Really short book of poetry on a variety of issues, all revolving around family relationships. The actual audiobook was only about thirty minutes, but Warsan Shire's words are so rich and full of life and meaning and emotion that it felt like I'd been listening to her for hours.

please, don't call us dead, call us alive someplace better.

Love yourself, so that love will not be a stranger when it comes.

I almost didn't stick this one out, but I'm glad I did! First of all, listen to the audio book, Jenifer Lewis reads it herself (she also sings throughout). The book chronicles her life and career and really captures her unique voice. One thing that I didn't realize until I got to the end of the book is that her tone and voice in each chapter tends to reflect her mental state in life (she has bipolar disorder). So in the first few chapters I was like, this is a lot, but I stuck it out and heard her voice and the style of the text change as she becomes older. And I LOVED her letter to the reader at the end. Throughout the entire book she drops gems of wisdom on life and love and relationships, and you get a sense of the breadth of her career (she's done everything!).

Well written, and I liked the premise...very creepy. It was nice to see the unreliable drunken narrator be a man this time, but I'm kind of tired of that trope in general. The plot was well done, but felt kind of predictable, although there were delightful little unforeseen twists along the way.

I received this book through the Penguin First-to-read program, but I'm under no obligation to review it here. I just did because I wanted to.