Time for another round of Yvo’s Shorties! This time around a non fiction poetry bundle and a contemporary romance… Sadly neither Milk And Honey nor One To Watch ended up living up to expectations.

Title: Milk And Honey
Author: Rupi Kaur
Genre: Non Fiction, Poetry
First published: November 4th 2014
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Finished reading: December 18th 2020
Pages: 208

“Loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself.”


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I’ve been meaning to read this poetry bundle for ages now… I’ve seen lots of people praise it as well as compare it to Amanda Lovelace‘s poetry, which I tend to enjoy, so I had high hopes for Milk And Honey too. Sadly, it just wasn’t ment to be… I’m not sure if it was just the wrong time for me to pick up this poetry bundle, but the fact is that I wasn’t impressed at all. Sure, some of the ‘poems’ did speak to me, but as a whole I found the whole experience rather underwhelming and at times even frustrating. I can’t deny that Rupi Kaur talks about some heavy topics and there is power behind her words, but somehow the way she expresses herself just didn’t work for me. Not only do I think this can’t exactly be described as ‘real’ poetry, but I think the comparison quite a few fellow readers seem to make to Tumblr posts hits the nail on the head. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that, but I expected a bit more quality and dept in the structure and word choice as a whole. I wasn’t really impressed by the way some of the poems almost seem to romantize the abusive relationships either… Which is a mayor pet peeve after a personal experience with a past relationship. As a whole I can concluded that Milk And Honey most definitely wasn’t for me.

Title: One To Watch
Author: Kate Stayman-London
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
First published: July 7th 2020
Publisher: Dial Press
Finished reading: December 21st 2020
Pages: 432

“I’m afraid that you’re looking for your next chapter, and I’m looking for the whole rest of the book.”


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I’ve been looking forward to read this one… Both because I’ve been in the mood for contemporary romance lately and because of the promise of a plus-size main character and a body positivity angle. I confess I’m not a fan of the kind of reality TV shows as described in the blurb, but I was hoping it would give One To Watch an interesting angle… As a whole, I ended up having mixed thoughts about this story though. I still like the idea behind this story, and I also liked the inclusion of text messages, emails, podcasts etc in between the chapters. BUT. I really struggled with the way this was supposed to be a body positivity celebrating book, but ended up being yet another cliche of a plus-size woman. I wasn’t able to relate to the main character at all, and instead of finding a strong woman who accepts her body and isn’t afraid to show the world, we have another insecure and cliche stereotype who doesn’t just whine a lot and seems incredibly immature for her age, but also lets those horrible men walk all over her and constantly doubts herself and thinks nobody could actually love her. UGH. So SO frustrating! On top of this, the whole ‘diversity’ angle felt mostly like ticking boxes instead of adding more dept. Lesbian best friend? Check. Black character who you don’t even realize is black until you pick up the TWO only mentions in the whole book? Check? Asian character with cliche behavior? Check. Asexual character without dept? Check. Gender nonconforming character that could have had potential but was once again used as a prop instead of a real dept character? Check. Honestly, this was just such a disappointment for me, and then I’m not even talking about the horrible and cliche way most men behaved. I mean, a cheating and womanizing French man? The whole bullying? The unwanted advice to help lose weight? There were just so many things that left me with a bad taste in my mouth that I was unable to enjoy the rest of the story to its fullest. The ending was quite predictable too, and while this was a fast read, in the end I didn’t exactly have the experience I thought I would have with One To Watch. It definitely smells of missed potential!

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