Review: You Better Be Lightning

 You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson Published 2021

 I stumbled across Button Poetry after judging a high school speech tournament with my husband many years ago. A student performed the poetry of Ollie Schminkey, which ultimately led to us Googling lines of poetry, and discovering Button Poetry. This discovery resulted in too many hours spent watching YouTube videos of various poets, leading to my discovery of Andrea Gibson. I couldn’t tell which of their poems I saw first, but I can tell you it did not take long for me to become a fan. It was instantaneous.


When Gibson announced the presale of You Better Be Lightning, in which purchasers would receive a signed copy, I immediately bought a copy.


Imagine reading words that feel as though they were ripped straight from your soul. Thoughts and emotions you didn't even know you had lying dormant until Andrea Gibson came along, ripped them from the seams of your being, and put all of them into writing. That is You Better Be Lightning.


Even the dedication is poetry. But would we expect anything less of Andrea Gibson? 

In a word: no.


Gibson finds a way to express all the thoughts and emotions I never knew existed. Throughout this book, I would stop and read various lines out loud to my husband. Lines that were so good they had to be shared. Time and time again, Gibson masterfully creates scene after scene that the reader becomes engulfed by. 


I can only begin to tell you the myriad emotions I experienced reading Gibson’s work. There were moments I felt incredibly light and moments where my heart was devastatingly heavy. I smiled, I laughed, and I cried reading the words that were so carefully crafted and selected for You Better Be Lightning.


Their words gave me goosebumps, and walked with me through the museum of broken relationships. My heart broke reading “Climate Change”. I felt every line of “To Whom It Definitely Concerns”. “Wellness Check” was a punch to the gut. 


The heart, the ache, the desire, the passion, the… love. Absolute perfection.

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