2 stars

This book was okay. I have seen videos of a few of Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s poems and liked them so I couldn’t wait to read these. However, I think many of them work better as spoken poetry rather than in written form. The format of the poems were kind of weird and it was often difficult to know how they were meant to be read. Also, while I enjoyed individual poems, the book as a whole felt very repetitive.

I should have guessed from the title what the poems would focus on. After the first one, I was happy to relate to the whole “hairy” aspect of the poems. As someone who has thick hair and can’t go a day without plucking before my unibrow reemerges, it was refreshing to me to read about someone who is so open about her body hair and how it affects her life.

However, the poems about hairiness go on and on. By the end, the theme seems overdone and annoying. Yes, we get it, body hair is annoying. Seeing how other people freak out about your body hair is annoying. But there are other aspects of life too. It’s not all about hair. Other things happen. I got real sick of reading about hair after a few pages.

Overall, an okay collection of poems, but I enjoyed the individual videos of spoken poetry more.