Review : GHOST IN THE REFLECTION - LETTERS TO ERIN

Poems are one of the most beautiful finds by mankind. The advantage of reading poetries is that it can connect to your emotions instantly. That's why the mind feels refreshed after reading a good poem. I had been missing that majestic feeling of reading a poem for a long time as I was surrounded by the books of other genres. Then Fly on the Wall Press came to me and asked whether I can review a poetry book or not. Of course, I accepted that proposal to feed my mind and started reading Ghost In The Reflection - Letters To Erin by James F. Miller II. 

This book is a collection of two chaps - Ghost in the Reflection and Letters to Erin. After turning over the first two pages, you will get a thank you letter from the poet where he has given a brief about the book. The foreword is written by Brandy Kellams where he says "The first half of this collection of poetry puts together the feelings of sadness and anger that go along with the decline of society and its so-called morals……The second half of the collection, Letters to Erin, is an interesting take on a relationship he has learned much from. From positive to downright heart-wrenching, these poems take the reader through the one relationship that has stopped him in his tracks." I think you have already got an idea of what the book is about. So I won't add my own words to describe the theme of the book. The total page count of the book is ninety-five.

Leonard Cohen's famous quote "Poetry is just the evidence of life. If life is burning well, poetry is just the ash." was echoing in my mind while reading this book. The poetries in the book are like water. They can shape themselves in every way you want them to. So I was wandering here and there in my thoughts and it took a long time to finish this book. 

While reading a poetry book, there comes a question - "Which one did you like most?" It was really a tough task for me to find the favourite one in this book. When I started reading it, I thought of marking the favourite one and writing a paragraph of the feelings I experienced in my review and I ended up marking almost all of the poems. However, after applying so many "if-else" and "this-that" filters (which I don't think I have done justice to this book), I have listed the gems I found below. If you love poetry, do check these poetries at least once in your life. 

1. To Ashes We Become (Ghost In The Reflection part)
2. Daily Observations from a Sidewalk Café (Ghost In The Reflection part)
3. Stagnant  ( Letters to Erin part)
4. Dancing Blind Marionettes ( Letters to Erin part)
5. The Blurring of Lines ( A Lesser Man part)

Talking about the writing style of a poet is really a tough thing to do. Most of the poems in this book are written in the third person. One thing I liked most in James' writing is that he loves to see his feelings through the lens of nature. The art of blending human emotions to nature is not everyone's cup of tea. But the poet did it very beautifully using proper words. His way of assigning thoughts to words is so perfect that I couldn't think of replacing a single word of the book. 

Fonts used in a book play a major role in the reading experience. The font used in the book looked similar to Comic Sans. It was a new experience for me to read such deep poems in this font. So I can't tell you whether it was a good or bad experience reading in that font. But it did give the book a beautiful look.

This book can't be recommended to the younger generation. The poems in this book are very powerful and I think they are written targeting adult readers. A free mind away from all the noises is much recommended to read this book. You can taste it either at night before going to sleep or when you are in a hill station enjoying a vacation. 

Now it's time to rate this book. Since this is a poetry book, the"story rating section" is obviously invalid in this case. So I decided to add another perspective to maintain our three-dimensional rating system. 

Writing Style: Four out of four stars. The book was perfectly edited, and I didn't find any typos or grammatical errors while reading it. 

Reading experience: Four out of four stars. It has a two-dimensional taste. If you randomly pick any of the poems, you will be exploring different meanings, and if you read the poems according to the table of contents (without skipping any one of them), you will discover another meaning. I recommend you to try both ways.

Overall rating: Four out of four stars. The only reason I am not hesitating giving the book full marks is that the poet's liberality which allows the reader to roam in his/her thoughts. Unlike many poets, James didn't force the reader to imagine those feelings which he wants him/her to (which is a sign of a great poet). Though this book can not be read by the readers of all age groups, I don't think this reason will be enough to remove even half stars. 

Before you exit this blog, I want to thank all of you for coming here to read my review. Your support in my first blog post which I posted a few weeks earlier really encouraged me. My heartiest thanks to those who found my review useful and bought that book. I promise I will never break your trust. You can comment below to give me your constructive ideas so that I can write better reviews for you. If you loved this review, kindly share it with your friends, foes and families. It will encourage me to bring more reviews to you. Follow me or subscribe to this blog (check the sidebar in desktop mode) to get notifications whenever I upload a new post. 

I really want to thank Fly on the Wall Press for giving me the opportunity to read this masterpiece. I will definitely collect a paperback version of this poetry book to grace my library.

Keep smiling, keep reading. Bye!