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Review: A Journey into Tomorrow by Veronica Camille Tinto

Note: I received this copy for review courtesy of the author.

A few weeks ago, I was contacted to review the collection of personal poetry, A Journey into Tomorrow by Veronica Camille Tinto. I enjoy the occasional bit of serious poetry, and hadn't read one in a while, so I accepted her offer.

While I'm not sorry that I accepted the book for review, it was definitely not what I expected. Some of the writing (pause) techniques that were used confused me and left me unsure of what she was trying to convey. Her overly frequent use of the ... symbol got old really fast. It really broke up the flow of the poetry and stunted my ability to truly appreciate the emotions being conveyed. I admit to using the ellipsis occasionally when it suits my mood. But, I use it occasionally. Tinto uses it copiously. In the first 10 poems (all less than one page long), the ... showed up 96 times. Trust me, I counted.

I also feel that Ms. Tinto was trying a little too hard to be eloquent, expressive and literary that the emotions and the point were often lost along the way. It's not really easy to explain unless you've read the poems, but some of them feel really stiff. I think she just tries too hard.

I know that each of these statements sound negative, but I don't mean to imply that I got nothing out of this book. More often than not, I was able to understand the emotions she must have been feeling as she wrote, especially toward the end of the book as I became more accustomed to her writing style. It was obvious reading these poems that she really felt what she was saying. She wrote these poems as a way to help her get a handle on the challenge's life was sending her, and a lot of them do portray that emotion very well. It's not a book that you can just breeze through, the poems are best read slowly and spaced apart. I think that this book and these poems have a lot of potential. I think that with some editing, and a little bit of work, these poems could be really good.

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Review: A Journey into Tomorrow by Veronica Camille Tinto + review