Author: Stephanie

I’ve been reading a lot about marketing, branding, and running a business overall. I’m sure that, considering I’m an aspiring writer, this trend seems a bit odd. Later I will post an article in which I explain the connection between writers and marketing/branding/business management. For now, I want to bring you another book written with branding in mind: A Brand Strategist’s Note by Sophia Ahn.

Starting a business is hard. Building a successful brand for a business is even harder. Borrowing the first line of Ahn’s book, “Brand is ubiquitous and easily talked about, but in order for the brand to come out and be communicated, people behind it who develop and manage the brand are going through some heavy thinking and tricky challenges.” The process of creating and growing a brand is rather abstract with no right or wrong answer; something might work for the brand of one company, but when applied to another, it fails. Creativity and innovation can stall, and the basics of branding slip through the cracks.

A Brand Strategist’s Note by Sophia Ahn (a brand strategist in the United States and Korea) works to address these issues. It reminds existing brand strategists of the foundation of branding and gives new ones bricks with which to build their brand. This is not a how-to book. Instead, Ahn’s writing works to facilitate discussion about branding and give people’s minds a jumpstart into the process. With amusing (and helpful) Shel Silverstein-like illustrations, Ahn’s quick tips and quotes serve to get readers thinking for themselves, not just blindly following a cookie-cutter, step-by-step guide.

Admittedly, my brain has been rather…scattered as of late. Therefore, I’ve had a harder time concentrating even when reading. However, Ahn’s snippets of wisdom manage to not only keep my attention but to get me thinking about The Writer’s Scrap Bin’s brand and how I can improve it. She reminded me that a brand isn’t just an object; customers see it as a living, breathing entity with values and philosophies which grow over time. It’s born from a combination of facts and intuition, strategy and creativity, and no one approach is going to work for every brand.

Out of the entire book, I most love the quotes and illustrations. Ahn has collected quotes from successful entrepreneurs, philosophers, and other big wigs. These quotes help highlight and explain different concepts which the author touches upon in her notes. My favorite quote comes from page 60:

 

Great vision without great people is irrelevant.

–Jim Collins, Business Consultant and Author

 

Ahn continuously reminds the reader that great branding ideas must be implemented properly by human employees and that the brand itself must be treated as a person who represents the entire company. I think that Ahn could not have found a more perfect quote to embody these concepts than the one given above.

Even when the text did not manage to stimulate me, the illustrations did. Some of the illustrations provide visual guides, such as diagrams, to help convey the text’s meaning; others give examples of the concepts in the text, including ones from famous companies such as Starbucks and Amazon; still others just serve as amusing accompaniment to the text with which it has been paired. I stated earlier, these illustrations are very reminiscent of Shel Silverstein illustrations. Therefore, they are simple, black-and-white, and, at times, almost doodle-like. This simplicity allows the illustrations to aid the text without drawing too much attention away from it.

While the writing is easy enough for beginners to follow, I would recommend this book for people who already have some experience with branding. Ahn covers the basics and how they work. However, as the book is so brief (about 69 pages of text), beginners might find themselves wanting more explanations than what this work provides. For example, beginners will need a little more guidance in order to understand what a “brand identity” is versus a “brand image”. Another example can be found on page 56, where a novice like me might need a little more information beyond the sentence “Organize multiple brands in structure.” For this reason, seasoned veterans who get stuck might find more value in this book than newcomers.

Overall, I think that A Brand Strategist’s Note is a useful and entertaining cheat-sheet to the building blocks of branding. Having so few pages to go through allows the reader to advance through the book slowly, digesting each nugget of wisdom without wasting too much valuable time. It’s not exactly the kind of book you should use to build the entire foundation of your branding knowledge, but you should keep it at your desk for inspiration when none of your efforts seem to be working.

You can buy the paperback version of A Brand Strategist’s Note by Sophia Ahn on Amazon. To learn more about this book or its author, you can visit the publisher’s website and Instagram or Sophia Ahn’s LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.

Do you know of any books I should read? Want your work reviewed on this blog? E-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com or message me on Fiverr and we can arrange something.

 

By now you know that I’m a fantasy nut. Fantasy, science fiction, and Gothic horror, but mostly fantasy. For that reason, I discuss fantasy whenever possible. Today, that discussion comes in the form of a review. The book at the center of this post is Land of Mystica Series, Volume I: The Dream Walker by Michelle Murray.

For ages the magic in Mystica was tied to six wizards, three of light and three of darkness. The dark wizards went about causing mayhem and misery, and the light wizards would put out whatever fires the dark wizards started (literally and figuratively). Midnight, the most powerful of the dark wizards, regularly faced off with Lightning, the most powerful of the light wizards. One day Midnight decided he had had enough of fighting for control of Mystica and set out to eliminate his competition. To Midnight’s great surprise, his spell affected him as well, and he became just as trapped as the other wizards.

Magic in Mystica all but came to an end. Dragons turned to stone, and Ice People became trapped in their crystals. Only miniscule amounts of magic remained. Soon, even the wizards and the Goddess of the Sun faded into legend.

Until now. Someone has inadvertently set Midnight free, and he is bent on wreaking havoc and taking over Mystica. The land’s only hope is the Dream Walker, someone chosen specifically by the Dream Magic to wield it and save the world. The only problem: the Dream Walker is in our world.

Will the Dream Walker be able to reach Mystica in time to stop Midnight? Will she use her powers for good or for personal gain? Most importantly, who will try manipulate her or stand in her way?

Murray has put a lot of imaginative energy into this story. She has created a land with diverse geography, history, and cultures. She has also given Miranda the Dream Walker an interesting, albeit somewhat stereotypical, backstory. Some of the better parts of the novel come when Murray takes the time to describe Miranda’s surroundings. My favorite areas in Mystica would have to be the Plains, the Forest of the Lost, and the Dragon’s Lair, and I wish she had developed these areas and their people/creatures even further.

My biggest qualm with this book is the writing style. Mind you, it’s not necessarily bad writing, it’s just not my style, especially for such a complex world and plot. Murray utilizes more of a storytelling kind of writing, as though she were telling a story to a child or by a campfire. This sort of style can work, but I expected something more detailed from the title and plot. I also had some issues with when Murray decided to graze over details and when she decided to go more in-depth. While Midnight was preparing for the spell, for example, Murray slows down and describes almost every step, which bogged down the narrative. However, when it comes to Miranda’s dreams and learning what she is, I feel the narrative goes too quickly.

This writing style makes the work better suited for, perhaps, middle grade readers. The plot and histories are a little more elaborate than what that age group is typically exposed to, but the storytelling feels most appropriate for readers not yet in high school. There’s some vague depictions of violence, tragedy, and death, but nothing I think would disturbed readers in this age bracket. (Except, of course, for my favorite scene in the novel, in which a person gets swallowed up by the Forest of the Lost, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide if that’s too creepy for younger readers.)

The storytelling does allow for Murray to hint at some future plot points which have influenced me to want to read the other books. Namely, she uses some of the exposition to tell the readers about things regarding the “watcher” which they would not have known in a more “showing” writing style. I can’t discuss these points any further for fear of spoilers, but when you read the book, you’ll know the parts of which I speak.

Unfortunately, the storytelling style robs the book of some of its emotional elements. Considering the battles, the pillaging, and the lingering memory of Miranda’s dead parents, I would have expected more emotion shown by Miranda and the people of Mystica. Nevertheless, the descriptions of any sadder parts seemed almost…robotic, at times.

The Dream Walker has a lot of proofreading issues as well. While they did not necessarily plague every paragraph, there were enough spelling and grammatical errors to detract from the reading experience. Fixing this issue is only a matter of more proofreading and re-releasing a version which is edited better.

Overall, the plot and the world which Murray has created are enough for me to recommend The Dream Walker to fantasy lovers. At only 154 pages, it’s a quick read, maybe even less than a day’s worth if you can sit down and read it all at once. The storytelling style isn’t my cup of tea, but I still felt compelled to continue reading until I reached the end to see how Miranda’s story turned out. Given that the world and characters are so complex, I wish that there had been more pages dedicated to these wonderful places and interesting people. Fortunately for me, this book is the first in a series, so hopefully Murray pursues the elements that captured my attention in the other novels.

You can buy The Dream Walker by Michelle Murray as an eBook and in print on Amazon.

Do you know of a book I should read? Want your work reviewed on this blog? E-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com or message me on Fiverr and we can arrange something.

 

Trigger Warning: The book reviewed in this post, 69 Shades of Nashville by Nicole Kelly, M.D., contains depictions of sex and sexual situations, including BDSM and rape. This book also discusses teen pregnancy, adultery, and murder. If you are triggered by such depictions or otherwise wish to avoid them, proceed with caution.

Warning: Due to the sexual nature of Nicole Kelly’s book, do not proceed if you are under 18 years of age. Also remember to keep any discussion which results from this review polite and mature. We are all adults and so should treat this subject like adults. Any bullying, trolling, or inappropriate remarks will result in the participating parties being reprimanded. Please refer to the Comments and Privacy Policy for further information.

Happy Humpday! (Pun intended.) Today I want to bring you a book very reminiscent of the first small-print book I reviewed on here, Blackmail, yet also very different from it as well. The book at the heart of this review is 69 Shades of Nashville: Sociopathic Sex Southern Style by Nicole Kelly, M.D.

Nashville Kitty is a sociopath. This isn’t a judgment against the character—she truly is a self-proclaimed sociopath. She knows what she wants and won’t let neurotypical empathy or morals get in her way. And what does this sociopath wants? Sex, and tons of it! But she doesn’t want just some random hookups; she’s looking to build a metaphorical stable of experienced married adulterers to keep her needs satisfied. Then she finds the perfect place to start her collection: Aubrey Madeline, a site specifically for cheaters to meet other cheaters.

Can the cheating world handle a sociopath the likes of Nashville Kitty? Can even a world-class sociopathic liar be able to keep up the charade for long? And when Nashville Kitty gets mixed up with the wrong kinds of cheaters, will everyone survive?

Just like Blackmail, Kelly’s book is a guilty pleasure for me. This book is exciting and surprisingly well-written. While it is certainly an erotic novel, it is also much more than that; it’s psychological and emotional (despite the sociopathic narrator) with a splash of mystery and crime thriller thrown into the mix. Nashville Kitty is also intelligent and saphiosexual, or attracted to intelligence, which makes this book great for readers who want something smarter than just the typical mindless erotica.

Kelly remains faithful to the narrator’s voice throughout the entire work. More importantly, she makes the voice sound genuine and I could actually relate to Nashville Kitty in some ways. (Not the lack of empathy; I wish I cared less about other people’s feelings.) This is quite the feat, I must say. It’s not easy for neurotypicals—as Nashville Kitty calls people who aren’t sociopaths or psychopaths—to step into the mind of a sociopath, so to make someone like me relate to and feel for a character like Nashville Kitty indicates excellent writing.

Nashville Kitty’s hyper-focus on her sociopathy got a bit tedious after the first couple chapters. Of course, if she hadn’t been so focused on it and other aspects of herself, I wouldn’t have believed that she was as much of a sociopath as she claimed she was (I would’ve just thought she was a bitch). I guess, with that in mind, you have to take the bad with the good.

My favorite character is a tie between Nashville Kitty and ChainReaction. It’s hard to tell what the truth is for either of them, even when Nashville Kitty is transparent about her motives, and that kept my attention the entire narrative. I would add Hubby to make it a three-way tie but, honestly, he lost me when he became suddenly very religious. I don’t have anything against religion, but seeing his transformation through Nashville Kitty’s eyes made the whole thing seem cheesy.

As exciting and hilarious as the rest of the book is, I feel that the final chapter is a little lackluster. I can’t discuss it in too much detail due to spoilers, but the final chapter felt rushed. It reflects Nashville Kitty’s paranoia and fast-moving mind, but I felt that so much more could have been done with this chapter and that it could have easily been stretched into another chapter or two. The “twists” were predictable to me, but I can’t hold that against the book; I think they’re very amusing additions to the book and, in Kelly’s defense, I often spot these patterns much more easily than the average reader. If the last chapter had been a little longer, I think that the twists would have had a much more powerful impact.

Overall, I highly recommend 69 Shades of Nashville by Nicole Kelly, M.D., for readers who like humor and excitement and don’t mind raunchy scenes. The character personalities are varied and well-developed, and the plot is sophisticated, especially for an erotica novel. The pacing at the end of the novel could use some work, but the rest of the novel moves at an appropriate pace for the humor and the narrator’s characterization. At 404 pages, this book appears lengthy. Regardless, the pacing of the narration and the illustrations make it a much quicker read than the page count implies. The illustrations are beautiful and tasteful, always matching that part of the story even when it’s one of the “steamier” sections. Kelly has left the ending open for future books, but the conclusion still allows 69 Shades of Nashville to stand on its own.

If you don’t like sex in novels, this book is NOT for you. If you don’t mind such sections, I suggest you give Kelly’s work a try.

You can buy 69 Shades of Nashville as an eBook or in print on Amazon and for free on Audible. For a limited time only, you can also get the book for free on Kelly’s website. To learn more about the book and Kelly, you can check out Kelly’s Facebook page and the Goodreads page for 69 Shades of Nashville.

Do you know of a book I should read? Want your work reviewed on this blog? E-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com or message me on Fiverr and we can arrange something.

 

As you probably know, this blog is more than just a fun place to blow off steam and knowledge; it’s an intricate part of my freelancing. I get jobs through this blog, this blog is central to some of my Fiverr gigs, and it’s where I show off my expertise. The social media outlets related to The Writer’s Scrap Bin, including the Facebook and Twitter accounts, are as much for connecting with potential clients as they are for connecting with my fellow writers and readers. That’s why I think it’s a good idea to bring you a business-related book review today, namely my review of a book called Social Media Marketing: Step by Step Instructions for Advertising Your Business on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Various Other Platforms by Noah Gray and Michael Fox.

Social media has grown rapidly since the launch of platforms like Facebook and MySpace. Is it too much growth too quickly? That’s for future generations to decide. In the meantime, our world is becoming increasingly dependent on social media for everything from reconnecting with old friends to looking for a job. That’s why businesses have to ride this wave while it lasts. The more exposure a business gets, the more people shop that business’s products and services. What better path to exposure than social media? People are on those sites 24/7 anyway. Why not take advantage of the captive audience? That is exactly what Gray and Fox discuss in Social Media Marketing.

Gray and Fox more than just detail the benefits of social media marketing; they give readers all the tools they need for launching a social media marketing campaign for as little money as possible (often even for free). They tell readers about some of the most prominent social media platforms out there (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Google+, Reddit, Tumblr, Quora, Periscope, Goodreads, and Flickr) and explain which platform is best for which kind of marketing. They explain the ins and outs of each platforms, as well as what you shouldn’t do in order to avoid getting into trouble.

This book is all about personalizing your approach. Gray and Fox emphasize that social media is constantly evolving, and so platforms will come, go, and change over time. What works in today’s social media might not work in ten years or even in one year. They also stress the fact that you have to decide for yourself which platform(s) is right for your business and how many platforms you can reasonably handle in a single campaign. (Don’t want to burn the candle at both ends, after all!) Regardless, this book provides a general guide which both the novice and experienced social media marketer can use to start their next campaign.

Gray and Fox’s book is yet another I wish I had found a little sooner. The tips for Facebook paid advertising and utilizing Twitter in a social media campaign would have saved me some trial-and-error and uncertainty. Even the Instagram and Pinterest sections should prove useful as I try and expand my blog’s reach.

I personally most benefited from the sections on social media platforms with which I’m not very familiar. Despite all the time I spend online, there are many social media platforms which I’m just becoming aware of. Among these are Quora, Periscope, Flickr, and even Reddit. Fortunately, Gray and Fox provide detailed chapters on all of them. They explain these platforms in ways which made a lot more sense than when I look them up on Google or Wikipedia. The simple language used in this book also helped me to understand how each platform works and which ones will work for my freelance writing and editing work. (Honestly, I think only Quora and Reddit are a good fit for me out of those four.)

However, with all the platforms that Gray and Fox introduced me to, there were just as many that I already knew about. For this reason, the Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube chapters felt rather…repetitive and slow to me. That’s no fault of the writing. Anyone who isn’t already familiar with these platforms and their possibilities for marketing will find these chapters key to starting a social media marketing campaign. After all, these are three of the biggest social media platforms in existence right now. I had just recently familiarized myself with the marketing potentials of these platforms and thus already knew most of the information.

Perhaps the most useful set of chapters for writers is the set on Goodreads. This section teaches readers the basics of Goodreads, how to use it with a blog, and how to best use it for marketing your book. I’m sure that most of my readers are comfortable with Goodreads already. Regardless, I think that these chapters could help writers learn to utilize this platform’s potential even better.

Overall, I highly recommend this book for people looking to launch a social media marketing campaign. Gray and Fox’s Social Media Marketing is well-organized, informative, and written perfectly for a beginning marketer. You don’t even have to spend any money to jump on these tips! Many of them just involve having an active and strategic social media account in order to work.

Whether you’re a business owner, freelancer, or even a writer, you need to bring your products/services/books into the realm of social media. Like it or not, there will be one form of social media or another for quite some time. You have to strike the iron while it’s hot, or else you—and your business—will be left behind.

You can buy Social Media Marketing by Noah Gray and Michael Fox as an eBook or in print on Amazon.

Do you know of any books I should read? Want your work reviewed on this blog? E-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com or message me on Fiverr and we can arrange something.

 

Warning: The book featured in this review, The Most Dangerous Dream by Kelsey Brickl, contains depictions of sex, sexual situations, and other sensitive matters. If you wish to avoid such depictions or are under the age of 18, proceed with caution.

Another hectic week is underway, and I’m here to bring you another book which I’m particularly excited about. The first reason is that it’s a retelling of a well-known work. (I am rather find of using things like fairy tales to jump-start my own stories.) The other reason is that it is very well-written, titillating yet also classy. Today I will be reviewing The Most Dangerous Dream by Kelsey Brickl.

History is full of what if’s. What if Alexander the Great had not died young? What if Henry VIII had not divorced Catherine of Aragon? What if the United States had not successfully built the atomic bomb? Even fiction from bygone eras contain unexplored avenues, and it is such an avenue which Brickl postulates in her reimagining of The Phantom of the Opera.

What if Christine had not been repulsed by the deformed Erik? What if she actually decided to get to know him and, through this bonding, falls in love with the man who has been her secret singing coach for all these years?

When Brickl explores this possibility, what we get is not a deranged, deformed man holding people hostage for the love of a woman who will never love him back. Instead, Brickl shows readers the softer side of the Phantom, the human side which is loving, jealous, possessive, and passionate. More than that, she reveals a new side to Christine, one which is sexual, untamed, and, at times, lacking in good judgment and care for female virtues. Their story is both heartwarming and heartbreaking, sensual and thrilling, a love story which at times does not seem meant to be, only to have our expectations subverted. Will love prevail? Or will Erik’s–the Phantom’s–possessive, manipulative, and secretive nature get between them enough for Christine’s childhood friend Raoul to swoop in?

I hate to admit it, but I’ve never read The Phantom of the Opera. I’ve never seen the Broadway play, and I’ve only seen snippets of one of the later movies. Still, we all know the gist of the story, and I believe that Brickl’s The Most Dangerous Dream did it justice. In fact, I may not be able to watch or read anything related to the original in the same light as I would have without reading this first.

Brickl turns a classic story about a deformed and desperate maniac into a man in love who has been dealt a bad hand in life, including a physical deformity. It’s a struggle to find and keep love in the face of nonconformity in a time when normality was key to thriving in the social world. There’s tension and emotional upheaval to spare, and no character is either entirely likeable or entirely despicable. Even Erik and Christine, as the star-crossed lovers in this tale, have plenty of flaws and strengths, moments when you want them together and moments when they seem better off going their separate ways.

I can’t really say that any character was my favorite for this very reason. Erik was too jealous, possessive, and manipulative, sometimes downright creepy. Yet he is also sweet, caring, protective, passionate, and a gentleman. Christine is beautiful, kind, talented, and a little stubborn. Still, she’s also rather impulsive and naïve. It was hard not to find fault in their actions and question the validity of their relationship, but that just made it feel all the more real.

Of course, the time period and country in which the book takes place makes for a more challenging read than modern romances. The speech pattern is somewhat antiquated and there are references to many foods, operas, and aspects of Parisian high society which not every reader will immediately recognize. However, these are the same sorts of issues often encountered in historical fiction, and they’re nothing that an enthralled reader cannot overcome.

I anticipate readers having a problem with the premise for this novel. For one thing, it’s a reimagining. Those are always received critically in the literary and entertainment worlds. More importantly, though, is the fact that the relationship between Erik and Christine borders on emotionally abusive. After all, Erik follows her in the shadows and manipulates everything around her to make things how he wants them to be. It is also creepy that he has been watching her since before she became a woman, which indicates that he has been essentially stalking her since childhood and he is much older than she is.

These concerns and more are addressed in the forms of Meg, Christine’s internal struggles, and even Erik’s internal struggles. I would not stand by if I was these red flags in a friend’s romance or my own, but Erik only wants what is best for Christine; his methods are questionable but he learns from mistakes, as we all do. While this story does not depict the ideal relationship, it depicts a realistic ones with ups, downs, happiness, and regrets, and its romantic arc is very much in line with this genre and the time period, albeit a little more sweetly and happily than the original.

I found a few typos, such as “robe” when Brickl meant “rope,” but they were not so prominent or frequent as to ruin the novel. I was surprised by how well Brickl maintained the feel of the time period while not losing my attention. Even at 400+ pages, the book is so gripping and compelling that it makes for a quicker read than you would think. A word of warning: some of this illusion of speed is due to steamy scenes between Christine and Erik. If you’re turned on by intellectual and/or artistic activities and people, you’ll especially appreciate those scenes.

Overall, The Most Dangerous Dream is an exciting and intellectual read. It is truly for romantic (in the traditional sense of the term). If you are a huge fan of The Phantom of the Opera, you might have mixed feelings about Brickl’s reimagining. However, if you want a new perspective on the infamous Phantom, you will love it. Brickl is a wonderful writer, and I can’t wait to see what she comes out with next. If she does more in this genre (historical romance and reimaginings), I’m sure it will be a hit like this one.

It’s currently unavailable, but you will be able to snag a copy of The Most Dangerous Dream by Kelsey Brickl on Amazon.

Do you know of any books I should read? Want your work reviewed on this blog? E-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com or message me on Fiverr and we can arrange something.

 

I have another book to bring to you today, this time a short collection of poetry and prose called Woke Up on the Wrong Side of the Universe: A Collection of Poetry & Prose by Nick F. Hawkins. If you’re looking for writing which is transcendental and abstract, this work might be for you.

Woke Up on the Wrong Side of the Universe begins with an introduction from Hawkins himself, explaining how we have gone almost as far as we can as humans but not as parts of a much more expansive universe. He describes how we do not—perhaps even cannot—see and hear everything in the universe but must still try, as well as his own efforts to see and hear beyond what he can detect with his senses. From there Hawkins takes the reader on an emotional journey of poetry, both traditional and nontraditional, and ends it with a fascinating short story and another note from the author.

Hawkins’s collection packs a powerful punch for only being 86 pages. I think much of this is due to the fact that each poem is quite literally two poems in one. Through the use of red highlights, Hawkins hides the words for a second poem within the lines of the first; it’s up to the reader to figure out how to put them together.

I found this element of the poetry to be very refreshing. Many poems-within-poems, when they are published, do not so obviously indicate how to string together a second poem. The red lettering here presents a reasonable challenge for the modern reader: not so difficult to spot that readers will either blow past it or give up yet not so easy as to bore them.

Better still, Hawkins’s poems-within-poems adds extra layers to the original poems. Sometimes they enhance the meaning, and sometimes they contradict it. The fun is in trying to piece together the second poem and decipher how it connects to the original poem.

If you like a mix of rhyming and un-rhyming poetry, you’ll like this collection. Not everything rhymes, a fact which I’m personally grateful for. However, some lines rhyme and many of those do not come off as cheesy. One such example is the poem “Soothing Night Skies”:

 

I desire the soothing night skies,

The stars intrigue my mind

Like beautiful submissive eyes,

A gaze that’s only

Tarnished by the sun rise,

Cosmic frequency arise

Making me feel more alive,

I decide my vibe

To feel the beauty of life,

Avoiding patronizing parasites

That cultivates a futile demise,

I’m honored by the night skies,

An endless space and time

Defined by intricate signs

 

Still, my favorite poem from this collection is actually “Our Love Was a Typo”. I especially found the last four lines touching and beautiful:

 

If only our love story

Was written with a typewriter,

Maybe the ending would have

Turned out to be joyful

 

Considering I’m a writer, I typically enjoy any reference to writing within writing, so this poem and its message about lost love really captured my attention.

The collection isn’t perfect, though. I can usually brush off what I perceive to be typos or grammatical errors in poetry because of the very nature of this art. However, there were moments in which the wrong word was used (“compliment” for “complement”) and the singular form of a verb was used when the plural version was needed, even for the poem-within-the-poem. While most of the illustrations were simplistically elegant and fit the poems, but some seemed random to me. Perhaps I’ll see the reason in a future reading, but as of right now, I don’t see the purpose for all of them.

I also think that the short story is the collection’s weakest link. I felt compelled to read it because of the premise, and I think that alternate world Hawkins built is worth pursuing. The theme also fits with the introduction and the poems. Regardless, I don’t think that he develops the story well enough. I felt ripped off by the end of the story, as though someone had dangled a Twinkie in my face but only gave me the exterior without the cream. Very short surrealist stories can be very effective. In this case, I think Hawkins needs more space to achieve his goal for the story.

Overall, Woke Up on the Wrong Side of the Universe is an enjoyable and spiritual read. I can connect with the messages of Hawkins’s poems, and I think that anyone could benefit from them. I also think that more proofreading is in order, especially in the short story. While it fits thematically, the short story might do better to be expanded and then released on its own. A mix of poetry and prose can be interesting, but in this case I think that the story distracts readers from the wonderful poems.

You can get a Kindle copy of Woke Up on the Wrong Side of the Universe by Nick F. Hawkins on Amazon. Also be sure to check the author out on Instagram, Twitter, and his website.

Do you know of any books I should read? Want your work reviewed on this blog? E-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com or message me on Fiverr and we can arrange something.