Review: Secrets and Stars by Alex Klingenberg
Overview:
Rating: 4 out of 5.
I am so grateful to Alix Klingenberg for sending me a copy of her beautiful book. While poetry normally intimidates me, I found this collection to be extremely relatable. I particularly enjoyed its magical realism and unexpected social commentary.
Disclaimer:
A free copy of this book was given to me by the author in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts listed here are entirely my own.
Content Warning:
Secrets & Stars references trauma and sexual content.
Book Description:
Secrets & Stars is the debut poetry collection from author Alix Klingenberg. Her poems utilize personal experience, magical realism, and humor to explore themes of love, loss, grief, and self-acceptance.
On the Aesthetics of the Book:
To put it bluntly, Secrets & Stars is a very pretty book. The cover is gorgeous, the spacing of the poems is clean, and Peppermint Lines’ illustrations are magical. If I did not want to keep this book on my shelf for a reread, I would probably rip out a few of the pages to showcase as art on the walls of my bedroom.
On the Accessibility of the Text:
I don’t normally veer towards poetry. Too many forced readings of Shakespeare in high school got me into the bad habit of believing that most written prose is flowery, overly complicated, and entirely unrelatable to a modern young adult. In other words, poems usually feel like too much work for too little reward. THIS book, however, had quite the opposite effect on me. Klingenberg’s sentence structure, references to pop culture, and use of everyday colloquialisms felt more reminiscent of the 21st century than the 1600s. For the most part, reading her poems could be equated to having a casual conversation with a friend, and I finished the entire collection easily within one sitting. While I don’t pretend to assume authorial intent, I felt that I understood or could make my own meaning from each piece in the collection. Did every single line speak to my soul? Of course not. But I could relate to the text in a way that felt almost effortless.
On the Author’s Writing Style:
Klingenger’s style is very much reminiscent of magical realism and urban fantasy. She utilizes imagery of space, nature, and magic to convey larger themes of love, grief, and self-acceptance, but she also doesn’t shy away from talking about mundane things like traffic and folding laundry. At times, a few of the metaphors felt a bit heavy-handed for me, but overall her words had the effect of smoothly bridging the gap between the every day and the fantastical. Reading through her book made me think about how I can harness the fairytale in my own life if only I make the effort to look for it.
On the Social Commentary Within the Text:
Based on the Goodreads synopsis, I expected this book to explore archetypal subject matters relating to the human experience (you know, love and loss and such). What I was not expecting, however, was the striking commentary on female empowerment within relationship dynamics. Klingenberg touches on a lot of themes that I wish I had the words for when I was younger and first starting to date: codependency, emotional labor, and imposter syndrome to name a few. While she never referenced these terms specifically, she describes her own experiences with them. There were so many times when I was reading where I had vocal responses such as “oh wow, I remember that” and “oof, that hits home.” I cannot count the number of times in early adulthood that this book would have been useful to me as I navigated breakups, confidence issues, and the patriarchal system in which we all live.
On Who Might Enjoy Secrets & Stars (an incomplete list):
Klingenberg’s writing is genuinely decent, so I feel pretty confident that most anyone could find meaning and joy in her words. However, from my own experience as a human being and regular reviewer of books, I think you will especially value Secrets & Stars if you fall into one or more of the following categories:
Authors, writers, and poets of any kind
Folks who enjoy unrequited love tropes and strong female leads in works of fiction (ACOTAR fans, I’m looking at you)
Lovers of YA fantasy novels that involve magic, animals, and/or epic forces of nature
Women and girls who are finding themselves and learning to take up space, whether you are in a relationship or not
Anyone who appreciates the content posted by icons like Florence Given and Africa Brooke on Instagram
Secrets & Stars is the independently published, literary debut of author Alix Klingengberg. If you would like to support Alix’s work, you can buy your very own copy of Secrets & Stars on Amazon, check out her official website and/or follow her on instagram!