seems to consist of cautionary tales or advice for the reader. The poems explore love and loss, grief and healing, tearing down and empowerment, some more successful than others. ( )

This book is a rollercoaster ride so if you are emotionally exhausted like I was you may want to wait until you are ready. While I did love the poetry, I would have liked it more if I was a teenage girl in high school. Since I technically saved myself and went through a majority of what Lovelace went through I could appreciate what she was writing, but I am healed from what I have endured.

It would have been amazing to read this in high school when you are just going through so much, and you don't even know who you are, what you should be doing, or even how to love. When emotions are fragile and you just need a savior (however you will learn to save yourself). This would be a good book to keep as a art journal, drawing next to the poems in a way that helped the emotions let loose.

My favorite part was III the queen. This is where you start to believe in yourself and Lovelace has a way of writing so that it reaches down into your soul and picks out those chunks that need to be healed. Despite liking the poetry I just couldn't give it a 4 or 5. Like I said if those wounds were fresh or if I was experiencing these problems, it would have spoken to me more. I also felt like something was missing, for me, from the poetry, what it was I couldn't tell you ( )

Literally 5th grade poetry... if that is your thing you will love this book. ( )

I am not typically a fan of modern poetry, but on the whole I really enjoyed and was deeply moved by this book. My favorite poem in it is "skin & bone", that's the kind of poem that will give me chills every time I read it.
While not every poem was a homerun, most of them were good, and I would have given this book 4 stars if it weren't for that last chapter, 'you'.
While the first three chapters follow a narrative and show character development and have a conclusion, the final chapter seems choppy and random. None of the poems in chapter four connect to each other or tell a story as the rest do, and worse than that, they are largely tumblrite talking points. The first 3 quarters of the book were widely relatable and apolitical, while the last quarter is critical theory and socialist talking points. It doesn't lend itself to the story, in fact it takes away from it. It takes you out of the emotional triumph of the queen, and plops you into a lecture. ( )

It will come as a shock to absolutely no one who knows me well why I chose this book. For those of you who don’t I’ll explain: fairy tales. I love fairy tales. I wrote my Master’s thesis on retelling fairy tales through Young Adult Literature. I made my husband watch “Once Upon a Time” on our honeymoon (he’s ridiculously understanding). My nickname was “Snow” once upon a… well, you get the idea. I’ve delved into the originals, retellings, television series, music, anything that touches on one of my favorite things in this world. I grew up wanting to be the princess and the knight; I wanted to befriend unicorns and ride dragons; I wanted all the magic and wonder that often seems missing in this world. So believe me when I tell you, I chose this book on purpose, and Amanda Lovelace and I see eye to eye on several things. But let’s start at the beginning…

I knew I was going to enjoy this book just from reading the dedication; a dedication so thoughtfully and poetically written to a fictional character who inspired her. I was caught.

Then the trigger warnings. I appreciate trigger warnings; there are some things I don’t want to read or watch, and others I need to mentally prepare myself for before I expose myself to such raw, painful issues. Lovelace does an excellent job outlining those for her readers, and I appreciate that.

Lovelace’s book is a compilation of modern poetry which works well for me at this stage in my life. (Four small kids, not a lot of “me” time.) She breaks “the princess saves herself in this one” into four parts, tackling hard issues like abuse (parental, relationship), eating disorders, death, and grief, to name a few. Throughout the book, Lovelace weaves together an overarching fairy tale theme the reader can choose to perceive in several ways: it could be an analogy for feminism or social justice, or perhaps maybe, just maybe, Lovelace is like me. Maybe this “book mad” author has read so much, collected words and phrases for so long that fairy tales, magic, and thousands of other fantastic, amazing, terrifying, beautiful stories have been etched into her so deeply over the years it’s now become a part of who she is.

Maybe it’s both. Or, maybe, I saw some of myself in her words. After all, I too, have “stardust running through [my] veins” (pg. 176). ( )