Big Feelings

Book excerpt: Poetry. Latinx Studies. Women's Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. Film. Music. BIG FEELINGS is a grand tour of love and loss, femininity, and the nuances inherent in the simple messiness of being alive. Bella masterfully works within the ambiguity of feelings that do not ever truly end, of what it feels like to be a ghost within those feelings, and she guides the reader through the origin point of every haunting. She navigates the tragedies of heartbreak, the experience of brown girlhood, the loneliness ingrained within artists, and the courage it takes to get back up again even when it feels like you have already died many times before. With compassion and much needed humor, BIG FEELINGS allows us the necessary space to be alone with one another. At once a time capsule of love and loss, and a hymnal book of protest songs against the current political regime, the reader becomes a lucky passenger in bella's car, driving the scenic route through her brilliant and expansive mind. The book reads as a memoir in verse. The poems travel both physical and emotional landscapes, journeying through vibrant New Mexico and through the often lonely road of living as someone with 'big feelings.' We get to meet bodega cats, Ariana Grande, her family and her loves, but most importantly we get to meet gigi; wholly human and wholly herself. This book is as tender as it is fierce, and will be opened like a gift by the hearts of so many.-Andrea Gibson