Home

by Whitney Hanson, Emma McNamara (Illustrator), Ruth Bladen (Illustrator)

Home is a poetical map in finding peace, identity, and direction through heartbreak. It imparts the process of healing through the interactions between a woman and her bees, with four sections titled Losing, Lost, Flying and Home. Each section speaks to the heart in different stages of healing. No matter where you are in your journey, Home will revitalize your soul and help you make peace with your bees.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Romance, Mental Health, Love, Queer, Self Help

327 pages, Paperback

Published October 26, 2021

Reviews

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm dubbing this genre of poetry "Dear Diary poetry." Its founding mother is Rupi Kaur and it was established in 2014. Some might call it Instagram poetry, others call it modern poetry. Dear Diary poetry is characterized by short poems--some are even only a sentence long--that rely heavily on visual words and don't take much effort, if any effort at all, on the reader's part to discern their meaning. As the name suggests, Dear Diary poetry feels like reading someone's raw journal entries and collection of shower thoughts. It touches on the topic of love, and the lack thereof. It usually follows a formula of one section being dedicated to the person who screwed the author over, scraped straight from the gourd of the author's heart; then tentative rebirth that comes from jarring separation, and the scent of spring on the air; then nirvana, in which the author realizes that the most important type of love is that which is reserved for the self. Fans of refined literature such as the works of Shakespeare will bemoan Dear Diary poetry's supposed lack of intellectual stimulation, heavy reliance on cliches, and its disregard for conventional grammatical structures and capitalization rules. Yet, it manages to find home in people's hearts and shelves because of its unwavering compassion and authenticity.

I gave this poetry collection three stars just because I felt like it got a bit repetitive at times. I don't dislike Instagram poetry as much as others might, but I do wish that there was a bit more mystery involved in the writing, more effort put in to incorporate different visuals. If you're going to talk about the same topics over and over, at least try to dress them up in different metaphors each time, attack them from different angles, ya know? That being said, I think that these poems are relatable and I know I needed the words of authors like Hanson and Kaur back when I felt utterly alone in my aching. They're like a warm hug from a friend, and you know what, sometimes people don't want to feel like they're in school while reading poetry. Sometimes it's nice to have someone say that they love you, and truly understand you and what you're going through.

I'm not sure whether or not I'll read Harmony and Climate, but I will say that this was a nice quick and easy read to make me feel less overwhelmed by my reading challenge, and there were some poems I genuinely loved. Even if they demanded a lot from me, for example:

"you owe it to the world to do those things you've dreamed of
maybe you are meant to be someone's role model or favorite musician
or perhaps you will write the book that changes someone's life
but they will never hear you
if you do not speak up
if you do not become
who you are meant to be"

I'M TRYING, M'KAY?! don't pressure me 🥲

"today i found a hole in the ground
and i thought to myself
someone must have lived there

today i found a hole in a tree
and i thought to myself
someone must have lived there

today i found a hole in an apple
and i thought to myself
someone must have lived there

today i found a hole in my heart
and i thought to myself
someone must have lived there

holes don't make us empty
they make us a home."


What a beautiful perspective to have.


"i author my own chaos then ask why the tempest won’t subside"

Also another beautiful line. I wish there had been more lines like this one in the book.

[Milena Gallo · Rating 5 out of 5]

“interpreting emotions is hard sometimes, it’s okay if you need someone else’s words to understand how you feel”

this book truly put into words a lot of the emotions i have been feeling for quite some time, and some i haven’t felt quite yet. i’m looking forward to revisiting this book in future stages of my life and feeling new things as i read whitney’s beautiful work. this book truly felt like a deep conversation with a friend. thank you whitney for such a beautiful masterpiece!

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars for Home (audiobook) by Whitney Hanson read by the author.

It was a great treat getting to listen to my favorite YouTube poet read her work in more of a long form. I love hearing her journey through life as she experiences heartbreak and sadness as she is in search of the right partner to share her life with.

[Izabela Górska · Rating 3 out of 5]

„Interpreting emotions is hard sometimes. It’s okay if you need someone else’s words to help you understand how you feel. - poetry is the language of emotions”

Dokładnie to zawsze daje mi poezja i jak zwykle te najsmutniejsze fragmenty podobały mi się najbardziej :)

[Justine Buhl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I needed this.

[Behin · Rating 3 out of 5]

خب، نمیدونم باید چجوری شروع کنم چون دوساله ریویو ننوشتم و در واقع کتاب نخوندم
بعد دوسال ریدینگ اسلامپ که یه سالش بخاطر کنکور میشه گفت اجباری بود، بالاخره تونستم برگردم
این کتابو مدتها بود که دلم میخواست بخونم
و واقعا خیلی از بخش هاشو خیلییییی دوس داشتم و خیلی قشنگ بود
به نظرم نسبت به کتاب شعرای دیگه ای که خوندم، بیشتر فرم شعر داشت
ولی خب از یه جایی به بعد خیلی غیرقابل تحمل شده بود
خیلی زیاد
یعنی واقعا چرت محض بود آخراش
اگه کتاب نصف قطر الانش رو داشت قطعا بهش ۵ ستاره میدادم
ولی الان نمیتونم این کارو کنم چون واقعا آخراش خیلی احمقانه بود
میخوام یه مثال بزنم:
You are not who I thought you were
این الان شعره؟ هنریه؟چیه؟ یه صفحه از کتاب فقط با این اشغال شده بود:))))))
ولی خب شاعر میفرماید: عیب می جمله چو گفتی هنرش نیز بگوی
الان میخوام شعراییو که دوست داشتم رو بنویسم اینجا:
●dear empathy,
please stop telling me
that it's okay when they hurt me
stop allowing me to accept
the knife you see in their side
is a reasonable excuse
for them to put two in mine
please stop introducing me to their demons
I don't want to shake hands
with the reasons
they can 't seem to stay
please stop waving a white flag
and making nfé pity their anger
and make peace with their madness

●I pierced my ear and it got infected
for weeks, my ear was red and swollen
I knew that if i just took the earring out
i could heal much faster
burithought the earring
made me feel beautiful
so i let it stay
~toxic relationships

●sometimes i feel like i' m on the outside
waching my life undold
like it is a performance
and i'm just the audience
I'd like to consult with
whoever wrote this disaster

[Bahar · Rating 2 out of 5]

i fell in love with you in the fall
and perhaps that was my mistake
i failed to realize that fall leads to winter
and winter is lonely and cold
next time
can we fall in love
in the spring?

****

my biggest fear is that we were meant to be. what if
we were wrong, and we missed out on all the ways we
were supposed to love each other. what if timing and
space was just an excuse that we used to separate
two hearts that beat simultaneously. maybe we are
going to live the rest of our lives watching the wrong
story unfold.

[Olivia Garrett · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was bad and so surface level that it didn’t feel like poetry. It felt like a teenager reading Pinterest quotes in the cadence of what they think poetry should sounds like.

That’s harsh and kinda mean but 100% how I feel about it.

[⋆˚°✩*˖ Gohnar23 (•˕ •マ.ᐟ ˚⟡˖ ࣪(inactive) · Rating 4 out of 5]

#️⃣2️⃣1️⃣1️⃣ Read & Reviewed in 2025 🐠 🍭
Date 🌬️: Wednesday, May 7, 2025 ☄️
Word Count📃: 7k Words, its a poetry book, therefore it's short

╔⏤⏤⏤╝❀🌸💮🌸❀╚⏤⏤⏤╗
૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ♡ My 19th read in summertime read-a-thon "since idk wtf to do with my life for one thousand — two hundred — twenty four hours straight" (⁠^⁠-⁠^⁠ ⁠)

4️⃣🌟, still some ass tumblr poetry (but some of it are actually good)
——————————————————————
➕➖0️⃣1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣5️⃣6️⃣7️⃣8️⃣9️⃣🔟✖️➗

people with the most intricate minds
have the most turmoil inside
you cannot be filled with the galaxies
and not expect explosions
 
you loved me for my mind
you left me for my mind

I love it when the poems found in this book is not just seven words long and actually has sort of a rhyme scheme and of the same letter that the line would end. It's only a matter of what is actually inside the bones and what the poems are trying to tell you, i mean its kinda mid tho, most of it is mid, but not mas mid as those other tumblr poetry books, this one actually has a little bit more effort put into it than most others. 'Home' is all about navigating heartbreak and i find it interesting that finally, all of the poems here are related to each other all put into four chpters totled 'losing' 'lost' 'flying' and 'home' these chapters tell a story from heartbreak to healing and that cohesiveness to all the poems creating a simple tale makes this all r bit BETTER thna probs most poetry ive read.

lately all of my poems are coming out unfinished

there are times we must accept

that we exist in a world that isn’t conclusive

sometimes romeo and juliet

don’t fall in love

sometimes they just stop speaking

and always wonder what could have been

sometimes they meet at the wrong time

and juliet is still stuck on her ex

and sometimes they never meet at all

[Sahar Jennah · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I’d like to say the timing isn’t right but I don’t believe that’s true. I believe the timing was right and we are meant to be exactly as we are it is not the timing that was wrong. But the idea of what we are supposed to be. Maybe we were only meant to help each other back to our feet” Whitney is able to write so many things I’ve been feeling recently💖🥺

[TL *Humaning the Best She Can* · Rating 5 out of 5]

DNF only because while I did enjoy what I read even though I didn't relate to some of it, it's put aside time for the below reason:

This is a lovely book 📖 and would still recommend it, just hit a wall with it and decided it wasn't for me anymore.


The excerpt on the back was a favorite 😍 and got me to buy it.

Don't regret trying it and looking forward to reading Harmony from her eventually:).

[asapidox · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐ 4.5/5

Whitney Hanson’s Home is an emotional journey from heartbreak to healing, told through four chapters—Losing, Lost, Flying, and Home. Each section captures a stage of recovery: the pain of love lost, the confusion that follows, the empowerment of growth, and finally, the peace of self-acceptance.

Flying is the standout, where pain transforms into strength and clarity. The earlier chapters can feel heavy, but that makes the healing feel all the more real.

Beautifully written and deeply moving, Home isn’t just read—it’s felt. Perfect for anyone learning to find home within themselves. 💛

[Jeremy Landon Goertzen · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I did enjoy & relate to some of the poems in this collection, I found that (like a lot of Instagram poetry nowadays) it is surface level, vague, & doesn't dive deep into wordplay, rhyme, metaphors, similes, or different forms of poetry. The theme is home & there is a weird thing about bees thrown in a couple of the poems but the book would essentially remain the same without whatever the bee thing is.

One of the worst poems in this book, which shows a lack of effort to actually use any poetic device within the entire book, is this:

"my car wouldn't start today
and it felt a little metaphorical
i'm really not going anywhere
~stuck"
Page 140

Reading this legitimately made me angry. Instead of actually making a metaphor, she just points out that there might be a metaphor in there somewhere. She could've used the metaphor of her being a car & actually flushed out what that looks like. If you take away the mention of the metaphor in this "poem" it loses nothing, so was it even worth writing it in the first place?

This book is very much about heartbreak & healing which did make me cry when I read some of the poems. While I related to some of her words, I still found that they lack depth.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this reissued collection of poems from the queer, viral TikTok poet Whitney Hanson. I'd never heard of her before but this is the perfect volume for anyone recently dumped or trying to get over a bad break-up. Relatable, accessible and with accompanying drawings too. I listened to this on audio narrated by the author herself but want to read a physical copy to experience the poems with the artwork. Perfect for fans of Rupi Kaur. Many thanks to @prhaudio for an ALC in exchange for my honest review!

[Skala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just like A warm hug.

[alisar ♡ · Rating 1 out of 5]

poorly written, as if there was no effort put into writing this

[Clara Hazelwick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I usually don’t read poetry but I discovered this author through instagram and her poems sounded really good — I feel like some poems were flat and just nothing special, some others really moved me.

[Jessi ❤️ H. Vojsk [if villain, why hot?] · Rating 5 out of 5]

you must learn
that love is not conditional
and that nothing you see in the mirror
can alter the portion of love you deserve.
you must learn
that love is not the wage you earn
for what you do or how much you do it.
love is forgiving, consistent, and kind.

[Isabella Ruiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

home is one of the most beautiful poetry books ive ever read. it brings out so much emotion and it captures raw humanity. if u have ever felt any time of heartache then this book will have u holding back tears. its so so beautiful and i couldnt put it down

[Jéssica Pedro · Rating 5 out of 5]

"today i found a hole in the ground
and i thought to myself
someone must have lived there
today i found a hole in a tree
and i thought to myself
someone must have lived there
today i found a hole in an apple
and i thought to myself
someone must have lived there
today i found a hole in my heart
and i thought to myself
someone must have lived there
holes don’t make us empty
they make us a home"

I've highlighted more than 50% of this book, so choosing one poem was REALLY hard.

I'm falling in love with poetry more and more as the time passes and, as I follow Whitney on TikTok for some time now, I absolutely adore her poetry and her way of playing with words and expressing emotions. This book broke my heart in the most beautiful way - I did not cry externally, but for sure I cried internally. It put into words a lot of the feelings that I've been dealing with lately and some that I've not reached yet. And I've loved that - throughout the book, we go from a very dark and sad place to a more bright and hopeful one, and this new place didn't appear because the author found someone or something new, it appeared because the writer is finding herself again. And that is the most beautiful message that we can get, that a better future is inside us, not somewhere else.

Thank you Whitney for this beautiful book, my first 5 ★ of the year.

[Jessyca David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un voyage à travers soi, du breakup, le deuil, la reconstruction, nous-mêmes.

C’est le premier recueil de poésie que j’ai acheté à l’extérieur des livres obligatoires d’école et je m’y suis retrouvée dans différents stades de ma vie. J’ai aimé la simplicité des mots de Whitney et la justesse de ceux-ci malgré qu’elle n’avait que 20 ans lors de l’écriture de son recueil.

Je la suivais sur tiktok et plusieurs de ses vidéos m’avaient touchées. Je n’ai pas été déçue de découvrir sa plume.

Je recommande 😊

[Maddi · Rating 1 out of 5]

read this one a while ago and just looked into it again - i hate it. this is not poetry, this is a collection of instagram captions. most of the "poems" do not even rhyme lol (sure, there are some okay-ish ones, but unfortunately thats the minority).

✨️i figured
id write like she does
something similar
something useless
btw i like milk
milky way✨️

- galaxies -

^ this is how deep the book gets. well... it doesnt

[Natasha Nurse, Esq. · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this gem, all you will want to do is say "thank you" to Whitney Hanson🙏🏾

[c. · Rating 5 out of 5]

“you make the stars look like they are just decoration.“

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've loved a few of this author's other poems that I've read online or seen her read and I finally got a chance to pick up her collection. I loved a few of the poems and liked the overall organization/ message of the collection but I found that some of the poems didn't have as much depth to them as I was hoping for. I'm still interested in picking up her other work but hope to read more of her longer pieces, and that she continues to play more with extended metaphor and nature poetry in future works.

[Kas Otero · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is…healing. A story line that goes through all the stages of losing someone. While I read this book I felt understood when I was at my lowest. It became my best friend over the two days I read it. Yes, I had to re-read it for more understanding but that's because it was so powerful. Whitney Handson expressed her emotions and made me understand mine and start to express them. Poetry is a hard gendre for my brain to wrap itself around but this spoke to me it came easy. I highly recommend it if you need a stone to throw to make a path to healing. Thank you for writing a great book!

[lenchen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whitney Hanson nimmt einen mit auf eine Reise, voll mit Höhen und Tiefen, Liebeskummer und Selbstfindung. Ich liebe ihre Gedichte und ihren Schreibstil sehr und habe auch schon ein paar neue Lieblingsgedichte<3
Ich kann dieses Buch wirklich sehr empfehlen.
Es tut gut, es tut weh. Es ist leise, es ist laut. Es ist ein Prozess. Ein Prozess wie auch im wirklichen Leben und vielleicht ist das genau das besondere daran💛

[Ghofrane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that a lot of people need to hear this once in a while ♥ :

" Right now , reach over and take your own hand , you are solid . You are steady . You are holding on to the one person that will never leave you . Who will not walk away .

Fall in love with this feeling of being your own anchor . "

[Holly · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's hard for me to call this book poetry. It seems more like thoughts on a page. The parts titled "losing" and "lost" are very repetitive. If you're looking for a good poetry book, I would try one of her other books. If you're looking for something to encourage you through a breakup this might help once you get to the flying and home parts of the book.

[Arcturus-Willem · Rating 5 out of 5]

"interpreting emotions is hard sometimes
its okay if you need someone else's words
to help you understand how you feel"