Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

source: purchased
title: Milk and Honey
author: Rupi Kaur/Twitter
genre: poetry
published: 2014
pages: 204
rated: 4 out of 5 stars

blurb:
#1 New York Times bestseller Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity.

The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

my thoughts:
I went to Barnes & Noble with my daughter recently. I love our trips to the bookstore and library because she tends to find really interesting books. We didn’t have anything particular in mind when we went, just stopping to browse on a Saturday morning while out running errands. After a little while, she came up to me with a copy of Milk and Honey and said “Mom, I’ve heard so much about this one. I want to read it.”
She read it first and she would come and read passages to me that she liked.

it must hurt to know
I am your most
beautiful
regret
p.94, Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

I read Milk and Honey afterwards in one sitting. This is a collection of moving poetry by Rupi Kaur. There are sketches by the author with some of the poems. The book is separated into four parts, the hurting, the loving, the breaking and the healing. There are themes of abuse, heartache, family, finding oneself and healing within these poems.

how can our love die
if it’s written
in these pages
p. 128

My daughter loved this book. She told me it was as if she was reading the author’s personal diary. Some of the poems were inspired by a lost love and the heartbreak that relationship put her through.

The author also writes about the unthinkable pain she suffered from physical abuse at a young age. She touches on what life was like growing up in her family, when she and her mother were expected to stay quiet and not voice opinions.

This is a collection that resonates with the younger generation. I like that the author also writes about finding yourself and loving yourself just the way you are. She sends a positive message and that’s always a good thing for anyone to read about.

our backs
tell stories
no books have
the spine to
carry
-women of color
p. 171

about the author:
Rupi Kaur is a #1 ‘New York Times’ bestselling author and illustrator of two collections of poetry. She started drawing at the age of five when her mother handed her a paintbrush and said—draw your heart out. Rupi views her life as an exploration of that artistic journey. After completing her degree in rhetoric studies, she published her first collection of poems ‘milk and honey’ in 2014. The internationally acclaimed collection sold well over a million copies gracing the New York Times bestseller list every week for over a year. It has since been translated into over thirty languages. Her long-awaited second collection ‘the sun and her flowers’ was published in 2017. Through this collection she continues to explore a variety of themes ranging from love. Loss. Trauma. Healing. Femininity. Migration. And revolution. Rupi has performed her poetry across the world. Her photography and art direction are warmly embraced and she hopes to continue this expression for years to come.

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Disclaimer: This review is my honest opinion. I did not receive any kind of compensation for reading and reviewing this book. I am under no obligation to write a positive review. I purchased my copy of Milk and Honey.