Time is a Mother is so clearly written by Ocean Vuong. The tone and style develops the sadness and anger of his previous work but feels more experimental. He conjures sense of place and the feelings of turbulence throughout. It’s queer and petulant and full of rage and trauma. But he also offers some beautifully delicate and soft lines as well. There is also humour and irony that’s sometimes dry and often dark. One particular sentence made me laugh out loud and I can’t wait to gift a copy of the poems to my best friend with that sentence highlighted. 

This is an emotional five star because I was compelled. I think there are a couple of dips. The book is a tapestry of "deviance" in Lagos. It's messy, dark and unrepentently queer. Really excellent but won't be for everyone. Content notes for everything. 

This is a lovely, twisty adult poetry collection. It messes with folklore and nature and fairy tales. The illustrations are beautiful. Recommend to fans of Jen Campbell and Helen Oyeyemi

Seedlings is a beautiful, creative, and accessible reimagining of lost of West Indian folktales. In the first story, I felt so seen as the main character listed the qualities of different animals and noting their likes and dislikes. The clever thing about the different stories is that you move from character to plot to world building very seamlessly. Brianna McCarthy’s illustrations bookmark each chapter and I was particularly drawn to  “The Ligaroot Tree” which I hadn’t seen in the promos for the book. It is perhaps the shortest story in the book and yet so much about care, community, and remembering. I don’t think we layer books with the subtle ways we keep our stories alive beyond our family units enough. That was so nice to see. I think “Topaz” was my other favourite. As the character merges with the island and then protects her people, I got all the feelings.

As well as being a charming and easy read, Seedlings doesn’t shy away from complicated language. When I was young, I would have loved to learn what “hyperbolic” means and drop it into sentences all over the place! Also, this is the first time I (a neurodivergent reader who is dyslexic) have read in the font specifically intended for readers like me. At first, I was dismayed by it being “ugly” but actually, I got no text burnout reading the book in one sitting so that’s an incredible hidden bonus for me. 

Overall, it’s a lovely collection of folklore, retelling, West Indian rep, kinship, magic, spirituality, and mystery. This would be a great introduction to the short story format and is one I’ll be keeping on the shelves to read to smaller people in my life.