Apr 28

Apr 28 The Naomi Letters

Author: Rachel Mennies
Publisher: BOA Editions
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.

Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

The Naomi Letters is a collection of epistles, mostly love letters, written from one woman to another over the span of a year (& some); it’s a book about insomnia and suicide, about love and distance, about women poets and the role of poetry in articulating and shaping desire.

TL;DR Review

The Naomi Letters is a fantastic collection with so, so many layers, and I loved reading it.

For you if: You like epistolary works and/or poetry collections with a narrative thread.

Full Review

Thank you to BOA Editions and Rachel Mennies for sending a copy of this collection my way — I loved it. I picked it up and after only a few pages found myself completely immersed; I read the whole thing over the course of just a few hours. And what a journey.

The Naomi Letters is a collection of poems-as-letters written by the narrator to the woman she loves, Naomi. They’re separated by distance, and over the course of a year’s time, we watch the narrator ride down deep into depression (TW: suicidal thoughts), and then come back up and out a bit. Throughout, Naomi is her muse, her despair, her hope, her mirror.

There are so many layers at play here, and so many themes carefully explored. Sexuality, of course. Discomfort in and with one’s body, from both conventional beauty standards and also not knowing or admitting your own desire. Judaism. Depression and anxiety. Hope and healing.

It does get quite heavy, but there’s light at the end of its tunnel, too. It feels emotional and real and human. And along the way, the words are artwork. What more do we want than that?