A review by elizakaspar1988
Lord of the Butterflies by Andrea Gibson

5.0

4.5 stars rounded up

This is the best collection of poetry I've read and I definitely related to a lot of it, more so than I ever have before. I probably would've rated it 5 stars if I was in love and happy and able to relate to some of those poems honestly. This author of this collection does spoken poetry and I'm a big fan of that so that may have been another reason that I liked it. I definitely will read more of Andrea Gibson's work. Recommended for anyone but highly highly highly recommended if you are LGBTQ+ and/or have some religious trauma you're working through ("Your Life" especially hit hard).

And now a couple pieces I especially liked. "Photoshopping my sister's mugshot" talks about how addiction changes your loved ones into people you don't even recognize. "Orlando" talks about the shooting at the Pulse club in Orlando and how that took away safety in LGBTQ+ places.

And a couple quotes for the road:

"Of all the violence I have known in my life I have never known violence like the violence I have spoken to myself"

"Do you remember the first record where we didn't have to change the pronouns to sing along? We'd gone so many years without music that knew us"