it it's not funny
Welcome back to my channel my name is
Rhiannon and this is Crescent Moon Reads!
And today, I'm going to be reviewing Gabbie
Hanna's notorious poetry book
Adultolescence. And I know I am far from the first person to review this particular
book, but I do have my own personal
quandary with it. I want to just go ahead
and give my stab at it because I have
some thoughts and opinions and I thought
maybe you would enjoy hearing about them, nonetheless. So sit back and enjoy
because this is gonna be pretty much a
roast fest! I also recently took part in
a collaboration with Hannah from Snow
White Reader where we played Mad Libs
with some of the poems from this book so
these videos should be going out at
basically the same time, so I'll be
linking that one in the description
below as soon as I can! But without
further ado let's go ahead and get right
into my thoughts on this poetry
collection... Now first off, I know that we
have a very complicated relationship
with disclaimers in this community, but I
am going to disclaim just a little bit
before I totally roast this book because
there are some themes in here that are
very personal to Gabbie Hanna. I know
that Gabbie suffers from mental health
issues and she's very open about that in
this book, it is also clear that she has
experienced some really painful
relationships and might have some
substance abuse going on... and might have
some some abuse going on, there was a
poem in here that kind of implied that
that might have been the case. If not, it
was probably a metaphor, in that case
that's an issue, but I can't claim to
know one way or the other so I don't
want to detract from how heavy some of
the topics in this book are or how, you
know, valid it is that Gabbie Hanna deals
with her mental illnesses and her trauma
day to day. However, having a mental
health issue or having trauma does not
immediately make you A. a writer B. more creative than others C. a poet
4. (lol) worthy of a book deal. Frankly, it is
very very clear and one of my biggest
beefs with this book, that this book was
a pre-dealed book. It was essentially a
book that Gabbie Hanna got the deal for
from a publisher by nature of being
Gabbie Hanna, the internet sensation,
versus by nature of having actually
written before and having actually
submitted a piece of work or a
collection or any poems. So it becomes
very clear that this book would not have
existed at all if Gabbie Hanna wasn't
already an influencer. A fact of which I
think Gabbie is very aware, however I
don't think that she then treated the
art form with respect going into making
a book that she was lucky enough to
already have a deal for before even
proving that she was capable of what she
was signing up for. And part of this
becomes really really obvious in the
fact that she has literal poems in here
that talk about having a deadline. So I
know you know probably the biggest poems in this book that are laughed at on the
internet. Those are like the o-positive
poem about the her blood type, there's
one about the iron metaphor, the time is
relative poem... there's literally so many
poems that are put around online,
but I tried to kind of highlight some of
the ones that weren't as popular to talk
about, because the other ones have been
kind of run into the ground as of late.
So there's one poem in here where it
becomes very clear this book was a rush
job, and that's called Fluent and this is
the first poem when I was reading where
she really just head-on lets you know
that she's rushing through the work. "As
of late, since this book deal, I speak in
strictly poetry. my sentences are metered
and heroic couplets flow freely. every
miniscule moment is a latent freeform
verse; my hyperbole or imagery, I'm not
sure which is worse. every brute or
object is a
potential metaphor; my art form is
heartache peppered with delusions of
grandeur. silly similes slip off my
tongue at to an insufferable degree. each
turn I take to talk is an ostentatious
soliloquy. dousing my friends and leaden
pretension is something I do fear; I
wish I could take a break, but my
deadlines growing near." So this is the
first poem, of course, where she talks
about having a deadline. Which, it's not
inherently off limits for a poet, however,
with the way that the whole thing is
written it's kind of a slap in the face
as a reader because every time she
mentions it I'm reminded of how I can
already tell by the quality and the just
thoughtfulness of these poems that this
was a rushed work. So for her to then
point it out explicitly makes me just
feel taken advantage of as a reader, that
I'm spending my time. And I did this
knowing I wasn't gonna like it, and even
I was like, wow, how disrespectful to your
audience to literally slap them in the
face by saying oh I didn't really take
my time with this I was just trying to
get this put in for the book deal for
the money that I wanted to get so my bad,
but I'm literally rushing this as much
as possible. What became very clear to
me is that this entire collection is a
collection of very half-formed ideas.
It's a bunch of very surface level
concepts. It's like the moment
inspiration struck she put the first
thing that came out of her brain onto
paper, and that's about as far as it
feels like it ever got. I don't know what
the editing process really looked like,
but that's the impression I get as a
reader. Is that nothing ever came to like
a fully fledged idea, or there wasn't
ever any more work put into any of these
concepts beyond, oh I just had the
fledgling of an idea and that can fill a
page, so I'm gonna run with it. And that's
so insulting especially, I can't even-- I
got it from the library-- I can't even
imagine being a fan of Gabbie Hanna and
then spending $17 on a book
where the author admits to you that they
just want your money! There literally--
and I will show you these examples-- there
are literally mmm I only picked like
four or five, but there are literally
several poems that explicitly are
clearly only for filling a page. So
there's a poem in here that's just "Sad
isfied" as in the emotion sad, but if you
put isfied under it it sounds like
satisfied... another word. And that fills an
entire page, which is, just so fun. And
then there is a poem called K which is
just a text bubble of the letter K with
a read notification under it, that fills
an entire page as well, which just-- we
love to see it. Then there's one that's
just "Link in bio" that fills an entire
page as well, so that's great. And then
she finally gets to the heart of it and
decides to, I guess come clean with us,
the audience, and writes an entire poem
about the practice
she has been utilizing for the entire
poetry collection, in Filler "Some of
these poems were written because
inspiration struck, others were written
because I had a deadline and needed to
fill pages, can you guess which are which?"
that poem fills two pages. Because as you
can see, the formatting is made so that
it takes up as much space as possible,
because that's what she's talking about
in the poem... isn't that clever? I feel
like a lot of these are deliberately
simple or are an attempt at humor, but
they fall completely flat. I just felt
like I was being made a mockery of, as
the reader to think that I would think
that something like that is funny,
it's not funny. It's disrespectful to the
consumer. The humor that she tries to
infuse this poetry collection with is
really jarring because at times
she'll bring in concepts that are really
heavy, like I talked about at the
beginning of the video. She has a lot of
mental health issues, and I think has
dealt with a lot of like suicidal
ideation, and things like that. And she
brings in those things and then
immediately jars the reader with
something that is supposed to be
humorous or is just really completely
unrelated...
there's no cohesion through the entire
thing there's no like cohesive message.
You're flitting from one idea to the
next and there's no organization
whatsoever, which is what then gives me
the impression again that all of these
are just half-baked fucking brain childs
that never were arranged into any kind
of narrative or theme or anything like
that, and are just there for the sake of
being there. There are so many talented
poets out there, there are so many
unknown artists, that could have this
book deal and put something out into the
world that is just really gonna help
people and mean something to people, and
instead we're getting a book full of
just musings from a influencer who--
Listen, I do YouTube, I get it,
but being a youtuber doesn't mean that
you deserve to skip all of the things
that people put time and effort into
before they get to be published with a
big 5 publisher just by nature of having
six million followers... like it doesn't!
and then you get this and it, it's just
insulting to people who work all their
lives and sometimes never achieve this.
and they're so talented and so... like they
care so much and they put so much work
into it, this just feels like a slap in the face
again I know I keep going back to that
but it really is disturbing to me, but
Gabbie Hanna does touch on the fact that
she is an influencer in a poem, that I
will not read out because it's kind of
long, but the essential like message of
it is that, you know, influencers have it
really hard, but also she understands
that she's very privileged to be as
successful online as she is. but that it can
be a very like, soul-sucking job which I don't
doubt. however, it also has awarded you
this very book deal that you're not
clearly taking very seriously, and for
you to write this poem and critique this
thing and pretend like you maybe don't
even want it, while completely taking
advantage of it at the same time is--
again it just rubs me the wrong way, and
then she goes on to have a poem right
after it called Sisters where one sister
is saying I have to go make a bottle and
feed the baby, and the other one's saying
I have to go post a selfie and feed my
ego, so this is supposed to be a critique
on social media saying oh some people
are like, I guess moms who don't have
social media? and don't post selfies?
because you can't do both obviously... and
some people are just whores, who want to
feed their egos via selfie all the time!
it just feels like a really disingenuous
commentary especially back-to-back, a lot
of this is so disjointed because it has
so many random things thrown in, so like
every once in a while there will be a
poem called advice and those are written
with like you spelled with just the
letter U and like people ppl so like
basically they're tweets, which honestly? a
lot of these poems from this book could
be just tweets and if they were tweets
they'd be fine! because they're on
Twitter and they're free and it's fine!
and a lot of these sound like tweets, but
when you compile them together and make
people pay for them and they're like
this... it becomes a whole other matter
altogether but a lot of these like
advice things will be like thrown in
randomly between poems about like really
bad mental health issues, and it's so
just jarring and also even the poems
that are about her mental illness are
not well written! and so it's like I feel
for you and you're valid in your struggles,
but these poems are not... they're not up
to caliber to be sold to your millions
of fans! because they haven't gone
through the work, you haven't gone
through the work, you skip some
steps that are put in place to make you
better!
I couldn't believe how many people this
must have passed through, they literally
market this book as being exhilarating
and how relatable it is... and I just, I
don't think relatability should
necessarily be a hundred percent a
marketer of poetry. and I'm a huge fan of
a lot of modern poetry, but the thing is,
I think this modern poetry book gives
modern poetry as a whole a really bad
name. you have a lot of critique out
there about modern poetry because of the
fact that it utilizes more simplistic
language or it's shorter or you know
whatever-- or it's female dominated for
the most part-- all of these things that
make people who want to gatekeep
intellectual pursuits say that modern
poetry isn't worth it, and I don't agree
with that! I like modern poetry Nikita
Gill is amazing I love Amanda Lovelace's
poetry, this genre is not for everybody
but there is talent here, there is hard
work here, and to say that there isn't
work being put into modern poetry is
such a discredit to the artists that
work in the field. and I think this book
similarly is a discredit to the field,
because you can tell that Gabbie Hanna
didn't put really any work into it.
she says in the book that she didn't
really put any work into it, that she
rushed it, that she was just trying to
fill pages, that she just wants your
money. which brings me along to the poems that really disgust me almost the most.
there are two poems in particular that
talk about explicitly how Gabbie Hanna is
using this book to just money grab, one
of them is Entertainer "all I've ever
wanted is to make people happy and to
get rich doing it and also fame but only
because that means I get to make more
people happy who would give me more
money." I know that's supposed to be a
joke but it's not funny when the
entirety of your book is proving that
sentiment correct, like if you could see
how hard she had worked and she had put
real thought into all of her poems and
hadn't just been trying to fill pages,
and there were
meaningful messages that really like dug
deep into what she was trying to say...
then maybe that would have come off as
more of a joke, or maybe if there was
even a cohesive theme and narrative,
maybe then it would have landed better.
but because of the way it is, it doesn't
land at all it just makes you nod your
head and go oh yeah I could tell that
all you wanted was to make more money
off of me. the final poem in this book is called
Fin and it literally reads "did you read
this book cover-to-cover
or did you skip around a bit did you
share it with a friend or lover, you
better not have, make that bitch buy
their own copy
I want to Lamborghini." it -- it's not funny!
like I know she's trying to be funny but
it's not funny, and then it's just
disrespectful to your audience that
you're grossly misusing. it bothers me so
much. the last poem that I'm going to
discuss from this book, because I I know
I'm just shouting into the void at this
point, because only a million and a half
other youtubers have talked about this
poetry book before I have... is a poem
called Advice 17, this one I'm gonna warn
you really frustrates me coming from
Gabie Hanna, I'm pretty sure that Gabbie
Hanna is white... I have seen nothing to
the contrary, and this poem is taking on
racism... so if that warns you at all for
what we're about to get into-- Advice 17
"it's pretty shocking that racism still
exists it's literally a matter of black
and white like like say you like kittens
you're going to like kittens whether
it's a black kitten or a white kitten
the color of the kitten doesn't change
the fact that it's a kitten so can we
all just chill with judging by color
because fur is just fur and kittens are
great oh and if you're a dog person
feel free to replace the word kitten
with puppy." I don't even know where to
begin, and again I also am a white person so
like I'm not going to dismantle racism
fully on my own or have the fully like
best take on this, but I
I will say that this poem, first of all...
great job Gabbie Hanna, like just -- you you
cured it, you cured racism... of course I'm
joking.
this poem ignores a couple things, one:
black cats actually are discriminated
against more than white cats and every
other color of cat they actually get
killed a lot around Halloween time
there's a big stigma against them, they
have a lot harder time getting adopted,
so like even in this analogy it's wrong,
because black cats do have it worse than
white cats... so it's just like already
you're just starting from a flawed
premise. and then this ignores-- it has the
the underlying argument of like we're
exactly the same underneath it all and I
think we're starting to come away from
that idea, that like the only way to get
away from racism and to not be fighting
each other or have these harmful evil
ideas about each other is that you have
to make us the same, like you have to say
oh well the only thing that's different
is the color of our skin and underneath
we're all the same humans... and I mean
that's not necessarily true.
there are a lot of differences between
white and black people there's cultural
differences and that's okay, that's
totally fine our differences make us
unique and wonderful.
the problem is villainizing people who
are different than us because they're
different than us, not the fact that
we're different... which if I'm honest the
flaw again lies in that I don't think
she took it another step of thinking it
through, she just like thought of this
metaphor and then never actually took it
to its fullest conclusion. to realize oh
well first of all the metaphor doesn't
work and second of all maybe that isn't
actually the idea that will solve racism
or the idea that we even need to be
aiming for, that we're all the same
underneath, we don't need that to be good
to each other. so there's a lot of
problems with this poem but I hadn't
seen
anyone talk about this in any of the
videos that I watched about it, although
I have far from watched them all, so I
wanted to bring up that poem because I
cringed so hard I put the book down and
turned to Esteban and was just like.... I --what??
essentially my biggest issues with this
book are just that it's a huge money
grab that feels like a huge insult to
her fan base, who shelled out a bunch of
money to her only to receive a book full
of poems that she barely thought about
and admits to just making for filler and
wanting money from, so yeah I hated this
book i rated it one-star even though I
normally don't review books with stars
on Goodreads anymore. and those are just
some of my thoughts I would love to hear
your thoughts down in the comments below
if you've read it if you haven't read it
if you like it -- that's fine but please
know that we can discuss it civilly
without being at each other's throats
hopefully, and if you haven't already
please go to Hannah's channel and check
out our collaboration that was really
really fun to do and that is gonna be it
from me today so if you enjoyed this
video please like and subscribe bring
that notification Bell button and as
always all of my social media links will
be down in the description below I love
y'all a whole heck of a lot and stay
wicked!
