This collection was lovely and I found some poems that I went to again and again while reading the book

5 stars

I've read 29 poetry collections this year and it's been a while since I've fallen in love with one. I think May was the last time I was blown away and absolutely obsessed with a poetry collection. You know when the collection hits. You as a reader can tell. It draws you in poem by poem, stanza by stanza, and line by line. Everything in the collection calls to your spirit and resonates with you. That is what this collection did for me. I felt it in my bones and I was moved. I was shocked because I didn't think this collection would move me like it did. I mean the cover is simple, the title is mediocre as far as poetry titles go, and it didn't seem all that different from other collections I've read over the last few months. However, this collection hit the spot. Scratched the poetry-loving itch that I'd been trying to scratch with the perfect collection for months.

I originally requested this book because I loved the title and had been wanting to read more poetry.
The poems didn't match my expectation but they were sweet. I believe teen me who was a more romantic, idealistic person would've enjoyed it a lot more than I did.

Dieser Gedichtband ist in die drei Teile "beginning", "ending" und "beginning (again)" gegliedert und beschäftigt sich mit dem Verlauf einer Liebesbeziehung. Während die Autorin am Anfang die Aufregung und positiven Gefühle beschreibt, die eine neue Liebe bzw. Verliebtheit mit sich bringt, wird im zweiten Teil beschrieben, wie sich die Beziehung ins Negative verändert und das Verhalten der anderen Person dazu führt, dass man sich wertlos fühlt. Es werden Emotionen wie Wut, Trauer und Enttäuschung beschrieben, bevor die Beziehung im dritten Abschnitt hinter sich gelassen wird und neue Hoffnung aufkommt.
Mir haben diese Gedichte sehr gefallen. Die Metaphern und bildlichen Beschreibungen wirkten sehr poetisch und passend, um die Gefühle zu übermitteln und ich mochte die vielen sprachlichen Feinheiten. Die Gedichte hatten eine angenehme Länge, weder zu kurz, noch zu ausschweifend. Der letzte Abschnitt konnte mich sprachlich und emotional nicht so sehr erreichen wie die ersten beiden Abschnitte, dennoch empfand ich das Buch insgesamt als sehr gelungen und bewegend. Ich freue mich darauf, mehr von der Autorin zu lesen und vergebe sehr empfehlenswerte 4,5 Sterne.


In English:

This volume of poems is divided into three parts: "beginning", "ending" and "beginning (again)" and deals with the course of a love relationship. While at the beginning the author describes the excitement and positive feelings that a new love or infatuation brings with it, the second part describes how the relationship changes for the worse and the other person's behavior makes you feel worthless. Emotions such as anger, sadness and disappointment are described before the relationship is left behind in the third section and new hope arises.
I really liked these poems. The metaphors and visual descriptions seemed very poetic and appropriate to convey the feelings and I liked the many subtleties of language. The poems were of a pleasant length, neither too short nor too long. The last section didn't reach me as linguistically or emotionally as the first two sections, but overall I found the book to be very enjoyable and moving. I look forward to reading more from the author and give it highly recommended 4,5 stars.

I absolutely loved this selection of poems.

I thought it was so clever relating the sections to the seasons of a relationship and I saved poems to tell friends.

Thank you for the arc.

This one really didn't have the magic that Kristen's previous collection had. If you've been through heartbreak or are going through heartbreak, I think this would really work for you. I haven't gone through heartbreak, so I guess it just didn't resonate with me as much.

Kristen's first poetry collection, 'Grey Matters,' is one of my favourites, if not my absolute favourite collection. So, in this book's defense, it really had no chance of living up to my hype for it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Central Avenue Publishing for the eARC.

I liked this connection, and there was nothing inherently wrong with it, I just didn't personally connect with many of the poems.

A beautiful collection of poetry, I found myself really connecting with some of them on a personal level and I absolutely love when that happens. There’s nothing more beautiful than getting into the depths of a writers heart, but also allowing the readers to understand them in their own personal ways too.

⭐️ 2.5 stars ⭐️

atlantic 💙 "I loved him like the ocean – falling for the way his surface sparkled but fearing the unknowns that rested in his depths."

tidal pools and other small infinities, Kristen Costello's sophomore poetry collection, beautifully cycles through the swirling stages of love and heartbreak, coming full circle with beginnings turning into endings and finding new beginnings once again. Written from the heart, these poems speak to the anticipation of love, new and uncertain, followed by the disillusionment of broken promises of planned futures, inevitably surrendering to loss and failure but with the ability to rebuild with the confidence to move forward.

storm chaser 💜 "I found you in my darkest hour: You stood in the center of my hurricane holding a candle, urging me to open my eyes and call off the winds. I reached for the confidence hidden somewhere behind cloud clusters, inhaled the violent gusts and silenced seas. I stumbled, but you caught my hand and together we searched for dry land."

I didn't enjoy this collection as much as Kristen's debut collection, gray matters, as I found fewer poems that resonated with me. Despite being less memorable, the poems were thought provoking with nuggets of wisdom scattered within the pages. Besides the poems quoted here, other favorites included edge, the knot, jealousy, resurrection, beckoning. This collection is worth reading in times of heartbreak to find strength through the understanding in her words with knowledge that you're not alone. Ultimately, there's an underlying positive message of seeing the light of hope on the other side of despair.

arizona ❤️ "She used to be a palm tree –always bending for someone else’s wind. But now, she summons her own sandstorms. Now, they call her the cactus because she hates hugs and could spend a lifetime lost in the desert without getting lonely."

* Special thanks to Central Avenue Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. Quotes subject to change at time of publication. Available October 3, 2023. *

Not bad. Not great. I may not be the right reader for this, but I tried, and there's some good stuff here. I think this book will garner mixed reviews.

Thanks very much for the free copy for review!!

Thank you to Central Avenue Publishing and NetGalley for giving me an advanced copy of this collection of poetry for my honest thoughts.
This collection of poetry is thought provoking and a quick read. It didn’t stand out to me, as someone who reads poetry books very often, as much as her first collection did when I read it.
That being said, there are still nuggets of greatness tucked between these pages. Such as
“Love is both the blindfold and the hands untying it’s knot”
And
“I only want to be a princess if the dress comes with a matching sword and pen, both sharp as my tongue”.

Thank you NetGalley and Central Avenue Publishing for the chance to read and review this book.

While I did really like Grey Matter by Kristen Costello, for some reason Tidal Pools did not work as well for me. While I really liked pieces like Trajectory, as a whole the collection was not a memorable one for me.

There were times when the words seemed like motivational Instagram posts between being cheesy and not cheesy. I really appreciate the author's work addressing her experience in mental health, inner monologues or even her embodiment of grief, personal growth similar to a podcast of Sundays doing yoga

Thank you NetGalley and Central Avenue Publishing for granting me access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

What a beautifully written collection of poetry by Kristen Costello!! After reading Grey Matters by this author I was thrilled to receive this book! Tidal Pools is about love, loss, heartbreak, acceptance, hope and new beginnings. I absolutely loved these raw and relatable poems that are extremely powerful, thought provoking and inspiring. I highly recommend this collection and cannot wait to read more poetry from this author. 🩷🩷🩷🩷

"I found you in my darkest hour; You stood in the center of my hurricane holding a candle, urging me to open my eyes and call off the winds."

"My worst nightmare would be finding out you are just a dream"

"Sometimes I want to run away but I can't decide if I want to run to you or from you"

"You've always preferred sunsets to sunrises, fall to spring, endings over beginnings"

"We didn't end in a sonic boom. You slowly slipped away like an echo eventually lost in a canyon brimming with night and somehow that was worse"

"I've never had a favorite flower or a favorite book or a favorite anything, really except for you- my favorite mistake"

"I waste my time waiting for weightless apologies when I should be chasing new daydreams"

"My voice is so different from yours-I never should have let you use my tongue to speak for all those years"

"Don't be ashamed of who you were before. To the untrained eye, foundations never seem as beautiful as the buildings that spring up from them"

"She used to be a palm tree-always bending for someone else's wind. But now, she summons her own sandstorms"

"Why do all metaphors praise the wild and curse the tamed? Can't we admire both the carefree hearts of wildflowers and the precision-driven minds of bonsai trees?"

Kristen Costello's second poetry collection, Tidal Pools and Other Small Infinities, will take you through a journey of falling in love, being broken, and building yourself back up again.
It is a brilliant, cohesive ensemble of poems painting beautiful and powerful visuals to convey a multitude of emotions, from happiness and love to feeling like you've lost yourself and seeking self-acceptance.

The collection is split into three parts: beginning, endings, beginning (again).

I particularly enjoyed the last section, full of hope and self-love.

Here's an excerpt from my favourite poem, lessons in botany:

Can't we admire both
the carefree hearts
of wildflowers
and the precision-driven minds
of bonsai trees?

Some of my favourite poems:
nightstand notebook
the knot
follow the leader
friendly fire
passed
farsighted
stepping into the light
radical self-acceptance
beckoning
the sculptor

I reviewed Costello's first collection, Grey Matters, a few months ago and I was really excited to get the chance to review this one as well!

Thank you NetGalley and Central Avenue Publishing for the opportunity to read this ARC.

I really enjoyed this one! I caught myself being drawn in by Kristen's poetry and I loved how I encountered pieces of myself in a lot of her poems because of how relatable they were.

3.5 stars

I discovered the author with this book and I was immediately drawn by the title and the cover. I wished the title metaphor had been more present in the rest of the work, but I still enjoyed this collection a lot.
I thought the collection was a little irregular. There wasn’t any one poem that I would say was my favorite or stayed with me until the end, but there were a lot of small passages, singles lines or paragraphs that really echoed with me, or that made me pause because they were beautiful nuggets of poetry.
"I find comfort in chaos. I’m soothed by storms, inspired by wildfires."

On the other hand, the metaphors chosen were sometimes a bit jarring with the poetic vibe, like the petri dish one, and I was taken aback at first by the alternation of the pronouns in the poems; it almost seemed like the author couldn’t choose between getting vulnerable and using “I” or keeping a distance with “she”, and I’m still not sure if “she” was a different character or not.
I especially liked the poems about grudges and pettiness, I felt that these were refreshing and different from what I usually find in collections with the same themes.
There was a quiet sort of feeling in reading this collection and I will definitely give the author’s other book a try.

In Tidal Pools and Other Small Infinities a quiet and slow love morphs into something toxic, blurring the line between what is right and wrong when it comes to relationships.

When I picked up this collection by Kristen Costello, I didn't realize it was the poet's sophomore collection, focused on endings and beginnings and centralized around a love story gone wrong. Told in three sections, the poetry flows from the start of the relationship, through the end of it, to the new beginning afterward. I really enjoyed the poem Ivy in the beginning!

Unfortunately, I don't think that Costello is the poet for me. I found that a lot of the specific wording and purple prose weren't my favorite. I also didn't find myself getting lost in the cadence of voice or being pulled along by the poems like other collections. I will say, I think this is a lovely concept for a collection and I can tell the poet put a lot of work into making each poem collectively cohesive.

Thank you to NetGalley and Central Avenue Publishing for providing me a copy of this book for an honest review.

This was so beautiful.It felt like reading a love letter.Her poems are constructed so cleaverly.I have definitely become a big fan of her work.

Thank you @netgallery and @central avenue publishing for allowing me to read this e-arc.

This is a stunning collection that spans the life and death of a relationship, and the rebirth of the poet after her grief. I really enjoyed the lyricism. My favourites were Edge, Endings, and Space. Live review to come on instagram 27/7/23