Earlier this year a friend of mine, Casandra DeBartolo was kind enough to review my book. Now she’s been even more fantastic by letting me place it here, on My Pen, My Voice.;*. Here it is:

My Pen, My Voice

Author: Vanessa Grillone

Reviewed by: Casandra DeBartolo

Starting out with a 12-year-old girl who felt like running away author Vanessa Grillone has had almost 10 years of experiences to fulfill her dreams as a writer, as she publishes her very first book, My Pen, My Voice that was released just earlier this year.

Though poetry and prose this book encompasses all the struggles, obstacles and emotions of a teenaged girl. Using personal experience as her inspiration to grasp onto the ideas of what young girls today have to deal with, Vanessa bursts open the most confusing and difficult aspects of a very fragile stage.

My Pen, My Voice compiles a series of poems and diary-like entries that were written over the various stages of Vanessa’s teenaged years. The emotion that is drawn out on every page is so real, so raw and so deep, not because it was written years later looking back on these times, but because they were written as these moments were happening. “…you try to fathom the fact that IT DOES HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE and NOT a million years ago but RIGHT NOW.”

What is so unique about this book is that there is something for just about everything and everyone. Every page is different from the one before, or the one that follows. There is a page for the confused 13-year-old, a page for the emotional 16-year-old, a page for the frustrated 19-year-old, and a page for the determined 21-year-old. Touching base with the complications, frustrations and excitement of school, family, work, friends and boys. But even through all of the downfall she comes across in the book, there are moments where the reality of life sets in, and Vanessa shows us that the life of a teenaged girl, although far from easy, is as simple as  “Put the past in the past and keep it there. Look forward to your future. Live for the now. Take chances. Make mistakes. Learn. Repeat.”

By overcoming the many bumps she shares with us in her book, Vanessa shows us that everything that happens, happens for a reason. To make you stronger as a woman, allowing you to realize that failure is not an option and to never settle for anything less than what you want and what you deserve. “Comfort is okay, but I cannot let comfort take me away from what I desire most. I will not give up, no matter how long it takes and that’s a promise.”

Thanks so much Cass for actually reading my book and for enjoying it! You can follow her on Twitter (click on her name above). You can click here to find out more about my book.

I’d like to leave you with a music video. I heard the song yesterday at my brother’s Christmas concert… how cute it he anyways?

He plays the trumpet!

The video is for Beyoncé’s I Was Here.  It’s the new song I’ve been play on repeat. I hope you get something out of it too!

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Love Always 

Vanessa Xo