Lyndsey Turner

There are books that you read, and there are books that you feel. Breathing in Broken Spaces is not simply a collection of poems it is a body laid bare, a heart cracked open, a mirror held up to the parts of ourselves we often hide, even from our own reflection. Belinda Daou writes with the kind of honesty that is so rare it feels almost intrusive, yet you cannot look away. Her words don’t ask for permission to touch your wounds they find them, whisper to them, and somehow make them less terrifying to hold. Every page breathes a truth that most of us are too scared to say out loud: that love can break us, that grief has no neat ending, that trauma leaves fingerprints on everything we are but that healing, messy and imperfect, is still possible. This is not polished, pretty poetry designed to sit on a shelf collecting dust. This is poetry meant to be lived with. Meant to be wept over at 2 a.m. when you feel like no one understands. Meant to be carried inside you when you're trying to stitch yourself back together after life has torn you apart. Daou’s strength lies not just in her imagery though her language cuts clean and deep but in her refusal to wrap up pain in neat bows. She honours the broken spaces, the pauses, the silences between screams. She understands that sometimes surviving is the most radical form of love we can offer ourselves. If you have ever had your heart shattered, if you have ever felt invisible in your own suffering, if you have ever wondered whether you are the only one struggling to breathe through the cracks, this book is your companion. Your witness. Your reminder that even in the darkest places, you are not alone. Breathing in Broken Spaces should be required reading for anyone who has ever loved, lost, or tried to rebuild themselves from the ruins. It will hurt. It will heal. It will change you. Read it. Feel it. Let it find the broken pieces of you, and help you fall in love with them again.