Book Review – The Beauty of Words (2020)

“𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘶𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘰𝘶𝘣𝘵𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘢 𝘣𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘷𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘦𝘮𝘴, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥.”

“I was always a blessing in your life,
In the form of sister, mother or wife.
But now you have chosen to disrespect me,
Putting an end to my glee.”
― Muskan Goyal, Being a girl child

*The Beauty of Words* (2020), published and written by Muskan Goyal.

🍁I received an e-Book of this story in exchange for a fair review!🍁

The Beauty of Words (2020) is a neat little collection of twelve poems, mainly centred on themes of family, love and relationships, and a few other concepts as well. Some are uplifting and wholesome, whilst others scrutinize insecurities and doubts, and this meant that there was quite a bit of variety and flavour to the subject matter of the poems, which was good.

This collection was relatively short so I don’t have loads to say about it, but it was a nice read and presented some interesting and important issues. The strongest poems in the collection for me included Being a girl child, which examined womanhood and sexism in an effective and powerful manner, and An Encounter with Change, which, as the title might suggest, is about change in an individual’s life, and the fear and worries that come alongside it. I thought these two stood out in particular, as the former tackled an issue that is hugely relevant, even today, and the latter was relatable and heartfelt. I liked the remainder of the poems in this collection too, but this pair were the highlights for me.

A couple of issues I did have were that sometimes the wording was slightly confused in certain poems, and occasionally the words chosen to rhyme felt a bit forced. Also, all twelve of these poems were rhyming couplets, which worked alright given the relatively short length of the volume, but had it been longer, I would have liked to have seen more experimentation in the compositions. I feel that if Goyal releases collections of poetry in the future, it would be nice to see a little more variance in the structure. I think this anthology displays a lot of talent and future potential though, and the themes the author writes about are topical and enduring.

VERDICT: Overall, this was a pretty enjoyable anthology of poems. As mentioned above, there were a few areas that could have done with a bit of tweaking and tightening up. The author is very young though, and so I do feel like with time and some more experience, she would be able to better shape and refine her voice as a poet.

It’s a⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ from this reviewer, and I also want to say a humongous thank you to Muskan Goyal for providing a copy and giving me the chance to read and review it. Please consider following her author Instagram page here: @harmus_0812.