The illustrations and layout of this book are beautiful. And i love the dark humor of this book and would recommend to someone interests in this type of humor.

I won this book for the exception of a honest review.

This collection had a few poems that interested me, but they fell a little flat. I feel like rather than focusing on the quality of the work, there was too much focus on trying to shock the reader, and the shock value wasn't very shocking. There would often times be a break where it just didn't seem to fit, making an otherwise fine poem become clunky. And nothing is worse than a clunky poem. Out of the 21 poems in this collection; I can say confidently that I liked 5 of them. If I'm to be really kind I can say that I had a special amount of interest in 6 of them. I definitely saw potential in all of them, like I said, most just fell a little flat. But hey, maybe I just didn't get "It". After all, it wasn't too long ago that I was playing with dolls.

I received this in a giveaway in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Doll Shaker from Casey Renee Kiser is a wonderful collection of poems. While on the dark and gloomy side they are not excessively so. I prefer this collection as a whole over the only other one I have read but that is because the other one was dragged down by her co-author.

What I found particularly interesting here with repeated readings was the manner in which I could connect with each poem. They speak to both internal struggles/battles but they also address the places where the personal has no choice but to interact with the public or societal. So while I always started from myself when relating to a poem in the collection I could sometimes move inward and sometimes outward.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the author via LibraryThing. ( )

I received a signed print copy, from the author, in connection with another book she recently offered as a giveaway on LibraryThing and the following is my honest opinion.

This makes the third book of poetry I’ve had the pleasure of reading/reviewing. From this author. Once again, this author has successfully has created a wondrous dichotomy of elements in her poetry. On one hand they’re fairly lighthearted but on the other hand they’re gloomy. On one hand they’re childlike and on the other hand they’ve been written for adults.

As the bad saying goes, “Haste makes waste” and in reading these poems you can’t rush in reading any. You need to read them slowly, let your mind digest what it has read, before you’re able to fully comprehend the complexity of what you’ve read. For having once again given her readers thought provoking poetry, I’m happy to give Ms. Kiser 5 STARS ( )

FULL REVIEW: https://youtu.be/NctAVyMKUDg

Honestly, I really didn't like this collection of poetry. The poems lacked structure and they just didn't click with me. The theme was supposed to be dark, but I feel like the author tried too hard. Instead of aiming for quality, she settled for shock value. I hate that I didn't like it because I love poetry, but that's just how I feel. ( )