So, it’s the classic chick-lit poetry book with the highly instagrammable cover that seems to be literally everywhere, but Kaur’s #1 New York Times Bestseller is a surprisingly deep and meaningful read with some stand out poems and illustrations which really prove why it’s so popular.
The book is split into 4 distinct chapters: the hurting, the loving, the breaking and the healing. Each chapter is supposed to handle specific issues and ‘take readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and find sweetness in them, because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look’. And honestly, Kaur is incredibly successful in carrying that message through each chapter.
When I first read these poems I was going through a break up and I related, like so much, to the hurting and breaking chapters; but reading them again a few years on and in a new relationship, I find myself empathising with the stories in the loving and healing chapters. The fact that Kaur is basically all of us when it comes to the IRL traumas of modern dating, but manages to articulate the feelings so sensitively and accurately really makes it easy to see why millennials seem to be obsessed with this book.
Some of the poems deal with really difficult topics and can be a little hard to read, but I got the sense that Kaur’s retelling of her painful experiences empowered her and that only made me love it (and her) more. After all, we love a strong woman at Her Campus, and it’s genuinely inspiring that she turned her pain into art which can help others to deal with their own experiences.
Milk and Honey is really good starting place if you’re someone who isn’t really “into” poetry (is anyone into poetry after GCSE English Lit?!). There’s a mixture of wordy poems and ones that are just a few lines long, and you can read the book in any order you want. It’s completely up to you how you use the book and that’s one of my favourite things about it: it’s there when you need it for all kinds of reasons.
The last thing I’ll say about the book is that I really enjoyed Kaur’s illustrations – they’re the kind of free-hand line drawing you’d see adorning the walls of a quirky independent café and you could definitely use them to dot around your uni room to show off your appreciation of Kaur’s brilliant mind (and to show off that you bought Instagram’s favourite read).
Rating: 4/5