1 out of 4 stars
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Have you ever struggled with depression? Perhaps someone close to you has, and you’ve wondered exactly how they felt. In hopes of encouraging others, Wendiann Alfieri wrote Stream of My Reality, a collection of thoughts and poems penned during a year she spent in the hospital. Dark and haunting, the short collection reflects on issues such as sadness, fear, trust, abandonment, despair, peer pressure, loneliness, eating disorders, and feeling misunderstood.
I applaud the author’s courage for sharing such an honest depiction of a dark time in her life. Her writing provides an unfiltered glimpse into different issues related to depression. “Communication” expresses the frustration of feeling misunderstood when others can’t relate to depression. In “The Skinny Game,” the author poignantly reflects on peer pressure and eating disorders in a manner that is disturbingly realistic. She cautions that the sensitive content is “gritty” and may trigger some readers, and I agree.
I most liked “Determination;” the author began each line with the clever play on words, “Detour my nation” and concluded with thoughts such as, “...from abandoning me” and “...so I can be me.”
On the other hand, I disliked the poems that were written as paragraphs rather than in stanza form. Despite the stylistic choices often associated with poetry, in this format, the lack of punctuation read like a long run-on sentence. Additionally, there were 10 grammatical errors in the first few pages, and the errors continued throughout the book. Unfortunately, incorrectly spelled words, inconsistent punctuation, and poor formatting were the book's downfall.
Regarding the formatting, the poem titles were typed in the same font size as the rest of the text, and at times, it was difficult to tell when a new poem began. Some were written in title case, while others had only the first word capitalized. The chapter titles were also inconsistently formatted and lacked proper spacing. For example, the first was titled, "1:Chapter 1," but subsequent chapters were titled, "3:Determination." The inclusion of a table of contents would have added some clarification, but there wasn't one.
Due to the lack of editing and unorganized formatting, the manuscript seems more like a journal or rough draft than a published work. As much as I admire the author's willingness to transparently share her story, I am unable to recommend it. For all of the above reasons, I rate the book 1 out of 4 stars.
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Stream Of My Reality
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