La La Love - Katie Lewington (Review)

La La Love by Katie Lewington
Genres: Romance, Poetry
Publication date: February 19th 2017
Format: ebook, 27 pages
How I got it: Katie Lewington for an honest review
Buy it: Amazon 
My rating: 4/5 
 

A chapbook of poetry on the universal theme of love. 
The poetry in La La Love contains observations of love from first meeting, possession, lust, falling in love, and being in an established relationship.

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My thoughts:

My first thought is I love the cover! 

This is a book of poems that are centered around love.   Some of the poems are very short where others are a little bit longer.  The whole idea of the poems is love and developing of a relationship.

The poems go through a lot of emotions from finding love to fighting with love.   The poems do suggest jealousy at one point and even some stupid small fights, but they all go back to the idea of loving someone unconditionally.  The idea of possession is very prevalent in the poems.

My favorite line by far was “we gain weight in happy relationships” I completely agree with the author on this point.  I feel like in a happy relationship you just feel more secure and safer that you can be yourself.

The author does a great job capturing true feelings of love and achieving in my mind real love that isn’t a fairytale.

I would suggest this as a cute read when you just have a few minutes to sit down and ponder about love and a relationship.    

I received copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.  This does not affect my opinion of this book. 

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About the Author

Raised in a small town, Katie spent her childhood in the public library and became a real life Matilda. Growing up she ventured from the children's books to the classics, and then to the books that really weren't for a child's eyes.

Katie has been writing, alongside reading, for as long as she can remember. She had, and continues to have, many harebrained ideas that she needs to write down before she forgets them, and these become the stories you can read today in her books.

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Visions of My Heart: 101 Tales Told in Verse - Garikai Nhongo (Review)

Visions of My Heart: 101 Tales Told in Verse by Garikai Nhongo
Genres: Poetry
Publication date: February 20, 2016
Format: ebook, 136 pages
How I got it: From Garikai Nhongo for an honest review
Buy it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
My rating: 3/5
 
This book contains one hundred and one (101) poems told from the passionate heart of an ordinary man.

This body of work is a journey, so please read it as a journey. It’s a journey of the many conflicting roads my mind and heart have taken. I have been through a lot but my hope is that each piece inspires you in some way. When you laugh or cry, let it be a lesson for your tomorrow.

The poems speak of love, sorrow, loss and joy. They speak of happiness and sadness in equal turn. At the end of it all, they bring hope to all who open the pages of this text. Each of the poems are the encapsulation of an aspect of life put down in words. They speak of the journeys of a single man which are also the journeys that we will all travel at some point in our lives. Read these with an open heart and an open mind. You will find that they will speak of your journeys as well. If not the journeys that you have travelled already, then these are the journeys that you will travel one day.

Learn from them. Feel them. Enjoy them.

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My thoughts:

I can't remember the last time I read a book of poetry.   This book contains 101 poems on various topics.  Each topic is broken up into a mini chapters. 

The beginning poems are very uplifting and positive.  The author does a great job to show the importance of sticking with something and achieving goals.  By far my favorite poem in the collection was Alive, I felt like it captured the sense of overcoming obstacles and really going for it.   I loved the idea of nothing that can knock you down. 

The poems continue with the idea of hoping for a better future as well as making your future brighter.  I felt like this idea of making your future what you want really stayed throughout the poems.   Other topics that where learning to move forward after something happened in your life and looking forward to another day.

I did feel like in the middle portion of the poems the tone began to change and the author was more conflicted feelings and they where no longer positive in nature.  The section on love I felt was more about love from a distance then being in love.   Also, a lot of loss of love was covered in the poems.  I felt hard to connect the darker the poetry got.   The reader does get a full range of emotions coming through the poetry. 

I felt like some poems did become somewhat repetitive in nature touching on the same themes but just said in different ways.

I would recommend this as a great read when you are looking for something different.   Even if you only read a few poems in the book it is worth the read.  It is a short quick read to break up your heavy reads!   
 
I was received a copy of this book from Garikai Nhongo for the purpose of providing an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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About the Author

Garikai Nhongo was born in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1983.

He is a business executive, an entrepreneur, a writer, a poet, a trainer, a speaker, a thinker, a husband, a father and an achiever. His life motto is simply, “be the best you can be” and he lives by it. He started writing poetry at the age of 14 and has thousands of personal pieces and hundreds of published pieces on his blog (www.garikainhongo.blogspot.com). Garikai became a corporate Director at the young age of 24 in Zimbabwe and has been in Senior Management in Advertising and Media firms since.

Garikai has spoken at various business events and has been the Master of ceremonies for various business and poetry events.

He has been the MC at Awards Ceremonies, Business Competitions and other corporate events. He has spoken at events on varied topics such as Creativity, Personal Branding, eCommerce, Networking, Public Speaking, 360 Degree Leadership and various Performance Management events. He has also become a fixture at the Global Entrepreneurship Week where he inspires young entrepreneurs.

He currently lives in Pretoria, South Africa with his wife and 2 daughters.

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