Review by tirionmorganna -- Confessions of a Manaholic

[tirionmorganna]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Confessions of a Manaholic" by P. Pierre.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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Confessions of a MANAHOLIC by P. Pierre is a story of the cycle of a relationship told through 29 poems. It details all the expectations of young, inexperienced love and all the doubt and insecurity that comes with it. We see the inner conflict of being in a relationship when you don’t know what you’re doing, and that conflict making the relationship fall apart. It also explores independence and finding inner strength, but then falling back into the relationship.


This book was difficult to review as there was a total lack of consistency, some of the poems were exceptional but others weren’t. A good portion of the early poems don’t flow well, but that may be due to the bad formatting. There were multiple fonts, one of them almost impossible to read, as it was so small, which just gives the book an amateur feel. This along with what feels like random bold sections that often stop in the middle of a word, brings down the experience of the book. The early poems also suffer from being extremely repetitive, particularly when talking about being helpless against love, or wanting to have the man's babies. And overall, we just see the same themes over and over. I feel that Pierre’s intent was to display the obsessive nature of the relationship, but it just comes off as monotonous. I would feel very different if these were edited down, as it would highlight the better poems like "Justin", "Karma", "My Bird" and "December". The early poems could also benefit from reordering as the intertextual references to later poems just sound like gibberish, as we don’t yet know the context. And as a whole the author struggles with keeping clarity and relevance, sometimes I felt like I had read a line of nonsense which is contrary to the usual confessional style of the poems. Other bad habits the author has are starting a poem with ‘and’, over using ‘again’ and the major one, the portrayal of love as inherently unhealthy, all love is tarred with her one relationship. Which is her experience but isn’t reflective like it’s attempting to be, particularly as the ending is a major let down in terms of growth.


However, there were good aspects to this, I loved almost all of the poems after section V. They had that individuality that earlier poems lacked. They gave us a distinct insight into the two characters and the reality of their relationship beyond the emotional. How they did love each other under all the doubt. We discover their relationship in the real world isn’t just the conflicting feelings the author is having, and the expression of this is often beautiful to read. Some prose are hooking and when used appropriately the intertextuality did bring me joy, the best example being "My Bird". Early in the collection Pierre was successful in expressing sensuality, in one of the poems that really needs to be highlighted, "Justin", as it was gripping and genuinely sexy, and following this with "Karma" further emulates this mood. Soon after we go back into the usual obsessive material and there are better and worse examples of this, it’s pretty hit or miss, but when it hits it’s gripping and beautiful, it’s tragic but you can’t take your eyes off of it. The absolute peak of his work for me is "Crimson" and "Ode", the third and second to last poem, the themes of self-love, strength and reflection are so powerful and personable, they genuinely moved me and had a real impact.


My personal rating for Confessions of a MANAHOLIC by P. Pierre is 1 stars out of 4, there is so much potential within this work, and some of these poems are 4 stars individually, but I cannot give it a higher rating as the formatting completely drags the poems down, it is my least favorite element of this collection, and to add to this problem the collection is littered with poem that don’t add anything to the collection and should have been cut out of editing.


I see this collection as appealing to many different audiences for a variety of reasons. Firstly, younger people going through the woes of young love, who have that immature and obsessive idea of what love should be, particularly those who enjoy Young Adult romances, it explores all the insecurities of not knowing what you’re doing and how to love someone when you have no experience of love or how it works. The other main demographic I see enjoying this are women in their 30s age range as it does feature the themes of sensuality and self confidence that would be very appealing for this demographic.

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Confessions of a Manaholic
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Like tirionmorganna's review? Post a comment saying so!

[Diana Lowery]

It appears that your review was challenging to write. I admire that you found some positive comments to make. I haven't reviewed any poetry books, so your experience was helpful to me for a future read. I do love the title of this book.

[Kister Bless]

Confessions of a MANAHOLIC by P. Pierre, a story of the cycle of a relationship told through 29 poems sounds interesting. Your review has triggered my urge to read the book. Nice work

[jomana_3]

I must say that I was confused when I started reading the book; however, I liked the second half of it. Great review!