The Only Card in a Deck of Knives by Lauren Turner

Book Review

Title: The Only Card in a Deck of Knives by Lauren Turner

Genre: Poetry

Rating: 5 Stars

I have heard quite a lot of poetry lately and really enjoyed it. The Only Card in a Deck of Knives caught my eye with its gorgeous cover and I couldn’t wait to get into it. The Only Card in a Deck of Knives was a really interesting poetry collection to read centred around sickness, which encompasses physical, emotional and mental sickness told from the perspective of a twenty something young woman and the struggles she has faces in all three areas of sickness. Some of these poems were really dark while others were heartbreakingly sad and really made me empathize with the woman telling these stories.

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The aim of these poems is for Turners to reclaim the “hysterical” label given to women throughout history both in an historical context as well as a modern one. Turner really delves deep into the emotional urgency and raw vulnerability surrounding both terminal diagnosis and being mentally ill and she really manages to shine an interrogative light upon it making you question you own views and values on these issues.

In the past, I have read a few collections of sickness poetry but they tend to centre on one type of illness and stick to a central theme whether that is survival, sadness, acceptance or anything in between. Turner really goes beyond in encompassing all of these themes and issues together and really hammers the point home that women that have these labels attached to them are victimized and vilified in the more horrendous ways and no one seems to care. Even the women themselves begin to question whether they were right to speak out and fight against their abuse and how sometimes they fall back into the same patterns of behaviour because it is easier to deal with something you understand rather than something that terrifies you for reasons you can’t identify. I will be definitely be picking up more of Lauren Turner’s work in the future especially if it is anything like The Only Card in a Deck of Knives. Highly recommended!

Buy it here:

Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com

I received this review copy from Edelweiss