Title: Love & Misadventure by Lang Leav 
Genre: Poetry – Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
My Thoughts
Love & Misadventure is the second poetry book I purchased after milk and honey by Rupi Kaur as I began exploring more contemporary poetry. Firstly I had seen this book all over Instagram and I was drew in by the cover, I have to applaud the publishers Andrew McMeel as they also published Milk and Honey and their book designs are simple and beautiful. If you have seen Milk and Honey you will know it is a black and white theme whereas Love and Misadventure is White and Red. The covers are both of a matte finish and they look wonderful on your bookshelf. I love the simplicity of both of them.
Love & Misadventure is very different from Milk and Honey as it is more structured in the sense that most of the poems within this book rhyme and they are each 2 or 3 stanzas. For the poems which touch upon 4 stanza’s they are still relatively small with 4 short lines within each stanza therefore it’s easy to digest and for people just getting into poetry then I think it’s a great starting point as it’s not too heavy hitting and the theme very much sticks to love. 
Just Friends is a poem which I loved, I really enjoyed this one and tabbed it immediately because I have been in the very situation that this poem speaks about and it felt honest and real. Lang Leav was able to capture emotions which I have felt and my favourite line has to be “so my anger when you’re with her, I have no right to feel”. This is the line which was like BAM. It hit home – I have felt that.
Love & Misadventure is split into 3 parts; 1) Misadventure, 2) The Circus of Sorrows and 3) Love. Therefore you follow the journey of finding love and losing love, the heartbreak and the bliss. With the title page of each part there is also some wonderful illustrations to match and they add an extra something to the book, it definitely makes it unique and different. Also I have to take a moment to acknowledge part 2’s title ‘The Circus of Sorrows’ – wow. I love that name.
A Way Out is a poem which I really liked and felt one of my biggest connections with because it reminded me of my Anxiety. I have struggled with constantly going over every decision I have ever made in the past and over thought about people’s opinions of me for a long time and this poem reminded me of that. All I ever wanted was to be able to fall asleep but my mind would be constantly going over every little detail and making me question myself. This poem is very honest for me in that sense and describes one aspect of my anxiety struggle perfectly.
For Love & Misadventure I am going to be giving it 4 stars because for me the rhyming couplets of most of the poems within this book were a bit too much. I felt like it was a bit too structured and I like the idea of free-flowing thoughts with little editing as it makes it feels more honest and raw whereas it was almost as if Lang Leav was confined to her structure therefore I couldn’t really lose myself in her poetry and that’s why it missed out on the 5 star read for me.
Useful Links:
Be sure to check out Lang Leav’s Instagram as she posts some of her poetry up!
Lang Leav – Instagram
Amazon UK | Andrew McMeel Publishing | www.langleav.com
mortalreader.wordpress.com 
This sounds so good! I’m definitely trying to read more poetry so I’ll be adding this to my TBR for sure. I really love the A Way Out poem that you posted. I definitely relate to that one! Two of my all time favourite poetry books are Ariel by Sylvia Plath and Crush by Richard Siken.
Great review, Hannah 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oo I haven’t read either of your favourites so I will also definitely check them out 🙂 Thanks for reading! Lang Leav is married to Michael Faudet who wrote Dirty Pretty Things which is another book I have been considering reading, it’s one that pops up on instagram alot too!
LikeLike
This was so interesting to read, and these two poems you shared are so lovely! I have to admit, I’m not a huge poetry reader, but this makes me want to start reading more. A Way Out is definitely a poem I could relate to, as well! 🙂
LikeLike
Thank you Marie! I am trying to introduce myself into poetry a little more as well so this and Milk and Honey were the first contemporary ones I tried. I definitely recommend both if you are interested in trying poetry out more. The authors both seem to post bits on their instagram’s 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person