For nearly two years I have worked at good ole’ Barnes & Noble. I love books, music, movies, journals, and the environment in which I work. I’m a fan of writing, of storytelling, and of genuine artistic expression. I haven’t read many ‘classics’ from the likes of Jane Eyre, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky, but can still appreciate their place in the world’s literary cannon. I have, however, read a handful of titles that will seemingly inhabit the Bestsellers list forever, including "All The Light We Cannot See", "The Nightingale", "The Alchemist",and "The Girl on the Train". All of these titles I can recommend, even if there a few caveats within the writing of each. But as the new releases come and go, one book still holds strong as one of the most popular titles sold in the store, as well as remaining atop countless bestseller lists. That book is "Milk and Honey".

First, I want to start off by saying this: If you have purchased or enjoyed this book, I have nothing against you. Art is art. Thus, it can be enjoyed and interpreted uniquely and genuinely by everyone. Hell, I still listen to *Nsync, even though many people just consider it pointless 90’s pop music. (To those individuals I say bye, bye, bye.)

But as someone who hopes to one day have a career in writing (books, films, clever Instagram captions), I can’t seem to wrap my head around the contents of this book. I have always enjoyed poetry - good poetry. But what defines “good”, you may ask?

Well, it certainly isn’t, “I was music / but you had your ears cut off” (pg. 115).

I get it - art is interpretive. Again, if you find comfort or joy in this book, I do not condemn you or think you're stupid or anything of the sort. But come on. Books like this simply exploit the naivety and emotional willingness of desperation.

If you’re in a bad mood, stuff like this feeds that feeling, further justifying whatever it may be that you are going through. Likewise, if you have discovered a new positive outlook on life, full of self-love and emotional healing, these words can further develop the armor needed to survive in this hyper-negative world we live in.

In short, works like this count on the reader ‘needing’ something like this. The writing itself may not be profound or impactful or life-changing, but in that moment it is.

And that is where I have a problem with this book and titles like it, such as "Whiskey, Words, & a Shovel" and "I Wrote This For You", just to name a few.

Now I will admit that reading through these there are a handful of halfway decent one-liners to be found. But the thing is, every ‘poem’ in these books is simply saying what’s already been said a million times before. They are filled with armchair philosophies perfectly designed for the modern age. In "Milk and Honey" there is a ‘poem’ that literally says, “You must enter a relationship / with yourself / before anyone else” (pg. 150).

Wow. Haven't heard that one before.

These books are filled with so many excerpts that go no further than surface level. In "Whiskey, Words, & a Shovel" there is an entry that says, “Good woman / cold heart”. That’s it. The whole damn page. Another monumental piece from "Honey" is simply, “I am a museum full of art / but you had your eyes shut” (pg. 100).

Look - I’m not here to sound like some pretentious intellectual who claims to only read “literature” and listen to classical music and only watches his movies in black & white, while sitting in my study smoking a pipe. I’m 22. I’m a millennial. I waste a ton of time on YouTube, glued to my smartphone, or indulging in nerdy superhero stories that some people may deem stupid or pointless. For crying out loud, I spend a healthy amount of time making superhero puns with my own name.

But honestly, it drives me nuts watching people fawn over these books like they are humanity’s gift to the world. Most of the ‘poems’ written in these books are nothing more than a collection of words that sound good together, offer just enough vague direction for any reader to attach their own emotional distress to, and do little more than float in and out of the reader’s mind once you turn the page.

To me, this is the kind of writing that anyone can do. And I don’t mean that in a positive, encouraging sense. But what I mean is that everyone is trying to capitalize on this style of bullet poetry. Stringing together a handful of catchy statements in 140 characters or less that belong on Twitter, not the New York Times Bestseller List.

For example, here’s how easy it is.

“I closed my eyes / I saw you / I couldn’t look away” - Me.

“Today I woke up / Without you / It wasn’t the same” - Me.

“I looked in the mirror and saw myself / For the first time” - Me.

“Who knows / What we know / It will never be the same” - Me.

“I saw your face in the clouds / The rain came pouring down” - Me.

“Its as easy as that / breathe in and breathe out” - Me.

Now, again, I’m not saying anything about who buys this book or who enjoys it. To expound upon something I mentioned earlier, I can pretty much sing word-for-word every *Nsync song ever written, and am pretty confident that ‘Dan’ works with almost any superhero name currently in existence. But books like this feel like they were created on a whim for no reason whatsoever. Like the authors were bored one night and decided to make a small fortune.

I’m sure there is legitimate pain and emotion and healing in these words. For many people, these books offer an outlet to connect to over heartbreak, loss, and finding yourself. Hell, writing itself is an outlet for emotional and artistic expression just as painting, music making, singing, performing, dance, and photography are. I can respect the author for submitting to the transparency and the vulnerability of a work like this. Everybody is fighting their own battles, and the catharsis that came from having this published is a feeling that, hopefully, everyone gets to experience at some point in their lives. That sense of having the weight of the world removed from your shoulders and having it replaced with overwhelming support and love for your work must be a life-changing experience. For me, however, books like this just don’t 'click'.

But who knows. Maybe I’ll have a collection like this published for myself one day, get rich, and then read about some other person’s bitter opinion of my work.

Are you buying it?