Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Reviewer: Marisa, 11^th grade

Star rating: 5

A raw and honest collection of poetry, Milk and Honey beautifully looks at issues of love, femininity, and the struggles faced by humankind. Rupi Kaur is a powerful poet, getting her start on Instagram, attracting a large following with her compelling words and poignant passages. This is her first published work, consisting of her words interlaced with her own pen drawings. Painted with such real emotion and feeling, these poems touch your heart and every other part of you that is so incredibly human. They take you a journey, finding what makes you happy, what makes you sad, what drains you, and what gives you hope. The way she uses words is powerful and graceful, aligned just right as to make you truly feel, and to open your mind to understanding the vast society and world we live in. This book might not be appropriate for a younger audience because there are some drawings of naked female figures, but nothing too entirely graphic. I would recommend this book to any teen or adult, male and female, who wants to feel key pieces of being a human. Overall beautiful words that give you a warm hug, this book is a quintessential glimpse of the magnificence of humans.

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Book: The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Reviewer: Marisa, 11th grade

Star rating: 5

The Sun is Also a Star is a captivating novel about two paths crossing, despite it’s unlikeliness, and the beauty and the love and the heartache that comes out of two worlds colliding. Natasha is a girl, not believing in fate, trying to face the harsh reality that her family’s deportation is imminent. Daniel is a boy living under the enormous weight of his parent’s expectations, who becomes a dreamer when he meets Natasha. Exploring these two characters, as well as other’s stories that cross their paths, this novel explores fate, the probability of the universe, the interconnectedness of humankind, and that even though parallel universes exist, and there is an infinite possibility of outcomes, we have arrived to this current moment. This novel carries a lot of emotion, makes you feel strongly for both the characters, fall in love with their beautiful romance, and cry at its uncertainty. It effectively explores the universe, and immerse you into some concepts not thought of all the time, mainly probability and interconnectedness in the broadest sense of the words. I have no negative words for this novel. It makes you feel the broad range of emotions you are capable of feeling, and makes you feel them very deeply, while opening up your mind to an infinite number of possibilities. I recommend this book to readers who are interested in a love story that goes beyond the cliche, and that explores all corners of the confusing universe we exist in.