Swimming Lessons: Poems

by Lili Reinhart

The debut collection of poetry from Lili Reinhart, the actress and outspoken advocate for mental health awareness and body positivity.

Swimming Lessons explores the euphoric beginnings of young love, battling anxiety and depression in the face of fame, and the inevitable heartbreak that stems from passion. Relatable yet deeply intimate, provocative yet comforting, bite-sized yet profound, Lili's poems reflect her trademark honesty and unique perspective. Accompanied by striking and evocative illustrations, Swimming Lessons reveals the depths of female experience, and is the work of a storyteller who is coming into her own.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Mental Health, Romance, Adult, Contemporary

240 pages, Hardcover

First published September 29, 2020

About the author

Lili Reinhart is an actress and advocate for mental health awareness. Swimming Lessons is her first collection of poetry.

(source: Amazon)

Reviews

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

i think she has the heart of a poet, but her words don’t quite measure up to the feelings behind them. the poems are like journal entries; real and very raw, but not really refined. very little poetic devices are used outside of plain imagery and similes, so not as interesting or creative as it could have been if different strategies had been explored a little more. overall, i was underwhelmed.

[Brandon Forsyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The coolest girl in class can also write pretty good poems, too? This is starting to feel unfair.

[Isa Cantos (Crónicas de una Merodeadora) · Rating 2 out of 5]

“This is how I know
I love you so much.

Whenever I see something
beautiful, I want you to
see it, too.”

No me encantó y, más allá de unas cuantas frases bonitas, no conecté con absolutamente nada.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lili Reinhart really has me in my feelings at 6 am. 😄

I never really read poetry, but I wanted to switch up my reading for 2021. I dont really know how to rate someone's poetry..its like rating someones diary..very personal. But I will go with my gut. I loved this.

For me, poetry has always been about 'feeling'. I always ask, "Does it make me feel something?" In this case, Swimming Lessons by, Lili Reinhart does. I listened to this on audiobook, and loved her readings of her short poems on love, depression and heartbreak.

This was beautiful in it's own way. Poetry is very subjective. Dont let Goodreads ratings sway you. Give everything a chance ( at least once). I loved this and am looking forward to her future books.

4.7 🌟🌟🌟🌟

[Laura Altmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to @harpercollinsaustralia for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review!

In her debut poetry collection, Lili Reinhart, of Riverdale fame, explores relationships and mental health in a straight forward and relatable style.

Tbh, I went into this book with fairly low expectations. Though I think highly of Reinhart and admire how open she is when discussing her depression, my previous experiences with books written by actors have been mostly negative. Thus, I was happily surprised to find that I really enjoyed Swimming Lessons.

Reinhart’s work is soft and lovely. In one poem, she describes herself as a hopeless romantic, and that quality shines through in her writing. I also loved the poems in which she discussed her mental health, they felt the most raw and relatable to me. The illustrations that are scattered through out the book were also a beautiful addition.

I will say, however, that some of the poems in Swimming Lessons fell a little flat for me. The book was structured in a way that made the relationship focused poems feel a bit repetitive. I think the book could have been tighter, and more impactful, if some of the weaker poems had been cut.

Overall though, I was really impressed by Reinhart’s debut collection! It’s a gorgeous little book, inside and out. I think some poetry fans may be tempted to dismiss this book because of Reinhart’s work on Riverdale, but I would recommend giving it a chance. Personally, I hope that Reinhart continues to pursue writing! I would love to read more of her work.

[Mara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn’t expect much from this and so my disappointment is manageable. Lili has a lot of potential as a writer but she’s still too unpolished for my taste. This was also much too short and should’ve been fledged out more.

[frances · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was too raw and a bit unpolished for my taste; too simple and needs more depth. These were like the poems you scribble as a teen on the back of your notebooks after a bad breakup.

[Orla · Rating 2 out of 5]

“This is how I know I love you so much. Whenever I see something beautiful, I want you to see it, too.”

Thank you to my team, The Good Vibes, for reading this with me! 🥰

Reading this might be my villain origin story?

I went into this knowing that everyone uses Swimming Lessons as the blueprint for bad celebrity poetry, but I wanted Lili Reinhart to prove me wrong. I wanted her to prove that people are just hating on this to hate on it. I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU, LILI❗️



I don’t have anything against this style of writing, which is often referred to as “tumblr poetry”. I think that Rupi Kaur does it really well, writing super short but tasteful poems and allowing us to read in-between the lines. A lot of people have tried to replicate the success Kaur had with Milk and Honey. It goes without saying that most fail.

Here’s the thing: I think that Lili Reinhart has a lot of potential to be a good writer. There were some specific lines that impressed me like

"It's been a while since I've had a
moment to miss you,
and to cry"

This first line hits a chord with me immediately. It’s simple, but it’s something that a lot of people can relate to. She’s explained a feeling that is hard to explain - wanting to have a moment to miss someone and cry. To feel sad. But then she ruins it with this next line:

"This warm, summer breeze
on my balcony makes me think of
Cape Cod,
and your floral swimsuits.

How you never wore sunscreen but
always told us we had to."

This has to be a joke. Is this a joke, Lili?



Also ~ speaking of Cape Cod and floral swimsuits ~, let’s talk about how all of these poems SCREAM rich privilege! 😀

Reading the introduction, I thought that these poems would go into her struggles with body dysmorphia or discovering her queer identity. Topics that would really hit the reader in the gut. And we do get some attempts at that, but most of the poems are like this:

"Take care of the people you love

without expecting
a reward

for being a giving and
caring person.

Otherwise you will end
up being in your big,
beautiful house

alone.

Unknowingly homeless."

Aw, I’m so sorry, Lili. I’m so sorry you’re famous and that people look up to you and adore you. That’s actually so terrible that you have a big and beautiful house and so many fans but they don't really know you. 😢😢😢😢



All of the poems read like unfinished drafts. Like someone decided to publish the stuff inside Lili Reinhart’s iPhone Notes app. All of them need editing and refining. Most of the poems don’t have a purpose. To me, they feel unintentional and forgettable. And I’m not angry at Lili Reinhart because who allowed her to publish this? Who do I have to speak to?



Did the Riverdale writers put you up to this? Did they tell you this is good writing? Don’t trust them, Lili. They don’t know what they’re talking about.

They also get to be extremely repetitive. After about 60 pages, I felt like I was reading the same poem over and over again. I could tell that she was writing from one experience for multiple poems but MA’AM switch up the formatting or the style or the point of view❗️ANYTHING❗️



In conclusion, I absolutely hated this. I’m disappointed. I’m hurt. I will never read a celebrity poetry book again. Sorry for this review, Lili Reinhart, but please stick to acting.

[Alice-Elizabeth (Prolific Reader Alice) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listened to the audiobook via BookBeat UK!

Hands down one of the best poetry collections I’ve ever read. It was simply stunning! If you are looking for a relatable poet who writes about adolescent life, anxiety and depression or making decisions that could cause joy or heartbreak, look no further. I’m so excited to purchase a copy and annotate it for myself :)

(This is the first review I’ve written in over 6 months, I’m scared to come back.) XD

[disco · Rating 3 out of 5]

I stopped taking
photos of sunsets
a long time ago.

I can never
capture its colours.

The same goes
for you.

[Soha Ashraf · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the doodling figures more than the poems written inside the book.

[Birdy Hodges · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ll be honest when I say I finished this book out of spite. I’m so sick of this new trend in poetry wherein it’s half stream of consciousness and half tumblr motivation quotes. I read this first page and knew that I’d be returning this book tomorrow.

[Leslea · Rating 1 out of 5]

0.5. This is not poetry. These are sad sentences with line breaks. Honestly, if any ~famous~ person can write sentences and call it poetry, please call me Maya Angelou.

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honest - raw - amazing - poems that will remind you that the heart is a cup filled with pain and pleasure - illustrations mesh very well.

[Justine · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Lili Reinhart, and I think it's wonderful that she writes poetry for herself. But this didn't need to be published.

[fantine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Petition to rearrange the alphabet so I no longer have to shelve this insipid celebrity diary next to Sylvia Plath

[Ecem Yücel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe publishers should stop publishing so-called poetry books just because their writers are popular on social media with thousands of followers or have their own fan base due to being an actress, youtuber, singer, etc. Almost every new poetry book I check out is full of cliché motivational poster slogans and this one doesn't really separate itself from them. In my opinion, a poem should have some substance, some depth. It should have an idea, a story, an emotion, a picture frozen in a moment. Unfortunately, only 4-5 of these poems have something similar to that substance, emotions that are coming from a level deeper than the surface. Others are just some sentences broken down in every 2-3 words, with superficial feelings and cliché, repetitive words. Some poems also felt like if the writer didn't finish them on the 3rd or 4th line and elaborated a bit, they could get some depth and turn out much better.

Sorry to give such a low rating. But being popular doesn't automatically make you a good poet.

[anne larouche · Rating 2 out of 5]

Outre un ou deux poèmes qui ne portaient pas sur l’amour c’était qssez nian nian… dans la lignée de rupi kaur mais sans la variété de thèmes

[fer bañuelos · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pesar de que no soy fan total de Riverdale siempre sentí esta conexión especial con Lili, supongo que es porque ambos somos virgo y siento que tenemos personalidades similares.

Swimming Lessons es un poemario como los que ya estoy acostumbrado a leer. Habla sobre el desamor, y su contraparte, la ansiedad, la autoestima y otros temas con los cuáles me puedo identificar. Tienen un estilo sencillo, demasiado diría en ocasiones, pero en general logré conectar con lo que Lili trató de decir.

Desde la introducción puedo ver que Lili tiene un genuino apreció hacía la poesía y de hecho leí una reseña que decía que "en las páginas se notaba que tiene corazón de poeta" y y estoy muy de acuerdo, pero algo que si puedo decir que es creo que hubieron ocasiones donde las palabras llegabana a quedarse un poquito cortas a mi gusto. Siento que pudo haber dejado unos cuantos golpes más fuertes en los poemas para darles ese extra, pero también creo que si continúa escribiendo esto seguirá mejorando.

Definitivamente leería otra cosa de Lili, porque sin conocerla puedo leer el amor que le tiene a las palabras, y eso es algo que siempre voy a admirar.

[Yoda · Rating 4 out of 5]

It´s a lovely first poetry book. It reads like an authors first book but there is potential for more depth. I´m definitely going to read the next one.

[katelyn ❀ · Rating 2 out of 5]

liked it about as much as the riverdale scripts

[Shawna Finnigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

CW// mentions of death, mentions of cheating, mentions of depression, mentions of anxiety

“This is how I know
I love you so much,
Whenever I see something
beautiful, I want you to
see it, too.”

I’m not the biggest poetry fan, so I was a little nervous to read this one but I wanted to give it a try to support Lili Reinhart. Luckily I found Swimming Lessons to be a fairly solid poetry collection that I mostly enjoyed. The way that Lili writes about love and heartbreak is so spot on and beautiful.

[Lia Strange · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me gustó, soy muy crítica cuando actores o modelos escriben, pero me sentí muy identificada con tantas cosas pero mí favorita fue
"The sun on my face doesn’t feel  
warm or soft."

[not my high · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF

it's cute
it's wholesome
but is it something new? poetic? linguistically-rich-well-written-poetic-or-JUST NOT "literally everyone has this thoughts like everyday and printing them on paper doesn't make them any smarter and meaningful"

or it's just me

[Malcolm · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wouldn't have read this if it hadn't been a gift. It gives me serious "rupi kaur knockoff" vibes, and it honestly feels like the publisher is capitalizing on trends to make a quick buck. It seems like a publicity stunt or cash grab because of the author’s acting fame, although I’m not familiar with her work—a vanity project rather than a heart project. It features all the staples of Instagram poetry:

• Teenage-journal-entry-style poems that often include the phrase “I love you” and the words “heart,” “sunset,” and “flowers”
• One sentence broken into individual lines with no variety in the form or language
• Identical platitudes about how we should live life to its fullest and about how bad breakups are hard
• Trite imagery and metaphors, like comparing heartbreak to a festering wound
• No titles, just an author signature
• Simple line illustrations (although these were drawn by someone other than the author and had all the creativity of stock images)

An example:

I want you
in every shade
that you come in.

All the good

and all the bad.

And another:

how can it be love

if you don’t fear
the loss of them.

Swimming Lessons shares the same emotional immaturity of Amanda Lovelace, Cyrus Parker, and yes, rupi kaur’s poetry with its Instagram aesthetic that’s easy to read but ultimately shallow. It is poetry written by and for people who have probably never read a contemporary poetry collection beyond rupi kaur, with the type of forced maturity that tries to mask the lack of depth in the poems themselves. For example, half of the unimaginative illustrations are of naked people—and I have zero problem with nudity—but I didn’t feel much sensuality in the poems themselves. There’s also a well-placed “fuck” here and there that adds to that feeling of manufactured maturity.

For me, the constant expression of “I love you” in a poem (that’s not directed toward me) rings hollow because it’s become a cliché in our general expressions of love. The purpose of poetry, to some degree, is to paint the familiar in an unfamiliar light, to convey the universal in the specific. Like other young contemporary poets, the author sacrifices the personal for the universal, which makes the poems forgettable, more like inspirational wall decor you'd find at Hobby Lobby rather than individualized art. There’s an absence of specificity, of unique imagery, of profound insights that feel homegrown rather than prepackaged.

The strongest sections of this collection were the descriptions of the author’s depressive episodes. Those felt the most raw and honest, and I suspect they were the ones that drew the most from her own experiences. I highlighted the poems on pages 109, 128, 154, and 155. Here’s an excerpt from one poem that talks about how we can mean to love “forever” in the moment, but we never truly mean it:

You couldn’t have fathomed an end
when you were with them,

and now you can’t imagine a world
in which they’re still there.

Our forevers are so fleeting

they almost mean nothing

And here, where the author describes being transported into a captured moment of stillness in her past and reflects on how we forget so many of those small moments in life:

The sound outside aligned me with
a former version of myself.
And I suddenly felt the gravity
of my being.

I might not have judged this collection so harshly if the poet had been a teenager, but the author is only a few years younger than I am. I’m sure she was well-intentioned and earnest in creating this collection, but I’m certainly not the target audience for it. I think preteen readers would relate to these poems. In fact, I can imagine my younger self sneaking this book off to my room to read it, back when sex and drinking felt more taboo, and I wanted to sample what life could be like for my "adult" self.

Also, as a general thought: if you have to work to earn someone's love and they hesitate to love you back, that is never a positive sign. Deep, fulfilling love is reciprocal and the easiest thing in the world.

Ugh, I've become a total poetry snob. For a poetry collection that achieves what Instagram poets aspire to achieve but fall short of, try My Wicked Wicked Ways by Sandra Cisneros.

These poetry books at the
library sit there like
pretentious little fucks

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeah that was rather mediocre, like always when a celebrity decides to publish something deep. I understand that this comes from a deep place of heartbreak but as someone thats kinda cynic recently I could not really connect to these poems.

Also, I’m always kinda disappointed when poems don’t rhyme. If it doesn’t rhyme, where’s the art? Feels like semi-deep shit someone is screaming into the orbit.

It was more okay than good but Reinhart has a nice voice so imma give the audiobook 3 stars.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
This definitely met my expectations. Absolutely loved it.

Definitely not a celebrity trying to become author, this was real and true. You could tell it was written by someone who is actually passionate about poetry.

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars for Swimming Lessons (audiobook) by Lili Reinhart read by the author.

This is a touching look into the author’s life. In these poems Lili is finding love and battling depression and anxiety. She is dealing with fame and heartbreak that comes from her passion. I’m really looking forward to reading more from her.

[Stay Fetters · Rating 4 out of 5]

"And this vengeful part of me wants to hurt you before you can ever hurt me again."

Lili digs deep and speaks from her soul with so much emotion that you can’t help but feel this all throughout yourself. Her words are beautiful. She puts power behind her words to pick you back up after you fall.

Swimming Lessons made feel that there’s a rainbow at the end of the dark tunnel. All we have to do is reach out and grab it.

[le.lyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Das Buch hat innen so schöne Illustrationen und auch das Cover ist wunderschön💖“Swimming Lessons“ ist zweisprachig aufgebaut - man hat also auf einer Seite immer das englische Original und die deutsche Übersetzung (das mochte ich sehr)
Das Buch hat wirklich schöne Gedichte über die Liebe, Liebeskummer, Verlust und Depressionen.
Die Gedichte sind aber nicht sortiert. Auf der einen Seite liest du ein Gedicht über das Verliebtsein und auf der anderen Seite über Depressionen🫠