Official Review: Dark Romeo by Yarro Rai

amybo82 · Post by **amybo82** » 01 Oct 2015, 12:35

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Dark Romeo" by Yarro Rai.]

2 out of 4 stars

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Yarro Rai's Dark Romeo is a poetry collection of 20 raw, dark poems about lust, love, and loss. The cover of the book sets the tone for the poetry within. It's an image of a hand with the middle finger sticking up toward the reader. The middle finger fades from the hand into a fountain pen. With poems like "Lovers from hell," "In the arms of pain," and "Cigarette holes in papers," Rai takes the reader on a journey of heartache. He provides snapshots into his own life through the words of his narrator. He was an outsider. He got a girlfriend. He had sex with said girlfriend. She cheated on him with his backstabbing friend. Heartbroken, he put pen to paper and created this collection.

Each poem is unique, and each one certainly follows the overarching theme of heartbreak. In "He & she quotes," you can just feel the pain when the female in the poem says, "Meet me at your friends bed if you wanna love me again he will host us tonight." The last line of "Amazing conversation" sums up the book well: "emotionally awkward.guy. . . . .understanding everything about love but not quite finding it." The author writes about wanting to find love, but it is always just out of his grip. Similarly, the poems themselves want to express deep meaning and complex emotion, but they just fall short.

The writing in the book reflects that the author's native language is not English. Some of the word choices seem misguided and/or unintentional. There are missing articles, some misspellings, and incorrectly used punctuation. The poems all seem to lack flow and rhythm. Even taken as free verse, the poems still lack a certain spark. Poets have to be extremely selective of their word choices, as each word has to pack a punch and has to be significant. This is a hard task to accomplish in a language other than your native tongue because there are nuances that are easily missed.

Despite the negatives, the author does get his point across. The collection conveys a dark and somewhat spiteful tone. You can tell that the author has been betrayed and that this betrayal is what inspired each poem. He lays his heart out for the reader in this collection, giving the poems a raw emotional feeling.

I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. While the poems do convey some emotions, the collection just doesn't feel impactful as a whole. It's not the worst book of poetry I've read, but it wouldn't be among my top choices, either. I would recommend this book to someone who has an interest in reading unique styles of poetry or someone who is looking for dark poems about love, lust, and life. I would also recommend reading the author's interview on Smashwords. He provides a link to the site in his book. The interview gives a better understanding of the author's life and where his poems are coming from.

Note: All of the quotes included in this review are copied as they appear in the book, including capitalization and internal punctuation. I added periods and commas for closing punctuation as needed.

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Dark Romeo
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zeldas_lullaby · Post by **zeldas_lullaby** » 09 Oct 2015, 21:04

Wow, what an interesting review. I don't like that cover! It seems hostile, ya know?

gali · Post by **gali** » 10 Oct 2015, 03:36

Nice review! Poems aren't my cup of tea, so it isn't for me.

chytach18- · Post by **chytach18-** » 10 Oct 2015, 04:44

The cover is unusual. Based on your review, amybo, this hostile cover of the book must have paralleled the emotions of the author - which is not a bad idea. Honest review, amybo.

Tanaya · Post by **Tanaya** » 13 Oct 2015, 12:01

I enjoyed reading your review, even though I'm not one for poetry. You do a great job of explaining the book's weaknesses. I can clearly understand why the poems seem to fall short of based on your description.

Post by **bookowlie** » 14 Oct 2015, 10:14

Great review. You did a nice job of pointing out the flaws in a detailed, constructive way.

amybo82 · Post by **amybo82** » 15 Oct 2015, 02:45

Thanks to everyone for the comments! I like the insights about the cover paralleling the tone of the book. It's very true! In this case, you can judge the book by its cover! To me, even poems about difficult topics are mechanically delicate, and they require finesse. This collection fell short.