A few months ago on twitter, a trend of tweets began about a few poems from YouTuber Gabbie Hanna’s poetry collection “Adultolescense,” insulting a couple of poems in the book for being poorly written. These tweets began grasping more audiences’ attention, specifically some YouTubers. The video that gained most attention was by James Marriot. Marriot’s video had over a million views and brought more attention to The New York Times bestseller by deeming it bad. Reviews on and off YouTube were so negative that most reviews felt like a rant. When I discovered the utter hatred people have for this book, I knew I had to read it. I went to the library the following week and checked it out. 

One morning, I sat down and read the whole book in one sitting. I had little hope for the book going in, yet somehow the book managed to disappoint my already extremely low expectations. Hanna’s poetry was very problematic and beyond disturbed me. 

The first problem I found with it is the ease I had turning each page. Poetry is not like a novel. When a novel is good, you binge it, but poems are not meant for binging. Poems are meant for pondering. A strong poem sticks with you and has you questioning it for hours on end. It consumes your being and sucks you out of reality. This is commonly why poetry collections are not reviewed: because it takes so long to thoroughly read them. Hanna’s poetry was not like that at all. When I was done with a poem, I was done. There weren’t any layers to make me think. Her poem “Recess” is a good example of this. What you read is what you get. Instead of using allegories to display her feelings or the story, she simply tells you what they are.

Another issue I faced in the collection was the overall laziness. In her poem “Iron” she ends the poem with the lines “I just feel like there’s, a metaphor in there somewhere.” This poem could have been excellent if she gave us a metaphor instead of stating the fact that it could be one. In the book, numerous poems display this lack of effort.

Some of these poems can be rationalized by the fact she was on a deadline and running out of time. Poems like “Fluent” and “Filler” admit to this deadline problem, but that doesn’t excuse most of the poems in the book being like this.

In the book, several poems were not even her ideas. In the author’s note she states that this book was inspired by Bo Burnham and Shel Silverstien. If you are familiar with Burnham’s and Silverstien’s work, you immediately notice some of Hanna’s poems copying their ideas. Hanna’s “BFF” is the exact same idea and storyline as “Nobody” by Silverstien. Her poem “Concealer” is very similar to some lines in Burnham’s “Can’t Handle This.” No matter the deadline, a writer shouldn’t stoop that low to try and take credit for an idea that isn’t theirs.

Even though those poems are borderline plagiarism, it still isn’t my biggest problem with “Adultolescense.” Throughout the whole collection, Hanna kept making jokes about wanting to die to try to come off quirky and relatable. All of those pages just felt rude and unnecessary. However, her poem “Cut” brings home the award for most insensitive. “Cut” is a poem that heavily infers the narrator is self harming, but in the last stanza she turns it into a plot twist of “Got ya! She’s actually cutting her hair.” This “humor” was not at all funny and made me incredibly upset. Self-harm is an incredibly serious topic that shouldn’t be used to make a joke.

I could go on and on about all of the failed jokes, how she incorrectly used figurative language, or how she referred to the reader as “bitch” for no reason (in her poem “Ouch”), but that would just be prolonging the point that it is terrible. The poetry is not only poorly written as some may deem, but also disrespectful. The collection was so bland and blunt that I’m not even sure parts of it should be considered poetry.

If you and your friends want to rant for hours on end then definitely pick up “Adultolescense.” Her insensitive jokes and ideas that she stole are sure to make you all filled with anger. Otherwise if you are looking for a nice meaningful poetry collection, do not bother to even give this one a glance.