Earth Up Your Roots


Fiction - Anthology
182 Pages
Reviewed on 10/02/2022
Buy on Amazon

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    Book Review

Reviewed by Edith Wairimu for Readers' Favorite

Selin Senol-Akin’s insightful work, Earth Up Your Roots, includes thought-provoking short stories, beautiful poetry, and a captivating play. The work examines how our roots affect who we are and how we can utilize the good in our heritage and grow. In the story “The Driver,” a cab driver picks up a distraught woman and her son who reconnect him with his traumatic childhood. A passionate, forbidden romance blossoms between a Turkish girl and an Armenian boy in 1915 in the story, “The Rose Moon.” The poems explore different themes including learning life lessons from past failures, rebirth, growing in confidence by knowing who one is, facing one’s flaws, and blossoming from them. In the play included, the lead character pays a hefty price for love and for trying to accomplish her dreams.

Earth Up Your Roots is a wonderful collection that makes you think about your roots, how they have held you back and how you can grow and appreciate the good aspects of your heritage. I found each story mesmerizing with themes that are relevant to anyone regardless of their background. The stories are poignant but still carry hopeful and inspiring messages. The poems are striking and expressed with eye-catching words. They precisely capture the themes they portray. I also loved that the work utilizes different styles. Each piece is unique, imaginative, and engrossing. Earth Up Your Roots is an incredible work made up of heart-stirring, skillfully-written pieces. It embodies important, powerful lessons that readers will learn and find inspiration from. Highly recommended.

Pikasho Deka

You can't expect to harvest fruit without planting the seeds of a tree. This is the primary message of Earth Up Your Roots. With her collection of short stories, poems, and a play, noted author, poet, and human rights activist Selin Senol-Akin explores the different facets of human relationships, behaviors, and the past's influence on one's present and future. "The Ant" is a short story that follows a man who witnesses karma catching up to his former friend a decade after the last time they met. An indie author anxiously prepares to make the wish of a terminally ill young girl come true, only to be taken aback by an unexpected reveal. "The Driver" follows a Lyft driver's ride with a woman and her young son as he unwittingly entangles himself in a domestic violence situation reminiscent of his own childhood.

Selin Senol-Akin's writing gets better and better with each new project, just like fine wine. Earth Up Your Roots contains a moving collection of human interest stories, mesmerizing poems, and a play featuring Mata Hari that will leave you with a sense of emotional catharsis as only top-tier poetry and stories can. The book ends with a beautiful poem about realizing one's true potential and individuality through a relentless pursuit of the truth. Those stanzas encapsulate what this book is all about. Readers will find the stories fascinating as they touch upon universal themes everyone can relate to. Overall, Earth Up Your Roots is a book I will gladly recommend to readers who love human interest stories.

Manik Chaturmutha

Earth Up Your Roots by Selin Senol Akin is an anthology of poems, short stories, and an original play. The book takes readers on a journey through time and place to understand the importance of self-acceptance. Different levels have different problems and various themes moving in separate directions. The book explores the flaws of cultures and takes a unique approach in explaining that not all issues can be dealt with superficially; some are deep-seated in our roots. But, just like a plant ripped with its roots intact can be replanted, humans are capable of living with the flaws of society and culture without damaging their morals. Nothing is unsalvageable, even people. Imperfections are part of human lives and are what everybody should embrace.

The stories highlight many aspects of human life that often go unnoticed. The poetic verses also align with the book's lessons. Moreover, the stories and play provide an extra dimension and explain the imperfections in the culture and society. Using the world's harsh truths, Earth Up Your Roots by Selin Senol Akin uniquely promotes healing. The twisted and open endings of the stories leave readers striving for more. The open end allows the reader to create hopeful endings and enhances their creative thinking skills. The well-developed stories play a significant part in the book's success. Overall, this anthology of stories, plays, and poems is incredibly written. With themes relating to trauma, harassment, and other social evils, the book is recommended for adult audiences and to anthology and poetry lovers.