Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, the #1 New York Times bestselling poetry novel, is all the internet can talk about. You’ve probably seen it featured in an aesthetically pleasing Instagram post alongside a latte and a pair of sunglasses.

The book focuses on violence, love, loss, abuse, and femininity and is broken up into four chapters, each covering a certain significant stage in Kaur’s life: The Hurting, The Loving, The Breaking, and The Healing.  From the first page of Milk and Honey, it is clear that Kaur is very passionate about female empowerment; she starts off the book with the grave topic of abuse against women.  As a child, Kaur was abused by various men in her life and was taught to keep her mouth shut.

“My father shoves the word hush between [my mother’s] lips and tells her to never speak with her mouth full this is how the women in my family learned to live with their mouths closed,” said Kaur in the book.

Because of her father, Kaur was taught that men were more powerful than women, which ultimately affected her self-confidence when finding love.  In the book she explains that early in her life she went along with the gender roles that she had grown up with and settled for men who treated her like an object. It wasn’t until she met men who respected her that she fully

understood the value of women.

It is because of these powerful themes that Milk and Honey has widespread popularity.

It has been translated into 30 different languages and sold 1.5 million copies.  Not only was

Kaur’s book on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year, but she has also become a social media star.

Her image as a feminist icon on social media arose in 2015, when she posted a series of photos challenging the taboo on menstruation. When Instagram banned a photo of her lying on a bed with bloodstained sheets, Kaur’s population skyrocketed, and the event sparked an uproar among other bloggers and photographers.

Students who cannot get enough of Rupi Kaur’s poetry are eagerly anticipating the release of her second collection of poetry, The Sun and her Flowers. It is currently available for pre-order and will be released on Oct 3.

Despite the controversy over Milk and Honey, it is undoubtedly a work that resonates with a wide variety of readers.