Book Quibbles: Your Heart Is The Sea

Never forget, you are more powerful than you are damaged and you will rise from any abyss they drown you in.

I want to send a huge thanks to Thought Catalog Books for sending me a free copy for a review. It came at just the right time it’s almost creepy. To keep a long story short, I was feeling terribly down after an incident at my job and just awful about myself.

Then I came home to find it arrived in the mail and I felt a little spark of something to look forward to.

I reviewed another poetry book by Nikita Gill, Fierce Fairytales that I highly recommend and was super excited to get the chance to read another.

I’d also like to mention there is the talk of rape, anxiety, depression, just as some examples, within this book.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars.

From Anguish to a Beginning

This poetry book follows stages like grief. It starts with Anguish then goes to Descent, Acceptance, Defiance, and so on until you reach The Beginning. Each stage represents a way of moving on and letting go while reminding you to love and take care of yourself.

The book starts with a reminder that rather than describing, I’ll quote:

You are not broken.

You are simply disassembled for a while

as the artist inside rebuilds something infinite out of you.

As soon as I read this, I knew how much I needed to hear it. Even if you’re not going through a tough situation now but may have before or haven’t, it’s still a nice reminder that there is something inside of you even when you feel like there’s not.

From that, she talks about a bad relationship and getting over this person who raped her. Even if some of the lines are more about getting out of a toxic relationship, many can be related to something else going on in your life. You can take those words and use them to fit your situation.

The Survival

This is the stage that I personally related to the most with my current situation going on.

Who You Were vs What You Are

Remember that the stars and planets did not die

for you to waste your time wondering

if you are pretty enough

or worthy enough to exist.

You are still trying, in this body,

to be all the things that make a person.

But the truth is you are bursting at the seams

because you are a plethora of universes becoming a human.

It’s a reminder that does exactly what it says: you can and will survive anything. The odds of you being created, of your parent’s meeting, of them being born is already big enough. When you start to think about those possibilities, the things going on in your life start to look a little smaller and they don’t matter as much.

Sometimes, that’s all someone needs to hear.

Overall

Like Fierce Fairytales, I adore Nikita Gill’s writing. There’s a way she ends a section of poetry with such a huge impact that it makes you sit there and reread what she just said because it makes sense. It clicks with a thought within yourself put into words that come out in a way you wanted them to.

I’d also like to mention how much I love the cover. I love the heart that looks like veins but also coral with the water behind it.

If you need a boost of confidence, of motivation, or just need to hear words that will resonate with you then I highly recommend this book. It’s beautifully written and put together. It’s a reminder that you’ve been through so much already and have survived and will survive whatever comes your way.

And I will end with a quote from the back of the book.