Chameleon Skin – book review

Chameleon Skin by Breanne Weber is a collection of poetry talking about the darkness of depression and the monochrome perspective that comes with it, and how with healing comes the bright and vibrant colours of love.

This is the first book I’ve read by Breanne Weber, and I kind of have some mixed feelings. I’ll begin with the pros.

The very first and third poems in the book I have marked as my favorite. I really really love them. They’re both short and simple, but I liked the language and the imagery behind them. I could almost feel the dirt beneath my nails, which although an unpleasant feeling, is a good thing! I think Breanne does quite a good job throughout with her language.

Another thing I enjoyed is when the author was telling the story of them falling in love, and how in those particular poems, the colours began to came back. And it wasn’t just during those poems, but in the poems about them growing and accepting themselves, that we started to read about the brighter side of things.

With that latter point, it’s very obvious that Breanne did an amazing job at keeping inside the lines of her theme. However, I feel that she might’ve felt limited because of it. And that’s where the cons come in.

It felt very repetitive to me. Alot of the same words were used over and over again in multiple poems, and to me, it made the poems lose character and uniqueness. I would’ve loved to see more diverse pieces, maybe some playing with different types of forms, too. Many times I felt like I was reading the same poem I had read just pages before.

Overall, I did enjoy this book. It didn’t leave me with a “wow” feeling, but it was good. It’s not personally my favorite type or style of poetry, but it wasn’t bad, and I’m sure other readers would enjoy it. I look forward to reading more of Breanne Weber’s work. Chameleon Skin gets three out of five stars from me.