Love Looks Pretty on You by Lang Leav

Love Looks Pretty on You Releases January 29th!

Love Looks Pretty on You by Lang Leav

4.75 stars

“She felt a surge of joy that warmed her so unexpectedly, so completely—it was as though it had been waiting for her all this time. Waiting among the flowers.”

Lang Leav is a famous name that is synonymous with modern poetry. Her works have taken the publishing industry by storm and influenced a lot of poets in the process. This is my first time picking up one of her works and this is the most cohesive of the poetry collections I’ve come across. I want to say that I loved this collection. There are poems that I adore, liked, and then there are poems that I hated. So, it is a mixed bag, but my love for the poems outweighed my distaste for a handful of them. I can’t remember a time when I’ve come across a collection that has so severely touched me. Leav tackles feminism, abuse, consent, love, what is to be a woman, and the main theme of this is a love letter to women. A celebration of a woman’s psyche and her desire to be loved and the hurt that sometimes come from being loved. It’s a beautiful collection. I will preface this by saying it is poetry and prose. There are a lot of pages with just a sentence or two and that was a little off-putting to me at first, but as the collection went on, I became so immersed that I cared more about the words themselves than the blank space on the page.

“My mother, my safe passage
into this world, fought a war
to show me wars can be won.”

Let’s tackle the poems I had issues with. There are some poems in here that are aggressive to the point of me feeling uncertain if the poet means ill will toward someone or if they are making a statement. I like statement poetry, I can get behind that. I can’t, however, get behind the niggling against a human being for the actions and decisions that they make. Whether those decisions or actions are right is besides the point, they deserve grace and implying that if they so much as think about you will bring your wrath upon them is dramatic and unnecessary. This collection focuses heavily on consent, but there is one poem that makes me feel a bit uncomfortable and slightly under the impression that consent is being thrown into the wind. I don’t believe this is Leav’s intention, but to a young impressionable teen who may not be able to read into the subtext it could potentially encourage a decision that is questionable. I will leave the poem in a spoiler tag in case you are curious about the content:

“He only wants you
when he can’t have you.
So why don’t you give him
what he wants.

The one poem I can’t stand though is Obsession. It made me think of Hypodermic Sally from Hotel when she sews herself to that boy and girl because she was so in love with them and then they died on her. Ew. I just can’t get behind the weird obsessive tattoo your name on my face and bind myself to you forever. NOPE. I also wasn’t a fan of Unforgiven, but I don’t want to keep focusing on the things I didn’t like because look at all that I loved.

Poems/Prose I Recommend:
Making History
More or Less
Vultures
Pandora’s Box*
Letter to the Past*
Idols*
Before*
Refugees
Slut Shaming*
First Steps*
Flowers*
One day a moment will come to you.
Saltwater
Woman’s Anthem
Abusive Relationships*
True Love
The Gift of Everything
Rebirth
This Was the Year*
From My Heart 
What He’s Lost
Reflection
A Meeting of Selves*
The Present*
Youth
These Years
Elements
House of Straw*
Write for Yourself
Love and Loss
Springtime
A Long Time Ago

I adored this collection. There are some fantastic poems in here. They truly hit me in an unexpected and beautiful way. Poetry is hit or miss with me and it’s usually more miss with me because I prefer spoken word poetry. Here is a poem that I loved:

“When my best friend told me

she was in love

my first thought was,

I hope he is good to her.

And it suddenly occurred to me,

what I held in my heart for her

was hope, when it should

have been expectation.”

Please check out this collection. I’m serious. It’s worth reading. Despite the few poems that I found to be unsatisfying and the good overweighs the bad by far. This collection is eloquent, gripping, and emotional profound. Its an intimate look at women through the lens of a poet celebrating womanhood.

“Chased away the cobwebs that I had let linger for far too long. Told the moon I was sorry, but this is now my time in the sun."

Whimsical Writing Scale: 4.5

Plotastic Scale: 5

Cover Thoughts: I am obsessed with this cover and the colors. The two colors are just so striking and I love everything about it.

Thank you, Netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing, for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

 Have you read a Lang Leav collection? Are you a fan of poetry? Are you interested in picking up this collection? Let me know down below in the comments!