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Loves of Our Lives: Poems for Hopeful Hearts
From TikTok star and author of I Hope You Remember—which John Stamos called a “gift to the world”—Josie Balka comes this evocative collection of over eighty poems about the different types of love.
From the coziness of lifelong friendship to the aching intensity of lost love, Loves of Our Lives is a poetic journey through the heartfelt relationships that make us human.
In her highly anticipated second collection, social media sensation Josie Balka masterfully puts words to the indescribable, weaving her signature blend of raw emotion and vivid imagery into poems that speak straight to the soul.
Featuring eighty poems, some already beloved by her followers and others exclusive to this collection, Loves of Our Lives explores six types of love—familial, toxic, romantic, friendship, self-love, and lost love—and invites reflection, offering solace and celebration in equal measure in this love letter to love itself.
From the coziness of lifelong friendship to the aching intensity of lost love, Loves of Our Lives is a poetic journey through the heartfelt relationships that make us human.
In her highly anticipated second collection, social media sensation Josie Balka masterfully puts words to the indescribable, weaving her signature blend of raw emotion and vivid imagery into poems that speak straight to the soul.
Featuring eighty poems, some already beloved by her followers and others exclusive to this collection, Loves of Our Lives explores six types of love—familial, toxic, romantic, friendship, self-love, and lost love—and invites reflection, offering solace and celebration in equal measure in this love letter to love itself.
192 pages, Hardcover
Published December 9, 2025
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December 13, 2025Can’t see through the tears it’s fine I’m fine everything’s fine
January 9, 2026
Thank you NetGalley and Simon Element for granting me access to this book in exchange for an honest review.
Some days, I crave all the feelings and wow did this exquisite collection of poetry deliver! From the very first page, Love of Our Lives wrapped around my heart and refused to let go. Josie Balka is a new to me author, but after this, I'm completely smitten. Her poetry is achingly real and beautifully honest that is so raw, relatable, powerful, and vivid in a way that feels both deeply personal and universally human. Every poem pulses with meaning, heart, and a touch of magic that lingers long after the final line.
It explores the six different kinds of love we experience throughout a lifetime. From familial love to toxic romance, from friendship and self-love to the quiet ache of lost love. It doesn't shy away from the messy, tender, or painful parts. Instead, it honors them. This collection feels like a true celebration of love in all its forms of flawed, fierce, fleeting, and forever.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book and already know I'll be purchasing a physical copy to treasure on my shelves. I will definitely be returning to it whenever my heart needs to feel seen.❤️❤️❤️❤️
Some days, I crave all the feelings and wow did this exquisite collection of poetry deliver! From the very first page, Love of Our Lives wrapped around my heart and refused to let go. Josie Balka is a new to me author, but after this, I'm completely smitten. Her poetry is achingly real and beautifully honest that is so raw, relatable, powerful, and vivid in a way that feels both deeply personal and universally human. Every poem pulses with meaning, heart, and a touch of magic that lingers long after the final line.
It explores the six different kinds of love we experience throughout a lifetime. From familial love to toxic romance, from friendship and self-love to the quiet ache of lost love. It doesn't shy away from the messy, tender, or painful parts. Instead, it honors them. This collection feels like a true celebration of love in all its forms of flawed, fierce, fleeting, and forever.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book and already know I'll be purchasing a physical copy to treasure on my shelves. I will definitely be returning to it whenever my heart needs to feel seen.❤️❤️❤️❤️
February 17, 2026
Thank you Simon Element for sending me a free copy!
LOVES OF OUR LIVES is a poetry collection centered around, you guessed it, love. It’s about all types of relationships not just romantic ones. It explores the love we have for parents, children, friends, ourselves, even our pets. On the flip side, some poems are focused on when the love has faded or gone away completely or that lack of grace we give ourselves because we are our harshest critic.
Full disclosure I don’t read poetry all that often and I should because I really enjoyed this collection. It offered such a variety of things to ponder. Let’s quit wasting time caught up in our looks and fully embrace who we are right now. Why dwell on a relationship that obviously isn’t working? If a person doesn’t want to be with you, it’s okay, that means they aren’t your soulmate. Friendships sometimes end and you just need to appreciate the time you spent together. Revel in that sleepover laughter (such an awesome phrase) as it doesn’t come around as often when you are an adult.
I’m thankful I read this collection and have marked the poems that made the biggest impression so I can revisit them in the future. A thoughtful Valentine’s gift for a loved one as there’s something here for everyone.
LOVES OF OUR LIVES is a poetry collection centered around, you guessed it, love. It’s about all types of relationships not just romantic ones. It explores the love we have for parents, children, friends, ourselves, even our pets. On the flip side, some poems are focused on when the love has faded or gone away completely or that lack of grace we give ourselves because we are our harshest critic.
Full disclosure I don’t read poetry all that often and I should because I really enjoyed this collection. It offered such a variety of things to ponder. Let’s quit wasting time caught up in our looks and fully embrace who we are right now. Why dwell on a relationship that obviously isn’t working? If a person doesn’t want to be with you, it’s okay, that means they aren’t your soulmate. Friendships sometimes end and you just need to appreciate the time you spent together. Revel in that sleepover laughter (such an awesome phrase) as it doesn’t come around as often when you are an adult.
I’m thankful I read this collection and have marked the poems that made the biggest impression so I can revisit them in the future. A thoughtful Valentine’s gift for a loved one as there’s something here for everyone.
December 12, 2025
One day, randomly scrolling Tik Tok (like the Xennial I am) and ran across a video of Josie Balka, reading her poetry to the camera. I was so moved by what I heard that she gained an instant follower, and I’ve been enjoying her poetry online ever since.
I bought and read her first book of poetry, I Hope You Remember, earlier this year. It was, unsurprisingly, fantastic.
This one was equally moving and special to me. I don’t know how to meaningfully review a book of poetry, other than to say I genuinely think that even if you don’t typically like poetry, you would love Josie’s. She is heartfelt and relatable and so many of her poems have hit me directly in the soul. She’s got a tremendous gift with words.
Loved, loved, loved this.
I bought and read her first book of poetry, I Hope You Remember, earlier this year. It was, unsurprisingly, fantastic.
This one was equally moving and special to me. I don’t know how to meaningfully review a book of poetry, other than to say I genuinely think that even if you don’t typically like poetry, you would love Josie’s. She is heartfelt and relatable and so many of her poems have hit me directly in the soul. She’s got a tremendous gift with words.
Loved, loved, loved this.
December 12, 2025
This isn't a book you read cover to cover but a collection that you pick up from time to time and flip to a page and more often than not the words there will speak to you. Josie's done it again with this one. I'd say there's a couple less bangers (or maybe I just couldn't relate to some) than her first book but overall a very solid second collection of her beautiful, nostalgic words and thoughts.
March 23, 2026
Wasn’t expecting to cry in the airport at 8am but here we are. There couldn’t be a more important time in my life to read this and I’m very unwell
January 24, 2026
God I love this woman’s poetry! Not all of them hit me but all of them were beautiful. And honestly part of me felt pride in reading the poems about body image issues and feeling like that was something I’m not struggling with right now. It’s been years since I felt the urge to grab a highlighter when I read a book, but my copy is dog eared and highlighted like crazy. These poems felt like a conversation with a best friend. I know I will find myself sharing these and coming back to them for years to come.
October 23, 2025
Balka does it again!! She has such a beautiful way with words that I am captivated any time she speaks or writes.
As a person who feels deeply, Balka has a way of making me remember that it is a gift not a flaw to feel so deeply and passionately. She captures REALLy feelings and emotions of many different kinds of love. I highly recommend this book to all my fellow feelers (and maybe those who aren't so you can understand us a little better)! ;)
Thank you to Simon Element for the eARC! This goes on sale Dec. 9th! So get your preorders or library holds in now!
As a person who feels deeply, Balka has a way of making me remember that it is a gift not a flaw to feel so deeply and passionately. She captures REALLy feelings and emotions of many different kinds of love. I highly recommend this book to all my fellow feelers (and maybe those who aren't so you can understand us a little better)! ;)
Thank you to Simon Element for the eARC! This goes on sale Dec. 9th! So get your preorders or library holds in now!
November 1, 2025
3.5/5
This is the second book I’ve read by Josie Balka, whose poetry I first discovered through her social media. I still find that hearing her read her own words carries a depth that’s hard to replicate on the page—her voice brings an emotional rhythm that can sometimes feel a bit one-note in written form.
That said, I especially loved her reflections on family and the tenderness of a mother’s love. Those poems stood out as some of her most genuine and heartfelt work.
Thank you to the author and publisher for a chance to read in advance copy of this work.
This is the second book I’ve read by Josie Balka, whose poetry I first discovered through her social media. I still find that hearing her read her own words carries a depth that’s hard to replicate on the page—her voice brings an emotional rhythm that can sometimes feel a bit one-note in written form.
That said, I especially loved her reflections on family and the tenderness of a mother’s love. Those poems stood out as some of her most genuine and heartfelt work.
Thank you to the author and publisher for a chance to read in advance copy of this work.
December 10, 2025
Loves of Our Lives: Poems for Hopeful Hearts by Josie Balka.
Published by Simon Element — thank you to the publisher for my gifted copy.
I opened this collection thinking I’d read a few poems before bed, and suddenly an hour vanished, my tea was lukewarm, and I’d apparently agreed to confront my emotional baggage without consent. That’s the thing about Josie Balka’s writing: it sneaks up on you. One minute you’re nodding along, thinking, “Cute, relatable,” and the next you’re blinking hard at the ceiling like a person in a commercial who’s just discovered bravery through moisturizer.
Balka divides the book into six kinds of love, which sounds orderly enough until you realize she fully intends to poke at every version of you that still flinches when someone says “We need to talk.” Romantic love gets its moment, with poems that feel like both the spark and the aftermath. Lost love shows up quietly, the way it always does, with that hushed tone of things we pretend no longer hurt. The toxic love section? Let’s just say I felt personally targeted more than once, and I don’t appreciate being perceived with such accuracy by someone I’ve never met. Friendship love was my warm blanket section — soft, nostalgic, and surprisingly grounding. The family and self-love pieces pulled me in slower, the way truths do when they’re meant to settle rather than shock.
Balka’s real talent is in how she writes emotion without dramatizing it. She avoids the trap of trying to make everything profound. Instead, she gives us the sort of small, exact images that stick: the quiet apology baked into a long-distance phone call, the fear of becoming the version of yourself you once pitied, the way self-love feels less like a roar and more like remembering to breathe. She writes with this blend of tenderness and dry humor that makes the whole collection feel like a conversation with a friend who knows you’re struggling but refuses to let you wallow unsupervised.
A line that stayed with me long after I closed the book: “Sometimes love is just the courage to stay soft in a world that keeps trying to make you harder.” I’m not saying I gasped, but I definitely paused long enough for my dog to look concerned.
There’s a cozy rhythm to her poems, even when the subject matter hits a little too sharply. Some pieces are feather-light and read like a sigh; others drag up memories you swore you’d buried under productivity and sarcasm. But that balance — the gentle with the painful — is what makes this collection work. It doesn’t promise healing. It just sits beside you and says, in its own quiet way, “You’re not the only one who felt that.”
Reading this book felt like a long overdue check-in with myself. It made me laugh, wince, and consider texting three different people for reasons I’ve since talked myself out of. It’s honest and warm and occasionally bold enough to feel like a dare. And while not every poem hit with the same force, the ones that did settled somewhere deep and refused to leave.
If you’re new to poetry, this is the kind of collection that won’t scare you off. And if you’ve lived enough life to have loved poorly, loved well, been loved halfway, or struggled to love yourself at all, you’ll find something here that feels written just for you. Balka doesn’t claim to have the answers. She just acknowledges the mess and offers a small flashlight.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5 stars
#LovesOfOurLives #PoemsForHopefulHearts #JosieBalka #PoetryReview #BookReview #SimonElement #NewPoetryRelease2025 #LovePoetry #SelfLovePoetry #RomanticPoetry #FriendshipPoetry #ARCReview #GiftedBook #Bookstagram #ReadersOfInstagram
Published by Simon Element — thank you to the publisher for my gifted copy.
I opened this collection thinking I’d read a few poems before bed, and suddenly an hour vanished, my tea was lukewarm, and I’d apparently agreed to confront my emotional baggage without consent. That’s the thing about Josie Balka’s writing: it sneaks up on you. One minute you’re nodding along, thinking, “Cute, relatable,” and the next you’re blinking hard at the ceiling like a person in a commercial who’s just discovered bravery through moisturizer.
Balka divides the book into six kinds of love, which sounds orderly enough until you realize she fully intends to poke at every version of you that still flinches when someone says “We need to talk.” Romantic love gets its moment, with poems that feel like both the spark and the aftermath. Lost love shows up quietly, the way it always does, with that hushed tone of things we pretend no longer hurt. The toxic love section? Let’s just say I felt personally targeted more than once, and I don’t appreciate being perceived with such accuracy by someone I’ve never met. Friendship love was my warm blanket section — soft, nostalgic, and surprisingly grounding. The family and self-love pieces pulled me in slower, the way truths do when they’re meant to settle rather than shock.
Balka’s real talent is in how she writes emotion without dramatizing it. She avoids the trap of trying to make everything profound. Instead, she gives us the sort of small, exact images that stick: the quiet apology baked into a long-distance phone call, the fear of becoming the version of yourself you once pitied, the way self-love feels less like a roar and more like remembering to breathe. She writes with this blend of tenderness and dry humor that makes the whole collection feel like a conversation with a friend who knows you’re struggling but refuses to let you wallow unsupervised.
A line that stayed with me long after I closed the book: “Sometimes love is just the courage to stay soft in a world that keeps trying to make you harder.” I’m not saying I gasped, but I definitely paused long enough for my dog to look concerned.
There’s a cozy rhythm to her poems, even when the subject matter hits a little too sharply. Some pieces are feather-light and read like a sigh; others drag up memories you swore you’d buried under productivity and sarcasm. But that balance — the gentle with the painful — is what makes this collection work. It doesn’t promise healing. It just sits beside you and says, in its own quiet way, “You’re not the only one who felt that.”
Reading this book felt like a long overdue check-in with myself. It made me laugh, wince, and consider texting three different people for reasons I’ve since talked myself out of. It’s honest and warm and occasionally bold enough to feel like a dare. And while not every poem hit with the same force, the ones that did settled somewhere deep and refused to leave.
If you’re new to poetry, this is the kind of collection that won’t scare you off. And if you’ve lived enough life to have loved poorly, loved well, been loved halfway, or struggled to love yourself at all, you’ll find something here that feels written just for you. Balka doesn’t claim to have the answers. She just acknowledges the mess and offers a small flashlight.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5 stars
#LovesOfOurLives #PoemsForHopefulHearts #JosieBalka #PoetryReview #BookReview #SimonElement #NewPoetryRelease2025 #LovePoetry #SelfLovePoetry #RomanticPoetry #FriendshipPoetry #ARCReview #GiftedBook #Bookstagram #ReadersOfInstagram
December 17, 2025
Loves of Our Lives is a beautiful reminder that love exists in so many forms and that romantic love is only one piece of a much larger, richer picture. I absolutely loved Josie’s poetry.
I connected most strongly with the sections on family love, friendship love, and toxic love. What stood out to me most was the book’s quiet insistence that we should place just as much, if not more, value on family and friendship as we do on romantic relationships. That message felt grounding and refreshing.
The friendship love section had me smiling from start to finish, while the family love section had me openly crying. I’ve been incredibly blessed with a family and friends who feel like family, and Josie captured that kind of love, the steady, enduring, life-shaping kind, perfectly.
One poem that truly stayed with me was:
To the friend who came a little later in life
Thank God you did
Because even though we didn’t get to be kids together
We got to grow up together
In exactly the way we needed to at the time…
This poem felt like a love letter to chosen family, the friends who arrive after you’ve already been shaped, shattered, and rebuilt, and who love you anyway. The idea of choosing each other for who we became without each other was especially powerful. It made every past heartbreak and struggle feel meaningful.
I also really appreciated the body positivity at the end of the novel. It felt affirming rather than performative, and it tied beautifully into the book’s larger message of self-acceptance and wholeness.
I connected most strongly with the sections on family love, friendship love, and toxic love. What stood out to me most was the book’s quiet insistence that we should place just as much, if not more, value on family and friendship as we do on romantic relationships. That message felt grounding and refreshing.
The friendship love section had me smiling from start to finish, while the family love section had me openly crying. I’ve been incredibly blessed with a family and friends who feel like family, and Josie captured that kind of love, the steady, enduring, life-shaping kind, perfectly.
One poem that truly stayed with me was:
To the friend who came a little later in life
Thank God you did
Because even though we didn’t get to be kids together
We got to grow up together
In exactly the way we needed to at the time…
This poem felt like a love letter to chosen family, the friends who arrive after you’ve already been shaped, shattered, and rebuilt, and who love you anyway. The idea of choosing each other for who we became without each other was especially powerful. It made every past heartbreak and struggle feel meaningful.
I also really appreciated the body positivity at the end of the novel. It felt affirming rather than performative, and it tied beautifully into the book’s larger message of self-acceptance and wholeness.
January 15, 2026
I cried so many times reading this book it's not even funny, 5 millions stars for miss Josie 🌟
March 11, 2026
... There are notes in every margin / About everything you've missed / And with every passing day / More gets added to the list / I'd probably invite you / To do things simple and mundane / Like walk to get a coffee / Or listen to the rain ..
A solid pep talk of poems. I like the different sections leaning toward a different kind of love: Romantic Love, Lost Love, Family Love, Toxic Love, Friendship Love, Self-Love.
These were mostly free flowing poems, but there were a few rhyming ones sprinkled in.
A lot of them had a bit of rambling and jumbling of words- repeated words or phrases in one poem.
The Self-Love section had multiple poems on the author's feelings of disliking her body. No hate to the author, but there were several about the struggle of being in their body and it didn't end with some about body acceptance. I think it actually went backwards on that.
Remember, everyone:
“Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.”- Jorge Luis Borges
That is to say that if you haven't been reading poetry out loud- to yourself or others- you should start. You feel it better and it resonates stronger.
December 10, 2025
Josie Balka is the undisputed millennial queen of making us feel all the emotions, and her second poetry collection, focused on the different types of love we experience in our lifetimes (lost love, romantic love, familial love, toxic love, friendship love, and self-love) will make you cry, guaranteed. I do think many of these are probably better as spoken word poetry, and I tried to hear Josie reading them in her own words even though I was eyeball reading.
And sometimes being ruined by someone is the best thing that could have happened / Because it’s always a beginning disguised as an ending
Pub Date: 12/9/25
Review Published: 12/9/25
eARC provided at no cost by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
And sometimes being ruined by someone is the best thing that could have happened / Because it’s always a beginning disguised as an ending
Pub Date: 12/9/25
Review Published: 12/9/25
eARC provided at no cost by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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January 14, 2026My Ranking: loved it!
Josie Balka’s poetry never fails to move me or make me emotional, and this collection of hers is no exception. She has a way of capturing emotions and feelings that I’ve never had the words or the time to express, so reading about them feels really cathartic. A handful of the poems in this collection are some of my all-time favorites now and are definitely pieces of art that I can see myself rereading and coming back to. If you need a reminder of how beautiful it is to be alive and how blessed we are to have the privilege of loving and being loved, I’d definitely recommend this collection, as well as her previous publication, “I Hope You Remember.” I think both will stick with me for a long time!
Josie Balka’s poetry never fails to move me or make me emotional, and this collection of hers is no exception. She has a way of capturing emotions and feelings that I’ve never had the words or the time to express, so reading about them feels really cathartic. A handful of the poems in this collection are some of my all-time favorites now and are definitely pieces of art that I can see myself rereading and coming back to. If you need a reminder of how beautiful it is to be alive and how blessed we are to have the privilege of loving and being loved, I’d definitely recommend this collection, as well as her previous publication, “I Hope You Remember.” I think both will stick with me for a long time!
December 15, 2025
I loved Josie’s earlier poetry release this year, so I knew I needed this one too. Her poems capture that feeling of thinking you’re alone—then gently reminding you that you’re not. I resonated with so many pieces, and I really loved how the book is divided into six sections centered around different kinds of love. You can read it cover to cover or jump straight to the section that fits your mood, which feels both refreshing and intentional. And honestly, we’re so lucky to sometimes hear her read these poems herself on her page—it makes them feel even more personal.
January 1, 2026
Oh Josie, you are a mastermind at your craft. Just like with her first book of poems, I could hear the author's voice narrating as I was reading each page. So many poems went straight to my heartstrings and I especially related the most with the ones from Romantic Love and Family Love.
There's just something about the unique way Josie articulates her own experience into these passages and prose. It's gut wrenching but also endearingly sweet. Just works up your emotions in the best ways. Will never stop recommending her work!
There's just something about the unique way Josie articulates her own experience into these passages and prose. It's gut wrenching but also endearingly sweet. Just works up your emotions in the best ways. Will never stop recommending her work!
December 12, 2025
4.5 ⭐️🎧 Love, love, love! Despite being a huge fan of Josie’s poetry on social media, I didn’t plan to buy this book after being disappointed by 𝘐 𝘏𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘙𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳… until I heard that this one had background music. This is exactly what was missing from the last book! 𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘓𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 was relatable, insightful, evocative, vulnerable, and just the perfect collection of poems for being in your feels walking on a cold, dark, snowy street admiring Christmas lights and the glow of the holiday season. I wished there were less poems repurposed from social media, but still a great collection and an amazing audiobook experience. Can’t wait for (hopefully) the next one!
December 29, 2025
3.5 rounded up to 4. Poetry is hard for me but this is still a beautiful book. Solid way to end my year of reading.
“Hey, you’re good
Because life is so good
You’ve made it through times you never thought you would
Look at the craziness that you’ve withstood
Just stay on the ride; everything’s good”
“Hey, you’re good
Because life is so good
You’ve made it through times you never thought you would
Look at the craziness that you’ve withstood
Just stay on the ride; everything’s good”
December 20, 2025
I found Josie on Instagram, as many of us have, and fell in love with her poems she shared. She has big feelings and an even bigger heart. She reminds me of me, and I wish I could meet her. I loved this book of her poems and cried through 75% of it 🥹 Love love love!🫶🏻
March 11, 2026
Josie Balka just has the most beautiful way with words. I thoroughly enjoyed the theme of this book and loved the separation of sections on different types of love. So beautifully written and a collection of poems I can read many more times.
January 2, 2026
Everything I needed to read/see/hear … Josie Balka’s eloquent prose was simply perfect.
January 7, 2026
Love love
January 16, 2026
No words! I sobbed through the entire book. All the stars!!!
January 19, 2026
Wow. Josie Balka is such a great poet. Many of these poems made me ugly cry. If you like poems that will stab you in the heart then you will like this collection of poems. I need to read her earlier published poetry book asap.
January 24, 2026
and she does it again
February 13, 2026
Rounded up from 4.5 stars.
February 16, 2026
Brb crying
February 17, 2026
Another amazing compilation of poems. I highly suggest listening to the author, Josie read the poems on Spotify as you read this book.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 139 reviews