The Weights We Carry C. D Seventeen | Book Tour Review
{This book was kindly gifted to me by Literally PR in exchange for an honest review and a place on the book tour.}
Hello Readers,
It’s my turn on the Book Tour for C. D. Seventeen’s poetry collection, The Weights We Carry. The tour began on the 10th of April and ends on the 1st of May, and if you’d like to find out what the other tour participants thought, you can find all the details at the end of this article.
As usual, before I get into my thoughts let me tell you a little bit about this book, how it came to be and about the author:
“Join C. D Seventeen on her 46-day solo bike and wild camping adventure covering 658 miles of Scottish Highlands through the lens of poetry. The Weights We Carry is one woman’s incredible solo journey intended to find her true purpose through solitude. What she found was this poetry book, 22 poems paired with breath-taking photography.
The journey started from Inverness and went north, from the east coast via Rosemarie, Tain, Brora, Helmsdale, and John O’Groats. C. D. Seventeen kept heading north to the Orkney Islands, then back to the mainland to Thurso. After that returning to Inverness from the west coast via Durness, Scourie, Ullapool, Gairloch, and Applecross. The journey ended in Burghead on the east coast of Scotland.
The photos were taken on a half-frame automatic film camera with a kind of film which had a purple-hued character.”
C. D. Seventeen is originally from China. She moved to the UK at the age of 17 on her own to study psychology.
She was born in a place called “the south of clouds” {Yunnan province of China}, an area with drastic diversity of landscape, religion, culture, music, and arts. “Whoever can speak is a singer, whoever can walk is a dancer” is a famous saying in the country, which describes the artistic Yunnan people. C. D. Seventeen is not an exception. Apart from writing poems, she is also a techno music artist, DJ, and painter.
I do want to start out by saying that I rarely read and review poetry, so this is a little out of my comfort zone. But over the past few years, I’ve been trying to vary what I read a little bit and this poetry collection caught my attention as it felt like it could be different from the norm ~ which it is.
C. D Seventeen’s writing style is just absolutely beautiful and lyrical and the fact that she’s writing these poems in a language that isn’t her native language, makes them even more wonderful. The emotion she manages to capture within each poem and the photographs paired with them is just exceptional.
“I want to leave this world behind, jump on a bike, go on a journey without others, dive deep into the self, and let the weight of my human identity dissolve into the wind”
In regards to the photographs, I felt they also really helped convey the solitude that this poetry collection was written in and helped me understand the meaning of some of the poems. As I said, I don’t often read poetry so sometimes I struggle with understanding the prose written but the photos helped with that, especially since I’m quite a visual person. I found myself reading the poem on the page and then the photos opposite helped me escape even more into the beauty and mystery of the Scottish Highlands while feeling the emotion of the poem I’d read.
So if you’re new to poetry or want to start reading more of it but aren’t sure where to begin, I’d highly recommend giving this collection a try. Hopefully it’ll also transport you to the Scottish Highlands where you can find some peace and be alone with your own thoughts for a little while.
Also April is National Poetry Month, so it’s also the perfect time to pick up this wonderfully unique collection!
I’d like to thank the lovely people at Literally PR for gifting me this beautiful book and a place on the tour. Also thanks to C. D. Seventeen for sharing her thoughts, photography and writing with the world.
Stay Safe. Read a Book.
L x
The Weights We Carry Book Tour Details
If you’d like to find out more about this book and C. D. Seventeen, you can do so either via her Instagram ~ @cyberdoll17 or her website ~ cyberdoll17.com you can also purchase the book from there as it’s only being sold in select bookshops.
If you’d like to find out what everyone else on the tour thought of this book, below are all the dates and social media handles for all the book reviewers:
10th April: Helen ~ @bookoclock_
11th April: Claire ~ lecari.co.uk
12th April: Jill ~ @JillGal91513266
13th April: Nicola ~ @bookish_nikki17
14th April: Laura ~ @booishhermit
15th April: Pauline ~ @cupcake_2807
16th April: Eden ~ Review on Goodreads
17th April: Natalie ~ @all_books_great_and_small
18th April: Rhianydd ~ @rhianyddmorris
19th April: Ashley ~ @reading_with_ashley
20th April: Emma ~ @fitzgerald631
21st April: Louise ~ @louiseslittlelife
22nd April: Peter ~ Review on Goodreads
23rd April: Mark ~ @mdhblackburn
24th April: Diane ~ @bookwormconfess
25th April: Lesley ~ @janelesley
26th April: Joanna ~ @thelibraryofimagination
27th April: Suzanne ~ @bookread2day
28th April: Kelly ~ tbhonest_uk
29th April: Shella ~ @escape_into_a_good_book
30th April: Jan ~ bluewolf-reviews.com
1st May: Stacey ~ @staceywh_17
