Title: To The Bravest Person I Know
Author: Ayesha Chenoy
Genre: Poetry
First Publication: 2021
Language: English
Book Summary: To The Bravest Person I Know by Ayesha Chenoy
From growing up with dysfunctional families to coming of age, from dealing with heartbreak, pain and grief to learning to accept and forgive, ‘To the Bravest Person I Know’ is modern therapy delivered to you through a series of poems and a letter in verse that runs as a footnote from the beginning to the end of the book.
The poems explore the whole construct of ‘normal’, or of that which was created to make people feel less normal, to make them feel ‘abnormal’. They tell us that depression is normal, as is fear; feeling insecure is normal, as is hurting people. And bravery is about facing all of this-it’s about facing everything life throws at you every day.
To the bravest person I know cuts through rainbows and self-righteous dross to provide a vaccine of truth, liberating and reminding us that we are all in a tunnel, and that it’s normal to feel like we may never get out. But there is light at the end of it.
Book Review: To The Bravest Person I Know by Ayesha Chenoy
I believe poetry is anything you want it to be. And ‘To The Bravest Person I Know’ by Ayesha Chenoy is full of beautifully captivating, lyrical poems told in a way that’s sure to make readers everywhere feel extremely empowered. Raw, breath-taking, emotional, brutally honest, and powerful are some words to describe this wonderful book.
Everyone has gone through tragedy and sadness that they had to overcome. A big part of life is accepting the things we can’t change and learning to move forward. This poetry book really captured the nature of healing, including the highs and lows that come with it. It also starts some interested discussions about abuse by realistically depicting the complicated relationship one has with an abuser – especially when it’s a parent. It’s not clear-cut love OR hate. These poems explore an entire lifetime – everything from grief to love and all the in-betweens.
“To The Bravest Person I Know” is a very personal and powerful poetry collection in which the author shares with the reader some pieces of her soul. In this book you’ll read a compilation of raw, heart-wrenching poems, and also lots of empowering words to encourage everyone to slay their own dragons. In the final section the poet talks about love, self-esteem, recovering, and social justice. And here lies the value of the book, because it teaches you that you can save yourself, that you deserve your happy ending. Through her words, Ayesha Chenoy created a new version of the fairy tale to walk us through hardships and abuse faced with family, friends and others. Between heart wrenching descriptions of pain, are encouragement for hope and change. These are short but well crafted stories to pin one’s hopes on.
There were some poems that were really hard to read, with so much pain in them, and the way it pierced through the lines was overwhelming at times. Other poems, instead, make you feel really strong, and hopeful. I feel like too many times people in society don’t have the braveness to talk about this kind of topics, and I’m so happy every time I see someone who has the courage to talk about it and try to change things in their own way.
This poetry book is raw and real and achingly beautiful; a love letter not only to poetry but to life. It is an ode to grief and strength, womanhood and childhood and everything in between. There are so many important topics woven into the poems such as independence, abuse, love, freedom etc. that is represented and delivered to the reader in an honest way that will strike you. This is the kind of book to pull out on a hard day when you need someone to inspire you. Not only does this book make you feel, it makes you think. This book will grip your attention and keep you wanting more of Ayesha Chenoy’s beautifully constructed words that are strung together flawlessly in different forms of poems. The illustrations are minimalist but compliment the words, leaving enough space for you to fill in the rest.
If you want to read something different, a bit non-traditional and downright gorgeous, then I wholeheartedly recommend this amazing poetry collection with an even more amazing title!
