This book stood out for how different the layout was. I viewed some of its formatting online from previews, and I actually had really high hopes for this book. Instead of naming poems, he sets a date to them, like someone troubleshooting a complicated machine and you are taking notes of the trouble shooting process. It’s aesthetic and format matched this as well, which I thought was a neat touch sending a clear message that he was talking about either troubleshooting himself or others. The concept is well done and just unique enough while not being so unique it’s inaccessible.
That said, reading through the book, it was really a typical book of a gentlemen aching about love unreturned. He’s not troubleshooting, he is musing about his life in generic ways.
I’m trying to thumb through the book and find poems for a short reading for a video online, I can’t seem to find 4 minutes of reading in the whole book that compels me to read. It felt incredibly knee jerked- like every poem was written quickly off the top of the head. This may be his poetry style, but I do not care for it. It also seems to be at odds with the trappings of the book- people who like that style of poetry I doubt would care much for a poetry book that has the aesthetics of a troubleshooting log or a manual.
I sometimes even felt like the grammar was poor- which is alright in an artistic sense but it made a hard to read book. They felt more like accidents. Like in their own poems the author became lost to what he was writing and the subject and grammar gets blurred and lost. He also uses a lot of the same words over and over again. It was a battle to read through the book and it wasn’t even very long. It wasn’t because it was so bad- its because it was so typical. Like reading poetry memes on twitter- not the good ones just the ones that are around.
I feel bad being too hard on the book- it is likely the author is depressed and is channeling his depression into his work. That said- I can’t recommend this book to anyone.
Poetry aside, the book is well formatted and put together. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he has some graphic design talent.
