Summary of Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

The book Milk and Honey written by Rupi Kaur was a collection of poems that were split up into 4 sections and each section was poems about a different topic. The sections were called The Hurting, The loving, The Breaking, and The Healing.
The first section, The Hurting, had a lot of poems about a daughters relationship with her father. The poem, "A daughter should not have to beg her father for a relationship," was one of the poems I was affected by most because I have always had a special kind of bond with my father and I have always taken that for granted but after reading that poem I realized some people don't have that and I can't imagine what I would do without my dad. The first section also had a lot of poems about rape and I am sure that a person who is a survivor of rape would find it to be very comforting but at the same time probably bring up some feelings and memories that they have tried to forget about.
The second section, The Loving, had poems that talked about how a guy can make a girl feel. I was able to connect with this chapter a lot because a lot of the feelings she brought up I could remember a time were I had felt the same way. There was a poem in the section that said, "I am learning how to love him by loving myself." I found that poem very interesting because that was the first time in the book she had talked about a women loving themselves, before that she had only talked about how people love women or the difference between someone saying I love you and actually being loved.
The third section, The Breaking, felt a lot like a chapter to support people after a break up. This section had poems about guys leaving and a lot of ideas about how a guy will not be over a girl but the girl will have already moved on. My favorite poem from this sections was, "Don't mistake salt for sugar if he wants to be with you he will it's that simple." I liked that poem because it talks about how if a boy loves you then he loves you for you and he will stay.
The fourth section, The Healing, talked about self love and how everything will be okay. One of my favorite poems from this section was, "you must want to spend the rest of your life with yourself first." I really liked that poem because to me it meant you have to love yourself and be happy with yourself before you can love somebody else and be happy with somebody else.
This book also had a very nice aesthetic. There were a few simple drawings that seemed to look like a sketch on the page. Everything was in black and white and all the poems for the most part were very short. There was no capitalization used in the entire book which I thought was interesting. I really liked how the book looked because it was all very basic and simple.
I would definitely recommend this book to everyone. I have personally not had to face a lot of the struggles this author has faced but I still really enjoyed it. I have not found myself enjoying a book as much as I enjoyed this book in a long time. This book is great for anyone who has gone through a break up, been affected by rape, had boy issues, girl issues, broken heart, family struggles, or just any struggle someone can have is addressed in this book in one way or another. One of the best parts is that the book is made of poetry so the reader has the freedom to read the poem and make it apply to their life in someway and make them not feel so alone.

Of all the texts that we've read this year, which one is your favorite, and why? Which one is your least favorite, and why?

Out of all the books we have read this school year my favorite has been The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas. It was the first formal book this year but as I reflect back on what we have read I was able to enjoy that book the most. I have always had a hard time reading about slavery and I just always feel so horrified knowing what used to and in someways still exist in our society. I found The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas to be very informational and also inspirational in a way because he was able to never give up even when put in very very difficult situations. My least favorite book this school year was The Merchant of Venice. I found the book very hard to read mostly because of the language that Shakespeare's plays are written in. I also didn't find the story very compelling. I did like how we learned about how much Shakespeare's writing has influenced today's writing and learning basic structures of a play. I would probably enjoy The Merchant of Venice more now because after taking Theatre I learned a lot about how to read Shakespeare.

What interested you about this novel and what do you have to say about it?

One thing I wondered as I read The Great Gatsby is how did Gatsby overlook the entitled attitude that Daisy had. It was very interesting to me to see how Gatsby had this amazing image of Daisy in his mind but her personality did not match up with all the amazing things he made her out to be. I wondered if maybe he had just remembered such amazing things about Daisy and thought about Daisy so much that after five years he was willing to over look any of her flaws. After so much time had past maybe he just saw her as the woman she was five years ago. I also thought it was interesting how different Daisy's personality was in the movie production of the book. In the movie Daisy did not seem as entitled as she seemed in the book. I wonder why the producer of the movie made the decision to change her personality or to just tone it down a bit.