Beautiful & Full of Monsters by Courtney LeBlanc: Review

I received a copy of Court­ney LeBlanc’s Beau­ti­ful & Full of Mon­sters for review pur­pos­es. As always, this review reflects only my hon­est thoughts on the book.

Beautiful & Full of Monsters
by Courtney LeBlanc

Pub­li­ca­tion Date: 10 March 2020
Pub­lish­er: Veg­e­tar­i­an Alco­holic Press
Paper­back; 72 Pages

Genre: Poet­ry

 

 

Love isn’t always pret­ty, yet most of us choose to remain con­stant in its pur­suit. These poems unwrap the mythos of romance with the clair­voy­ance of a writer who knows the best and worst of rela­tion­ships inside and out. LeBlanc dares to hon­est­ly show us how even when the best of inten­tions fail, we can always find beau­ty if we stay true to the mon­sters in ourselves.

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My Review

I can say with remark­able cer­tain­ty that, no mat­ter what I’ve read of Court­ney LeBlanc’s work, I haven’t been dis­ap­point­ed. Like her chap­book, All in the Fam­i­ly, Beau­ti­ful & Full of Mon­sters did not disappoint.

Before this review went live, I post­ed a sim­ple pre­view to Goodreads: “Wow. A phe­nom­e­nal col­lec­tion!” Now, as I write this more detailed overview of my expe­ri­ence read­ing this col­lec­tion (twice!), I’d sum­marise my feel­ings in the same way. This is an absolute­ly phe­nom­e­nal collection.

Beau­ti­ful & Full of Mon­sters tack­les love in all its forms, embrac­ing both beau­ty and beast. The poems in this col­lec­tion take scenes from seascapes to sleep­less nights and infuse them with feeling—both in emo­tion­al con­nec­tion and a pow­er­ful sense of tac­tile touch. This is a col­lec­tion that demands to be felt as you read it and insists on stay­ing with you, whether through sub­se­quent rereads or the feel­ing of the words, both beau­ti­ful and mon­strous, that stay with you long after you’ve returned this book to your shelf.

I, for one, am con­fi­dent I’ll be return­ing to Beau­ti­ful & Full of Mon­sters over time. Read­ing through these pages, I found myself tak­ing on the speak­er’s role like a part in a play, even as I took in the moments as an onlook­er. That’s the pow­er of this col­lec­tion: you may find your­self imag­in­ing what it’s like to be in the dri­ver’s seat or read through these poems like you’d watch a film. Either way, there’s no doubt that this is a book that will stay with you.

With her next col­lec­tion, Exquis­ite Bloody, Beat­ing Heart, com­ing soon, we can look for­ward to even more incred­i­ble work by a gift­ed poet. And, if her work so far is any indi­ca­tion, there’s no doubt it will be yet anoth­er remark­able addi­tion to your TBR.

 

About the Author

Court­ney LeBlanc is the author of full length poet­ry col­lec­tions, Beau­ti­ful & Full of Mon­sters (Veg­e­tar­i­an Alco­holic Press) and Exquis­ite Bloody, Beat­ing Heart (forth­com­ing, Riot in Your Throat) and chap­books All in the Fam­i­ly (Bot­tle­cap Press), and The Vio­lence With­in (Flut­ter Press). She has her MBA from Uni­ver­si­ty of Bal­ti­more and her MFA from Queens Uni­ver­si­ty of Char­lotte. She loves nail pol­ish, wine, and tattoos.

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