Depression and Other Magic Tricks: A Review

Depression and Other Magic Tricks by Sabrina Benaim

My Rating: 5 Stars!

Publisher: Button Poetry

Published: August 22nd, 2017

Received: Netgalley provided an e-arc in exchange for an honest review

Purchase: Amazon

Synopsis:

Depression & Other Magic Tricks is the debut book by Sabrina Benaim, one of the most-viewed performance poets of all time, whose poem “Explaining My Depression to My Mother” has become a cultural phenomenon with over 50 million views. Depression & Other Magic Tricks explores themes of mental health, love, and family. It is a documentation of struggle and triumph, a celebration of daily life and of living. Benaim’s wit, empathy, and gift for language produce a work of endless wonder.

Musings:

I didn’t quite get to the heart and the passion that lives inside this poetry book until I watched Sabrina say aloud many of the poems she keeps in this book in her performances on YouTube. However, the one that really shattered me on the inside due to its beauty and anger was “Explaining my Depression to my Mother”

https://youtu.be/aqu4ezLQEUA

This piece was desperation and bargaining and being fed up and hurt all at once and I wouldn’t have truly gotten that without Sabrina’s voice. Her flare and flavor make her words come to life in a way that they couldn’t have been on their own. It made me wish that I could have watched her perform all the poems in this book, because that’s when her words curl around you and shake you up, that’s when you find how truly beautiful her poetry is.

Sabrina’s poetry is poetry meant to be sung and screamed and belted out into the air. You are meant to find its rhythm and how it’s rhythm syncs with your own. Depression & Other Magic Tricks is brilliantly imagined it’s words coming for the jagged edges of a girls truest form.

Thank you for reading!

I hope you have enjoyed this review and will take a chance on reading Depression & Other Magic Tricks! Let me know your thoughts down in the comments. Also, let me know if you have any poetry recommendations! I’m always up for those.

-Till next time!