A Life Cycle

A Guide to Healing and Rediscovering Yourself

Poetry - Inspirational
152 Pages
Reviewed on 03/10/2022
Buy on Amazon

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.

Author Biography

Nicole Asherah is the young, debut author of an inspiring and moving poetry book, A Life Cycle: A Guide to Healing and Rediscovering Your Life (Match 14, 2022). Her goal, with her words and art, is to break your heart with the raw emotion that her pieces evoke. She hopes you find joy in heartbreak -- as she always does.

She is an artist whose main mediums are poetry, film photography, and abstract oil painting -- but she has a habit of dabbling in whatever sparks her creative juices. Switching between mediums of expression, Nicole tries to connect readers to intimate moments, feelings, and relationships experienced throughout life. She recently had two short stories published in literary magazines.

Her adventurous and curious spirit led her to backpack by herself, as a teen, across 15 countries.

The University of Roehampton in England offered her to attend its Creative Writing Poetry MFA program. Despite her not having a bachelor’s degree, they were drawn to her ability to describe the abstract feeling of emotions in a way that resonates with all types of people. Nicole employs this skill to help others come closer to the emotions they experience so they can name, process, and release them.

Nicole, raised by a psychologist, was a peer counselor from ages 11-16. She has volunteered with Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) and other grassroots organizations that have synthesized to give her a broad understanding of people’s individual struggles and how to capture them in art.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Edith Wairimu for Readers' Favorite

A Life Cycle: A Guide to Healing and Rediscovering Yourself by Nicole Asherah is a thoughtful, resonant collection of poems that searches the human soul to uncover depths of trauma and instill a sense of hope. The collection follows the process of renewal from an old self to a new version and offers guidance throughout the process of transformation. In the first part of the collection, the poems explore a person’s identity and the struggle to be seen and understood. They express a longing for peace, silence, and contentment. The collection moves to a deeper expression of the effects of trauma that emerge from a devastating experience involving sexual assault. The verses that follow are raw and they portray the extent of the abuse on the narrator and how the experience impacts them. Still, the collection is hopeful, containing themes about finding strength and happiness.

A Life Cycle by Nicole Asherah is bold in its confrontation of sexual assault and other traumatic events. It also courageously reveals the innermost emotions that plague the soul. Striking metaphors such as one that compares the deepening of strength in the face of trauma to a resilient blossom that withstands the strong gust of a relentless wind paint vibrant images of the events covered by the poems. The collection is arranged in a seamless order that begins with poems that express unspeakable pain from tragic past experiences and later includes poems that explore the process of renewal and healing. I found comfort in the poems' uplifting outlook toward the end and the collection’s emphasis on authenticity and freedom. A Life Cycle is a powerful collection told in an original voice. Its verses show that strength can still be present even when dealing with traumatic events and are necessary and comforting.

K.C. Finn

A Life Cycle: A Guide to Healing and Rediscovering Yourself is a work of poetry with a view to self-help, healing, and emotional exploration. It is intended for the general adult reading audience and was created by author Nicole Asherah based on her own experiences of healing from childhood trauma and processing sexual assault. With kindness and self-love at the core of its many messages, Asherah takes readers through different stages of a poignant cycle where the traumatic event serves as a kind of breaking and re-mending of mind, body, and soul. What results is a transformative and emotional collection of poetic works that transcribe this journey for others to relate to and get help from.

Transforming after hardship is a subject that is very close to my heart, and indeed will be particularly resonant to many people worldwide after experiencing the global trauma of the pandemic. Whatever your own issues may be, there will certainly be something you can attune with and relate to in author Nicole Asherah’s poetic works. I was especially impressed by the organization and flow of the piece, which has section headings for individual sections of the cycle, but no individual poem titles. This unique narrative gives the work a harmonious flow, even in the most difficult moments of its expression. The page beginning “Oh, arrogant man” was a particularly emotive highlight for me, and I believe any readers encountering A Life Cycle will gain something deeply meaningful from it that will certainly help them on their unique healing journey.

Astrid Iustulin

There are negative experiences that none of us would like to have, but when they happen, we have to find the strength to heal ourselves and become a new person. This is what happened to Nicole Asherah and inspired her to write A Life Cycle: A Guide to Healing and Rediscovering Yourself. This poetry collection (her first book to be published) tells of the transformation process Asherah went through after being sexually abused, an event that led her to reflect on her childhood traumas and gradually become a new person. Written to help readers overcome their suffering, A Life Cycle is about sadness, joy, love, and most of all, healing.

Asherah's collection of poems will not fail to touch her readers, especially those who have experienced a situation similar to hers or who have had to overcome trauma. While reading, I appreciated Asherah's great sincerity and capacity for self-analysis. These features make A Life Cycle a deeply introspective and engaging book and, at the same time, a precious companion for those who have the author's same thoughts. I think Asherah's elegant and conversational way of describing her journey makes readers understand her state of mind at once and allows them to sympathize with her. I particularly liked there are positive emotions in negative moments and vice versa because this makes the representation more realistic. I believe Asherah has succeeded in telling her story in a way that is truly helpful to those in need of healing. It is a great gift to readers.