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In the collection there are a variety of themes which take center stage such as death, love (including fresh, new, passionate and even lost and unrequited love), loneliness, depression, friendship (both broken and new), family and god. These themes do start to become rather repetitive as you approach the second half of the collection but in my opinion it just allows for there to be a poem for everyone and most of the feelings you may be experiencing at the time of reading.
My personal favorite poem was Better Off Alone as I felt it really encapsulates how I feel the majority of the time and my main insecurities. Each poem is very personal and intimate with some being quite confronting if you are currently or have recently been through some difficult times. There were many times during reading that I had an "ah ha!" moment from what I was reading being able to describe exactly how I felt.
The overall collection is fairly good but there was one major issue which kept coming up which was the irrelevant references to Christianity and god. I do not appreciate it when an author is unable to remain neutral. In my opinion the prevailing Christianity themes will polarize audiences and did not add much to the overall anthology. There were also quite a few typos which I would normally try to ignore but it is a pet peeve of mine when there are typos in poetry as I feel it throws off the flow.
Overall I give Whispers Of A Soul by Chantal Emmenis 2 out of 4 stars due to the Christian themes putting me off but there are still plenty of other poems that I would happily read again. As with anything there are positives and negatives and in this particular case I would only recommend this collection of poetry to someone who is either Christian or would not mind the rather regular references.
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