Aphrodite Made Me Do It: Volume 1 (Myth and Magick)

Product Information

I read the NetGalley proof on my kindle which for some annoying reason always means that it messes up the lines and images, but I liked the design and style anyway. Known for her eponymous blog, she is now the author of multiple poetry collections, including When The Stars Wrote Back (2020), Aphrodite Made Me Do It (2019), Honeybee (2018), and The Dogs I Have Kissed (2015) which won a Goodreads Choice Award the year of its release. In this empowering retelling, she uses the mythology of the goddess to weave a common thread through the past and present. thank you SO much to my dear friend, kerri (kerrithebookbelle), for getting me a personalized copy of my new favorite poetry book of all time.

This collection is based around mythology and is also about strength, empowerment and self-appreciation. Aphrodite Made Me Do It is a poetry collection for every fem, feminist, or fan of the goddess of love. Its theme is not specific but mainly focuses on love, letting-go-of-past, be-your-self, self-healing etc.It feels awful saying that, because each experience is a different one and it's unfair to compare them, but if you put two modern poems by different poets side by side and asked me to correctly match them to their poets, there's a strong chance I'll be unsuccessful. There were so many pages I marked and highlighted on Scribd, but I don't think I'll purchase a physical copy for myself or ever revisit it.

In honor of that, I'm reviewing a poetry book I recently stumbled upon in my library's catalog on Hoopla and instantly fell in LOVE with. Using the framework of a conversation, with sections alternating between the perspective of the poet and the goddess herself, Mateer explore issues like: heartbreak, sexuality, trauma, and the restorative power in taking control of your own lore, speaking your truths, and rewriting your origin story. I love mythology and the combination between it and poems is really good and the author did a really good job. This worked really well for me, much better in fact than deliberately pointed poems about finding your inner strength when faced with heartache or only needing yourself all along anyway, all of which I find isolating.There are multiple images throughout which felt a little juvenile – they genuinely looked like images captured from google with clip art attached, or were images with poignant quotes on which you’d often see scrolling along your chosen social media platform. In this way some of her work was perhaps lessened by her execution when it could have had a much greater impact if delivered in another way. You may think this therefore moves away from the encouragement readers might be looking for to help them move past their own pain, but it doesn’t, or from the lyrical beauty of a heart-felt or raw piece which readers can relate to, but it doesn’t. It actually feels more like an account of things Aphrodite taught the narrator in anecdotal style, which was a strange approach. It is an authentic dialogue between the poet and Goddess Aphrodite on various themes like love and hate.