Review: Virgin

Virgin by Analicia Sotelo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was hooked from the first poem, "Do You Speak Virgin?" from this impressive debut collection by Analicia Sotelo.

My favorites included:
"Ariadne's Guide to Getting a Man"
"My Mother & the Parable of the Lemons"
"My English Victorian Dating Troubles."

What I like about them - the way they feel youthful, but not naive. The way the poet's voice knows her inexperience but moves through the world deliberately masking her understanding of it so other women feel safe, and she herself is safer (but not from love.) The way there are slight elements of Mexican culture, the way someone who grows up in another country still has some cultural references from their background. The division of poems into sections like "Myths" and "Parables." The characters that have already started to recur in her memory, her dreams, and now her poems. Great stuff.

I had an eARC from Milkweed... Virgin comes out February 20!

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