Time and Distance: A Collection of Memories

by Gina Fuller

*REVISED AND UPDATED VERSION* The visitor and the princess. A lesbian fairytale of two lovers separated by time and distance. But will love prevail under these trying circumstances? There is only one way to find out.

Till Next Time

I only wish I had the strength to tell you.

But now,
that chance is gone.

If only I was a little bit stronger.

Maybe things,
would have rolled along.

I stand here now,
before the gates of time.

Where I graciously accept the fate
the Lord Cronos inflicts upon me.

With nothing less
than a smile
grazed across my face.

I am so glad to have met you in this life.

I hope that the next time we meet,
we can be something more.

Till next time.

Genres: Poetry

178 pages, Paperback

Published June 16, 2018

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5

Oof. Okay. Alright.

I received this through Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.

I'll start off by saying that I'm sad to be writing such a downer of a review. I think Gina Fuller sounds like a really cool person and I seriously do respect the hell out of her for putting this book out there in the world. I wanted to like this so much! I really did. The concept seemed right up my alley, it had a lot going for it...but I just need to be 100% honest that this book fell flat for me.

Basically, my dissatisfaction boils down to the fact that I thought the quality of the writing was weak. Some of the major contributing factors:

1. Savannah Brown mentioned in one of her videos on poetry how glaringly obvious it often is for her when people use thesauruses in their poems. I was thinking about that pretty early on when I started reading. This book just felt like it employed SO much forced thesaurus work. Most of the time the language was overly simplistic but then there were word choices peppered throughout that often felt VERY out of place and clunky. Some examples of this include:

"the words spoken by this boisterous young women was panacea to her ears falling deaf"
"her lackadaisical manner made her particularly irksome"
"how could [they]...have the audacity to ask such a foolish and trite question?"

2. There was also a lot of forced rhyming in these poems that I honestly felt like detracted from the overall effect. It seemed like most of the lines were just chosen because they rhymed, not because they were the most apt way of describing whatever was going on in each poem. Part of this is definitely personal preference... I can be pretty nitpicky about rhyming poems. But I do think that they can be pulled off! It's possible to make them work, I just think it's extremely difficult and it wasn't achieved in this book. The poem 'Wait for Me' is a pretty good example of what I mean:

"It pains me,
for an eternity,
to just let it be.

You are the magic bait,
for which I am willing to wait.

To lure is to endure,
a burning desire,
to calm this fire.

Within this beating heart.

A distant promise,
to hold your hand,
as tight as a band."

3. The overall structure of this book had a lot of potential. Half of the book tells a narrative fairytale so even though most poetry collections don't have any sort of plot, I kind of expected one here. And it would have been pretty easy to include one! But the journey that the two characters go on is so stagnant! Nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happens, and then the ending is all crammed into the last few pages. I didn't understand why there couldn't have been more of an arc, more development between the two characters. Instead their interactions were painfully dragged out and then put on fast-forward for the very last bit of the book. It was disappointing.

4. Cliches. There are a lot of love poems here and a LOT of love poem cliches. As it stood, I couldn't find any personal connection to it and I didn't think there was enough in the text to let me in as an outside reader. Many of the poems were just... a very standard and expected love poem. I couldn't pick anything out about them that set them apart from other things I've read. They lacked an authorial voice and distinguishable writing style.

[august · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book through Goodreads Giveaways.

My real rating would probably be a 3.5. This book started out really slow but it progressively got better. I loved the story and I loved that one of the characters is a lady pirate. The only thing I didn't like was the poems in between the actual story. They don't really work with the story in the beginning but towards the end they do.

[Wanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

One poem I liked was Tears, also the piece about the transformation that included butterflies.

[M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Lovely book and a good read.

[Mike He · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written poems and prose that tell a romantic story.

[Susan Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has words that draw beautiful pictures. If you like poetry you will love this book.