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shealea 's review for:
the boys i've loved and the end of the world
by Catarine Hancock
Caution: Scalding tea ahead.
Content warning: Quoted excerpts used in this review and poems mentioned in this review contain themes of homophobia, suicide, islamophobia, transphobia, and drug addiction.
Okay. I don't know how or why this little poetry book found its way into my Kindle because I am absolutely sure that I did not purchase it. I'm convinced Satan hacked into my Amazon account. But I digress.
I'd like to preface this review with the confession that I never expected the boys i've loved and the end of the world to blow me away. I was expecting this collection to be filled with endless poems about love and heartbreaks -- and the thing about me and love/heartbreak poems is that I either feel really neutral about them or intensely dislike them. Rarely do I ever enjoy poetry books that are solely romance-themed. All of this is to say that I went into this thinking that, at worst, I'd be left unimpressed.
In the first few pieces, I was proven right. I was greeted with (arguably mediocre) poems that referred to the poet's lover as a "forlorn stargazer" who still found the poet beautiful despite being "full of dead stars and broken debris" -- and similar themes of "I'm so broken but this boy somehow thinks I'm still worth something" and its romanticization. (The year is 2020 and we're still romanticizing toxic and unhealthy relationships. My heart weeps.)
When I came across a poem about a turtle struggling to breathe (which, if I'm being honest, made me laugh out loud because it presents our environmental issues as this New, Shocking Thing that none of us were aware of prior to reading her poem), I learned that Catarine Hancock is an activist, according to her author bio that she wrote. It turns out that she "writes predominantly love poetry, but she also writes about [...] feminism and other controversial political topics," according to the author bio that she wrote.
I phrase it like that because while her poems about romance and young love come across as heartfelt and sincere (I just didn't like them), her other poems feel really forced and performative. It seems like Catarine wanted to prove that she's this remarkably progressive individual with a good head on her shoulders. In the boys i've loved and the end of the world, it really, truly shows that she pours her 100% into her love poetry and halfheartedly writes about activism and social issues. And this halfheartedness leads to her doing more harm than good: overly simplistic messages about nuanced issues, reductive (and potentially harmful) assumptions about gender, and worst of all, this abundantly privileged cis abled white woman tends to write about marginalized experiences that aren't hers to write about.
1. ode to the lgbt+ community -- In which she writes about the struggles faced by gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, asexuals, genderqueers, pansexuals, and aromantics from the first-person point of view. Again, the author is heterosexual. Most of her poems revolve around the boys she has kissed and the boys she has loved. Also, she even dedicates an entire stanza to the experiences of lgbtqiap+ allies, as if they experience the same level of discrimination and oppression as queer people.
2. ten words for the ten boys i've kissed -- In which #3 is "maybe if you weren't a homophobe, it could've worked out." and #4 is "people said you were gay, and i cared too much."
3. on the refugee crisis -- In which nothing about the refugee crisis is discussed. It's literally just "they [refugees] are important" rephrased enough times to create four stanzas. Completely insubstantial.
4. maybe a love story will catch your attention -- In which she describes the oppression faced by Muslims because she "fell in love with a muslim boy once" and that therefore qualifies her to write about Islamophobia.
5. as a woman -- In which we get around 9 stanzas about wearing/not-wearing makeup and the entire poem is packaged as a (white) feminist piece. The lack of nuance is truly astonishing.
6. cherry blossom kisses -- In which she narrates a fictional forbidden relationship between two gay men, which ends with one of them taking their own life. This particular piece makes casual use of a gay slur (f*gg*t).
7. the parallels between loving someone and drug addiction -- In which the title of the poem is self-explanatory, and yes, it's that bad.
8. a series of short poems on the boys who love(d) me -- In which she tells one of her exes that "i'm sorry i made you / want to kill yourself when i ended it but i / hope you've grown up because threatening / suicide won't make me love you again."
9. trans rights are human rights -- In which trans people are referred to as "in-betweens." And its last stanza goes: who cares if it's "weird" or you don't know why, / it's not about what you think, it isn't your life. / you respect their decision because it doesn't harm you; / get over it: some boys like pink and some girls like blue. Which just about sums up her reductive understanding of gender identities.
These are probably the most problematic pieces I noticed from this collection, but there are certainly more. In addition to these, the author casually gaslights her exes and explores sensitive topics (i.e. victim blaming, suicide, mental illness, infidelity) carelessly and irresponsibly.
I'm sorry, but the boys i've loved and the end of the world isn't it. Moving forward, I will no longer support this author (although I hope she someday learns how to be a good ally).
Not recommended (1 star)
Content/Trigger warnings
Content warning: Quoted excerpts used in this review and poems mentioned in this review contain themes of homophobia, suicide, islamophobia, transphobia, and drug addiction.
Okay. I don't know how or why this little poetry book found its way into my Kindle because I am absolutely sure that I did not purchase it. I'm convinced Satan hacked into my Amazon account. But I digress.
I'd like to preface this review with the confession that I never expected the boys i've loved and the end of the world to blow me away. I was expecting this collection to be filled with endless poems about love and heartbreaks -- and the thing about me and love/heartbreak poems is that I either feel really neutral about them or intensely dislike them. Rarely do I ever enjoy poetry books that are solely romance-themed. All of this is to say that I went into this thinking that, at worst, I'd be left unimpressed.
In the first few pieces, I was proven right. I was greeted with (arguably mediocre) poems that referred to the poet's lover as a "forlorn stargazer" who still found the poet beautiful despite being "full of dead stars and broken debris" -- and similar themes of "I'm so broken but this boy somehow thinks I'm still worth something" and its romanticization. (The year is 2020 and we're still romanticizing toxic and unhealthy relationships. My heart weeps.)
When I came across a poem about a turtle struggling to breathe (which, if I'm being honest, made me laugh out loud because it presents our environmental issues as this New, Shocking Thing that none of us were aware of prior to reading her poem), I learned that Catarine Hancock is an activist, according to her author bio that she wrote. It turns out that she "writes predominantly love poetry, but she also writes about [...] feminism and other controversial political topics," according to the author bio that she wrote.
I phrase it like that because while her poems about romance and young love come across as heartfelt and sincere (I just didn't like them), her other poems feel really forced and performative. It seems like Catarine wanted to prove that she's this remarkably progressive individual with a good head on her shoulders. In the boys i've loved and the end of the world, it really, truly shows that she pours her 100% into her love poetry and halfheartedly writes about activism and social issues. And this halfheartedness leads to her doing more harm than good: overly simplistic messages about nuanced issues, reductive (and potentially harmful) assumptions about gender, and worst of all, this abundantly privileged cis abled white woman tends to write about marginalized experiences that aren't hers to write about.
1. ode to the lgbt+ community -- In which she writes about the struggles faced by gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, asexuals, genderqueers, pansexuals, and aromantics from the first-person point of view. Again, the author is heterosexual. Most of her poems revolve around the boys she has kissed and the boys she has loved. Also, she even dedicates an entire stanza to the experiences of lgbtqiap+ allies, as if they experience the same level of discrimination and oppression as queer people.
2. ten words for the ten boys i've kissed -- In which #3 is "maybe if you weren't a homophobe, it could've worked out." and #4 is "people said you were gay, and i cared too much."
3. on the refugee crisis -- In which nothing about the refugee crisis is discussed. It's literally just "they [refugees] are important" rephrased enough times to create four stanzas. Completely insubstantial.
4. maybe a love story will catch your attention -- In which she describes the oppression faced by Muslims because she "fell in love with a muslim boy once" and that therefore qualifies her to write about Islamophobia.
5. as a woman -- In which we get around 9 stanzas about wearing/not-wearing makeup and the entire poem is packaged as a (white) feminist piece. The lack of nuance is truly astonishing.
6. cherry blossom kisses -- In which she narrates a fictional forbidden relationship between two gay men, which ends with one of them taking their own life. This particular piece makes casual use of a gay slur (f*gg*t).
7. the parallels between loving someone and drug addiction -- In which the title of the poem is self-explanatory, and yes, it's that bad.
8. a series of short poems on the boys who love(d) me -- In which she tells one of her exes that "i'm sorry i made you / want to kill yourself when i ended it but i / hope you've grown up because threatening / suicide won't make me love you again."
9. trans rights are human rights -- In which trans people are referred to as "in-betweens." And its last stanza goes: who cares if it's "weird" or you don't know why, / it's not about what you think, it isn't your life. / you respect their decision because it doesn't harm you; / get over it: some boys like pink and some girls like blue. Which just about sums up her reductive understanding of gender identities.
These are probably the most problematic pieces I noticed from this collection, but there are certainly more. In addition to these, the author casually gaslights her exes and explores sensitive topics (i.e. victim blaming, suicide, mental illness, infidelity) carelessly and irresponsibly.
I'm sorry, but the boys i've loved and the end of the world isn't it. Moving forward, I will no longer support this author (although I hope she someday learns how to be a good ally).
Not recommended (1 star)
Content/Trigger warnings