Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by Christine Heppermann

Summary:

A collection of fifty poems that examines the modern teenage girl through the lens of a fairy tale in an attempt to show that fairy tales have some basis in truth and many elements of a teenage girl's "ordinary" life can be just as bizarre and twisted as something written down by the Grimm's Brothers.

Review:

This poetry collection was a welcome surprise after the huge disappointment that was How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather. In fact, while that book was my most disappointment read this year, this one might be my favorite. It is certainly one that I wasn't sure if I would like and yet, I ended up loving it. For some reason, I was thinking these poems were fairy tale re-tellings that take place in a more old-world, fairy tale-esque setting. I was a little put off that this were fairy tale spins on the modern world at first. However, I quickly became accustomed to the unique and creative premise and realized how groundbreaking and meaningful it is as a twist on the modern day. This collection is definitely dark and twisted and tackles important issues such as anorexia and rape. I would consider this a feminist collection which is apt, because many fairy tales are quite sexist and feature a lot of violence and degradation towards women.



Strangely enough, I’m not a big fan of poetry, even though I used to write (surely bad) poetry in my early teenage years. I think it’s because I prefer pleasure and escapist reads and poetry is more of a food for thought type read. I feel like a class on poetry would be great, because you can get a lot out of it, but as a solitary read, poetry is just not something I tend to turn to in my spare time. I’m so glad I made an exception with this one. The poems presented here are so powerful. Collections often feature a wide array of talent with many pieces being much stronger than others, but while I had favorites, I thought that each poem was quite strong on its own. I think that so many teenage girls could relate to this. I would like to teach this collection, but only in a senior level class and probably with parent permission, because the subject matter is not for the faint of heart. I know that girls would relate to this a lot more than most boys; although, anorexia among boys and men is actually an emerging issue that most people don’t acknowledge and that needs to be discussed more often. However, I would like to teach this collection in a mixed classroom, because it is important, perhaps more so than with girls, to discuss rape with teenage boys. Too many boys, and men, have gross misconceptions about what constitutes rape and think that many girls “say no when they really mean yes.” I think that this poetry would facilitate necessary and invaluable class discussion with a mature enough class. I gave this four stars, and it is now one of my favorite books.