Book Reviews By Steph: Shades of Lovers

DISCLAIMER: I received an Advanced Reader’s Copy in exchange for an honest review

Shades of Lovers is Catarine Hancock’s third self-published poetry book, and while her previous
two were illustrious and inspiring and absolutely incredible, Shades of Lovers is a brand of
incredible that I wasn’t expecting, wasn’t imagining could even be reached. Catarine has always
had a very strong, distinct voice in her writing— one that manages to be conversational,
demanding, and subtle all at once, but Shades demonstrates these qualities (and more) in
exceptional ways.
Separated into six parts, each dedicated to a different relationship and categorized as different
shades or color (red, blue, pink, gray, yellow, and green) this book is a monster of a collection,
sitting at over 200 pages. It’s about heartbreak, about first loves, bad loves, good loves. It’s
about self love and mistakes. Something for almost single aspect of life can be found within its
pages. And yet, somehow between her voice and her tone and the content of the pieces in
general, Catarine manages to make the reader not feel like they are tackling a monstrous book.
Instead, I ate up every single piece, swiping through my ARC on my iBooks app, hungry for
more, impatient to see what the next section would hold.
Her descriptions, images, and metaphors range from being stark and vivid to calm and muted,
and all of them manage to hit the reader in different ways, each one feeling like just a little bit of
a needle prick against your chest with how relatable they manage to be.
Of course, the content of any poetry book is important, as that’s what makes the book, but the
order of the pieces, the format of everything, and the clarity and consistency of the message the
author is trying to tell as a whole are also incredibly important when it comes to poetry
collections, and the stories Catarine is telling through these recollections absolutely shine in
every one of these ways and more.
Overall, I really can’t praise this book enough, and somehow I feel like I haven’t said near
enough to clearly and accurately depict how stunning this collection is. I can’t wait for April 2nd
for physical copy to be delivered so that I can mark it up and put it next to her other books on
my bookshelf. I can’t encourage enough that everyone else do that, too.

Buy “The Boys I’ve Loved and the End of the World” HERE and “How the Words Come” HERE

Buy "Shades of Lovers" HERE.