Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota: Poems

I received a free e-copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I got this because it was listed as sci-fi/fantasy as well as poetry. The description didn't let on a lot but it pretty much lead me to assume it was going to be a cool book of poems about some awesome fantasy creatures or at least cool fantasy takes on some normal creatures. No.

Instead I get jumpscared by horror that just reminds me of the edgy nuclear apocalypse writing that was hot on the internet a few years ago except that writing was actually well done and beautifully written. I feel like they intended the writing to be Lovecraftian but the problem is that if you add the concept of pollution to Lovecraftian writing you end up with radiation instead of eldritch horrors.

The devices can get quite annoying, the author has a habit of shifting half a sentence down to the next line and in one or two poems it might be interesting but in almost every single one it gets tiring.

I sort of liked Elodea and the first half of Spiny Waterflea because it had a whimsical sort of feeling but then the second half just made it depressing again. That's what all these poems are, depressing, and I'd be fine with that if the poetry had interesting or properly used devices, or if I'd actually known what the poetry was going to be about but instead the book was very poorly summarised.

The pictures are nice though.