Reviews

woke up no light: poems by Leila Mottley

buggirl48's review

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5.0

not a weak link in the entire collection, leila mottley supremacy

dishing_on_books's review

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reflective medium-paced

3.75

grafe_'s review against another edition

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challenging emotional fast-paced

3.0

shansometimes's review against another edition

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4.5

I loved Leila Mottley's novel, NIGHTCRAWLING, and I'm so impressed that she can also write a very solid poetry collection. This was excellent. It wasn't quite a 5-star for me—there were a couple of times when I was like, "Hmm, I don't know about that,"—but there were also plenty of times where I thought, "Wow. That's an amazing line." These poems, which address Black girlhood and womanhood from various angles, are GREAT ones overall.

*This review is based on a digital ARC provided by the publisher. All opinions are 100% honest and my own.

oswindler's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

baileygay's review

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emotional reflective fast-paced

talfy28's review

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challenging emotional medium-paced

3.0

lindseyfadden's review

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challenging emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

5.0

sup3r_xn0va_maya's review

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

5.0

💬:N/A

📖Genres: poetry, poems

📚Page Count: 104

🎧Audiobook Length: 01:32 

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 5/5

woke up no light: poems is a poetry collection by Leila Mottley, the author of "Night Crawling". This poetry collection is raw, amazing, and it honestly blew me away. The poems are about being Black in America, most are about being a Black woman in America. The author talks about race, social justice, police brutality, misogynoir, sexual assault, and much more. Mottley writes some painful truths in such an elegant and gritty way. 

There are too many individual works that I liked or that resonated with me to list them all, but I particularly liked the poems in the two sections "girlhood" and "womanhood". The "neighborhood" section made me cry, I'm still processing what I've read overall.

Overall, this collection was moving and it was written with such grace. I definitely resonated with most of the poems in this collection. 
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 Stars

Thank you [NetGalley.com], Leila Mottley (the author), and  Knopf (publisher) for the arc (advanced reader's copy.) 

bibliotherapy's review

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emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5