Book Review: Violet

Reviewed by Elizabeth Zender

An honest and therapeutic poetic reflection on the highs and lows of love

Sabrina Simon takes her readers on a beautifully and painfully real journey in Violet. You dive headfirst into her love life, both the good and the bad, and it all showcases her growth as a writer over the last seven years and her ingenuity as a creator. 

One of my favorite lines from this book is “I’m in love, life is good,/and has never been better.” I felt it in my chest when I read this. When you love and feel loved, things really can feel beautiful all around. You waltz through each day, seeing colors brighter, smelling things sweeter. Even the things that hurt are less painful when someone is there to bear them with you.

Simon’s honesty is brutal and thoughtful. She makes a point not to shy away from how things feel when you are viewing the world through rose-colored glasses, nor does she avoid creating a vivid sense of hurt when your world is crumbling down around you. On one page, she’ll have painted a picture of a love that can last. The next page? The crashing down of your world around you when someone walks away. 

Violet explores love through a variety of poetic avenues. You see writing that resembles the work of classic poets, with rhyming and specific patterns. You see the evolution from this formula into free verse, as Simon gains experience, both in writing and in her love life. She creates beautiful pieces that span a couple of pages and devastating ones that come in even shorter, like “Peace.” She puts history and hurt into two short sentences that absolutely wrecked me. I loved seeing myself in her work. We didn’t have to date the same person to feel the same pain.

I cannot stress how impressed I am, or how refreshing it is, to see an author include their older writing in with their most recent work. You could not give me enough money in the world to show anyone the poetry I wrote as a teen, and Simon does just that without shame or worry. She gives the reader a piece of herself, and you will be so glad that she did. There are more similarities between a teenager with visions of rom-coms and an adult who has been hurt before.

If you, like me, are a hopeless romantic and have experienced the tragedy of a broken heart, you’ll want to check out Sabrina Simon’s poetry collection. There’s something inherently powerful in being in your feelings, and Simon’s crafted reality within these pages exudes that power. 

Publisher: Gatekeeper Press

Genre: Poetry

Print Length: 66 pages

ISBN: 978-1662928123

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