Persephone Made Me Do It is such a beautiful collection of poetry that intertwines greek mythology, prose, and art. I didn’t connect with it as much as I did with Aphrodite Made Me Do It, but I still really loved this poetry collection and found the themes of feminism and womanhood to be empowering.

Thank you to Central Avenue Publishing for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for a honest review!

Epic! Beautiful!

There are four thousand + Persephone stories out there but this one stands at the top! The mix of poetry and aesthetic/collage artwork was beautiful. It makes me feel like the cover of this novel is far too simple for the majesty that it holds on the inside.

Now, I must go and read more of Mateer's works.

I. Am. Obsessed. The blend of art, poetry, and prose in this book is so beautiful, I would love to hang it up in my house. It is deeply relatable and touching.

83%

Persephone's story from her point of view, collage art included. A bit teenage angsty at times, but honestly isn't that past version of ourselves still living within us? Don't we wish we could go back in time and never grow up? Don't we wish we could put all those feelings into words? Well, these words are some of those feelings, I think.

This is the 3rd book of Trista Mateer myth and magick series.
This collection of poems was beautifully written. It was such an empowering and emotional read.
I loved the art and how this collection was set up. Trista did an amazing job writing real life issues mixed with mythology.
I haven’t read a poetry collection like this before and I was not disappointed. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
I want to thank NetGalley and Central Avenue Publishing for letting me this digital copy for a honest review.

So when I first joined Netgalley I was gifted the first one of these books and fell in love.

This one hit me even hard then the other two as it touches on alot of things an older daughter has to deal with. The way it flows and the subject it touched are respectfully done but you feel the word deeply.

Only issue was when I downloaded it on kindle as an E-ARC there was missing characters basically TH and FI and so you have to guess certain word. Works perfectly on the Netgalley app though

I was excited about this but it fell flat. It didn't flow as easily as the others and it didn't kept my attention.

This book was okay, was not my favorite by her. It felt like it didn't flow as easily as some of her others. The imagery throughout was gorgeous and breathtaking.

An interesting and pointed collection, this one goes deep. The visuals were stunning and some of the poems really worked for me. That said, most were very short snippets which is just a style that never really works for me in poetry. I know that the poet was probably looking to offer many angles on similar themes and personal situations, but it did get a little repetititve. The use of Persephone's story to frame theirs was interesting though and it was a solid collection.

First of all, I am not the target audience for poetry but I found this to be entertaining and impactful in its own way. I enjoy Greek mythology and I sometimes found myself forgetting if the poems were meant to be about the mythology, or the author, or something else entirely. There were little collage images that reminded me of PostSecret which I thought was fun. I also enjoyed the way everything strung together. After reading, I realized this is not the first book - though you can read them in any order I assume. I'll be checking out the other books.

Thank you to Netgalley and Central Avenue Publishing for an advanced copy of the book!

I really enjoyed this read! Poetry is not always one of my staple genres but this was such an interesting addition to my poetry list.

As someone who has always been somewhat enamored by the mythology surrounding Persephone I loved this take on the classic story. It really highlights the way that stories from our past histories tend to hold answers for our modern stories. A perfect blend of articulating the quiet rage inside and the reclaiming of our voices.

One frustration I had while reading was in formatting, it seems like there were certain graphemes That did not translate in the digital production. I am assuming it is just an early copy error, but if it is a stylistic choice it really distracted from the reading (truly only including for transparency, I firmly believe this will not be present in final copy)

This is one of my most anticipated reads of the year. I read the previous two books in this series basically within an HOUR and loved them. It should be noted that there are some serious formatting issues for Kindle. Part of entire pages and words are cut off which made it difficult to finish poems and I had to either infer what the words were or skip them entirely. I thought it would be easy to overlook and not affect my rating, but it got to the point where every single poem was affected. How can I write a review on a book when the book provided is substantially missing words? For example, “-and then I am awake. e nightmare is over. e fear is fading.”

“Ey sent me to the elds where Mother lived.”

“Aer they gave me sisters.”

“e Lord of the Underworld went to Zeus rst.”

I am not going to continue listing them but those are all within the first 25% of the book. You can imagine my disbelief when I kept reading and they just kept coming.

Onto the poetry itself, it kind of.. fell flat for me. I am a huge fan of poetry but these all felt severely lacking. The poems about the authors own trauma were all very short and easily digested. The poems about Persephone’s trauma were more like short stories just explaining the Greek myth itself?

For the pictures, I was very disappointed. I loved the pictures in her previous book but the ones in these felt like they were pulled straight from an Instagram collage. They pulled overused tropes and sloppily edited them onto cliche thoughts.

I was not a fan of this book. If you like Instagram poetry this might be one for you, but unfortunately it is not for me.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers, for sending and allowing me to read this poetry novel.
I really really really enjoyed this. I have read the second book in this series before, so I'm not surprised about how much I loved this. The art in between the poetry is so beautiful and helps break up the tense messages of the poetry. I do hope this author comes out with more in this series!!!

An impactful collection of poems and artwork, that follow the mythological arc of Persephone’s story while also bringing in the poet’s own voice and experiences. Mateer’s work explores so many interesting facets of the Persephone myth, from her duality to her relationship with her mother and desire for independence, to the Zeus-approved abduction by Hades and her (here, deliberate) eating of the pomegranate seed. She’s able to drag the tales out of antiquity and show how they still reflect so much of our own experience today. The strong undercurrent of rage and fury emphasise Persephone’s struggles as almost inevitable, but Mateer creates an innovative counterbalance of empowerment to draw Persephone away from her traditional depictions.

The artwork underscores the voice and messages emerging from the poems, and feature many of Persephone’s key symbols like the pomegranate - and even on a digital copy I really liked them! There were just a few typos in the version I read (e.g. p.108 ‘lead’ instead of ‘led’ in the first three lines)

I went into this book thinking it was a short collection of poems about Persephone and feminism and womanhood. What I got was 50% "Poet trauma" and 50% "Persephone trauma"

This is not an uplifting poetry collection. Trigger warnings are included in the beginning of the book.

I wish it would have been happier, more hopeful, or had a lighter ending.

Trista Matter does it again, this gorgeous poetry collection is a compilation of beautiful words, gorgeous art, and wonderful thoughts. I even learned a few new things about persephone in this one. Read this, buy this, put this on your shelf and pick it up any time you're having a down moment.

"Persephone Made Me Do It" by Trista Matter – A Captivating Collection of Poetry with a Unique Artistic Twist.

Trista Matter's "Persephone Made Me Do It" is a captivating collection of beautiful poems that leave a lasting impression. While the book may not have met my expectations entirely, it contains several poignant verses and compelling quotes.

One of the highlights of this collection is the incorporation of art pieces adorned with short pull quotes. These visually stunning works, perfectly complementing the poems, add an extra layer of depth and intrigue to the overall reading experience. I longed for an entire anthology dedicated to these captivating combinations of art and verse.

Within "Persephone Made Me Do It," readers will encounter a range of emotions, from the raw and vulnerable to the triumphant and empowering.

There are moments of sheer brilliance that resonate deeply, leaving an indelible mark on the reader's soul. In these instances, "Persephone Made Me Do It" shines brightest, reminding us of the transformative power of poetry.

This book was absolutely amazing. I enjoyed reading Trista's third poetry collection in her Greek mythology series. Out of the three books, this is by far my favorite. The artwork was great and the words were powerful. I bookmarked so many pages. This was an incredible read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of poetry. I found the feminism and female empowerment to be motivating and uplifting. I found myself highlighting multiple passages and I was super upset when my kindle decided not to save them and upload them to goodreads for me in the end.
The only complaint I have is that the download had missing consecutive letters. Ff or th were the primary missing. This is no reflection of the author herself and of course this was an arc but just mentioning in case.

I liked this collection a lot. As I always do with Mateer's work. She wrote a beautiful collection that even if you don't know about greek mythology (which I don't) you can still enjoy the poetry. This collection especially revolves around poems with her mother and their relationship as well as the self image of becoming like one's mother. I thought she had a very interesting perspective.