The #HorrorForLibraries Giveaway Celebrates Its First Year and National Poetry Month.

It's #HorrorForLibraries Giveaway day over on the horror blog. But today is a special one too. It has been almost an entire year since I began this giveaway, which in and of itself a feat, but also, I began this endeavor with a horror poetry collection since it was April and National Poetry Month. That book was A Collection of Dreamscapes by Christina Sng. Click here for my review.

Flash forward a year and A Collection of Dreamscapes is a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for best poetry collection. This clearly did not surprise me based on my review.

And today, to celebrate a year of these giveaways, National Poetry Month, and the upcoming Bram Stoker Awards ceremony [which is free to all on 5/22 here and I am getting some hardware during the ceremony so you are going to want to watch], I am giving away another book by one of the nominees. This time a poetry collection by Cynthia Pelayo. Details below but first...

Here is a refresher on the basic rules to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American public library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
2. If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
3. Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that  week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
4. If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.

Click here to see giveaway #37. Our winner was Kate from Woodford County [KY] Library.

Now to this week's giveaway with a review. 

Into The Forest And All The Way Through by Cynthia Pelayo is a striking, thought provoking, and social justice focused poetry collection; in fact those are my official "three words," but it is also devastating, haunting, and necessary. It exists in a terrifying space where nonfiction and lyricism collide. 

The concept of these linked poems is very simple. As stated here on Goodreads:

"Into the Forest and all the Way Through is a collection of true crime poetry that explores the cases of over one hundred missing and murdered women in the United States."

It is that deceptively simple to describe and yet, the emotions Pelayo conveys are impossible to put into words. You feel every bit of pain, sadness, injustice, horror, anger, etc..... She is able to evoke it all in language that flows perfectly. 

Here's the main point though. I don't think this book would ever work as series of essays. IT has to be in poems. These missing women have been written about before and yet, they have still be forgotten and their murders unsolved. Pelayo's poetry makes it clear that she has done the research into the women, their lives, and their deaths, but rather than rattle it all off, she creates poems that get at the emotion of it all.

She asks you to spend time with her words, words she chooses carefully and links together into captivating poems. There is no way this way easy for her to write.

These poems will effect you. You cannot look away. They are participatory and terrifying. They also also 100% real and true. This is not a book for the timid, but it is also a book of truth.

I have been very general here on purpose. This is a book you need to enter when you are ready as a reader. Just its existence is important. And, personally, I read it over a month. I could not sit and consume it in one sitting, but that is a good thing. I spent a little bit of time with it, over time. That made me ponder it more though too.

Redalikes: Novels in verse that deal with social justice issues like Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds and The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo are great comp titles. The first is about cycles of violence and the second about a young girl's coming of age in Harlem and the sexual harassment she must constantly deal with.  

But also any true crime that is about female victims, especially unsolved one [and unfortunately too many are about this] like Lost Girls by Robert Kolker. 

However, these true crime books, while popular and well written [the example was a NYT Notable Book], are not going to distill the essence of the pain and feelings as well as Pelayo's poetry collection.

Enter today to win a finished copy of Into The Forest And All The Way Through by Cynthia Pelayo. And then log in to see who wins the Bram Stoker Awards on 5/22.