Sometimes I Fall Asleep Thinking About You

by Catarine Hancock

A look into the process of recovering after a particularly bad love, this is a collection of poetry on the feeling of never getting closure, that lingering longing you still get even when you know you shouldn't, and how it feels to finally be able to say, "I have let you go," after years of struggling to find the words.

Genres: Poetry, Adult, Contemporary, Nonfiction

162 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 1, 2025

About the author

Catarine Hancock is a 25-year-old poet, author and opera singer from Lexington, Kentucky, currently living in Chicago. She holds a bachelor of music in vocal performance from the University of Kentucky and a master of music in voice from Indiana University.

Aside from music, writing is her other great love. Having been a bookworm and writer all her life, her passion for poetry began at the age of 13, and shortly afterward, she began sharing her writing online. Over the past 11 years, her platform has grown to an audience of over 300,000. She is the author of five poetry collections: "shades of lovers" (2020), "sometimes i fall asleep thinking about you" (2021), and "i gave myself the world" (2023), all published with Central Avenue Publishing. Her self-published collections are "sprout: selected poems" (2022) and "holy ground" (2023). Her next poetry collection is slated to release with Central Avenue in 2025, and her debut fantasy romance novel, "Curse of Stolen Flame," will release in fall 2024.

When she is not singing or writing, Catarine can be found curled up with a good fantasy novel, wandering the aisles of the local bookstore, or adding a weird décor item she found at the Goodwill to her already too-cluttered apartment. You can find her on Instagram or TikTok at: @catarinehancock

Reviews

[Catarine · Rating 5 out of 5]

My fourth book baby ❤️ So many tears were shed while writing this one, but I am proud of myself for creating it.

[trishla ⚡ | YourLocalBookReader · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 star.

UPDATE. After reading this book I was made aware of some problematic things the author has done, such as using slurs, calling Trans people "in-betweens", islamophobia, comparing her struggles as a hetero person to those of LGBTQA+ folks. See the receipts here.

THE TEA

"when they leave you, do not forget that you are still here. even if part of you went with them, you are still here."

There's something about poetry from the heart that just brings out a visceral reaction in me. I find it to be so beautiful, so moving and this book was no exception. I think we can all relate to the feeling of wanting closure so badly but knowing that we'll likely never get it. Or, worse, never get any satisfying version of it. There are just human shaped demons out there that will hurt you and walk away without one concern. and years later when you're lying in bed thinking about it, they'll be sleeping soundly.

Doesn't seem fair right? yeah I thought so too. I had my own version of this longing, and the only healing (as the author and I agree on) is slowly allowing yourself to move on, and come to peace with yourself and the fact that you may never get it. The author does a great job at showing and FEELING all the emotions and translating them beautifully to paper.

Find me on: instagram

The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

[Mikky · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oof. This book was already going to get an unpleasant review from me all by itself, but imagine my surprise when I find these reviews (Shealea's review & Trishla's review) mentioning another book by this author where she uses slurs, calls Trans people "in-betweens", islamophobia, compares her struggles as a heterosexual person to the people in the LGBTQ+ community.

After reading that I'm just done. The poems in this book aren't amazing. Some were okay. Most were just plain boring to read and long winded. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

[Elsa Gomes (BookishAurora) · Rating 4 out of 5]

➳ Rate:  4,5/ 5 stars

Wow this collection was so raw and honest!! I can’t really relate to that kind of heartbreak but the poems still managed to touch me deep down to my core.

Reading it was a beautiful, gutting and powerful journey! I loved reaching the end and seeing how much Catarine had overcome and realized. It was great to see her evolution just throughout this collection.

➳E-ARC kindly provided by the author, in exchange for an honest review.

➳ Order at: Amazon US

➳ Follow me on: Instagram ⁕ Facebook ⁕ Twitter

[W. Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was my first time reading catarine’s words within a collection. i respect this author, however, this collection just didn’t land softly with me. unfortunately i found many of her pieces to be long and drawn out (for one piece) and because of that, i found myself repeatedly putting the book down to give myself a breather. there aren’t really any sections to this book (which isn’t a bad thing at all) but some of the poems felt very repetitive and just completely drawing out the reading experience. perhaps i’ll try this collection again one day but for now, this just wasn’t my cup of tea.

[Brittany waggingwithwords · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes I fall asleep thinking about you is the poetry book I desperately needed in high school in college. Every raw, real, painful word that Catarine writes reminded me of a relationship with an ex in my late teens. It was toxic and painful and destroyed who I used to be. If I had had this book back then, I think it would’ve helped me get through a darker time in my life.⁣
⁣
This was raw and real and truly resonated with me. I am 31 and married now but “the worst heartbreaks will stay with you for years but they protect you the whole time.” This line couldn’t be more true to my life from age 17 to now. ⁣
⁣
Thank you so much @centralavenuepublishing for an ARC for my honest review. This was truly beautiful.⁣
⁣
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣
#bookstagram #poetry #sometimesifallasleepthinkingofyou

[Kirsten · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was bad, really bad, did not enjoy this at all. When I started reading these poems I really liked the first few. I really felt her emotions and the struggles she had gone through. But the poems were missing something. They left nothing to wonder about, they were very simplistic. And after five poems it became repetitive, very repetitive. It felt to me like it were just the same five poems over and over again. There was no uniqueness to it anymore. For instance, she mentioned every few poems that she knew this boy was gonna read these poems.

It also did not feel like poetry to me. It felt like she just wrote some sentences and chopped them into smaller sections and formatted them into a poem.

After this I also read a few reviews of her earlier work, which often state the same issues, but also something more worrying. In earlier works, she had some poems that were quite problematic. Think about LGBTQ+ related poems that were meant to be positive but they were quite problematic. So I also decided to not give her earlier work a chance.

[Steff · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

The first few poems in this were good, simplistic but good. After that, this book just dragged out the same few poems in different ways.

I think I really struggle with the fact that the author makes reference a few times to the fact that she knows her ex will read these poems. If you know that the subject of your poetry is going to read the work, maybe a conversation between you both is going to be a better way to get closure than to write pseudo angry poetry aimed at him?

I also find it sort of weird that she's still writing about the break up five years later. It doesn't feel like she's over it at all, and at points I was honestly convinced that she is still in love with him.

I went into this knowing the poems were about looking for closure. I thought, given the blurb, that the author was going to be able to say 'I have finally let you go', by the end of it, but it doesn't read that way at all. I actually find it a little disturbing.

[summer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lackluster — romanticized toxicity.

[Riley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow... this was something that I thought wouldn’t be so much as relatable to me but beautiful to read. The beauty of the authors thoughts that shown through each word as well as the emotions that you could feel from the poems was amazing. I’ve never had a love that has crushed me but some of the poems reminded me of another person in my life which made certain things difficult to read. This was gorgeous and I sincerely recommend. I did only give it three stars because I personally could not relate but rather appreciated the honesty of the author. I will definitely pick this up in the future again because there are some poems that are still engraved in my mind.

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

sometimes i fall asleep thinking about you touched me to the deepest core of my heart. It has been a very long time (or perhaps the first time) that a poetry book could touch me like that. It really made me emotional and feel the pain through the words, and I think that’s really special. The words hit so hard, which makes it painful but beautiful all at once.
This is definitely one of my new favorite poetry books!

Here is one of my favorite poems:
SELF-REFLECTION:
i wanted us to work so badly because you made me into the worst
version of myself. and i wanted that to be worth it.
i needed it to be.

Thank you to NetGalley and Central Avenue Publishing for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Aida ☾ · Rating 3 out of 5]

i enjoyed this a lot more than i thought i would. and i felt seen in a way i rarely find in poetry. the mixed style between verse and stream of consciousness was very interesting and it made it a lot more accesible. it felt like i was reading someone's diary and got to really connect to what the author was saying.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow that was depressing and made me slightly existential. Enjoyed the flow and writing.

[Delphine · Rating 1 out of 5]

CW toxic relationship, cheating.

[Charley]

‘Sometimes I Fall Asleep Thinking About You’ -Catarine Hancock
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
⚠️ Emotional and physical abuse, violence, blood, death and firearm misuse⚠️

“I never felt more lost than when I made a home out of you.”

Breakups. We’ve all had them. When you love so deeply and passionately that amidst an in-amicable breakup, you convince yourself that the damage inflicted upon your heart is indefinitely irreparable. (It never is, but no one could convince you to the contrary at that particular moment in time.)

In this series of poems, the author unleashes her resentment and fury for dedicating her time to someone who inevitably, wasn’t worth it. Humans, the world over, can relate to this content and although at times it is repetitive and indulgent, it conveys an authentic stream of consciousness relating to heartbreak and disappointment in the wake of parting ways with someone you once loved.

The intense emotional turmoil described is visceral, the anguish bleeds through the pages from the first to last. It is consistently vulnerable and raw. The handwritten prose added added a aesthetically stunning personal touch.

Coming Soon!
Publication Day: April 6th 2021

Thank you to NetGalley and Central Avenue Publishing for this eARC.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent poetry collection. You can definitely feel the pain and anguish of the poet, and some of the metaphors and description were very powerful. However, I did find many poems to be repetitive, and didn't bring anything new to the themes , and the collection became very stagnant. It's so hard to critique poetry because of how personal it is, and there are even a few poems where the poet acknowledges that she is writing about the same thing, the same person, over and over and over again. This is a part of her healing and acknowledgement of her pain and her trauma, which I greatly respect. However, about halfway through the collection I felt like I was waiting for some progression, something new, and I never got it.

My favourite poems in the collection:
- flatline
- breaking down
- when did we really start to fall apart?
- when they say you've grown
- who am i kidding?
- cold
- bloodlust
- that works too
- after you wished me a happy birthday on facebook
- burn
- small-mouthed love
- threadbare

[SassyBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

4/5 stars

sometimes i fall asleep thinking about you, is a book about grief of love, losing love, getting over a bad relationship. If you've ever been through somewhat similar, this book either may be triggering for you (see my trigger warnings at the end) or very suitable for you.

Hancock is known on Tiktok and Instagram, however I've never seen her proze and poetry before. I have got to admit I felt very closely connected to her personal stories. It was raw and open and I connected. The cover is stunning, I liked some of the art/scribbles in the book, it was not too much and just right for me.

TW: mentions of emotional and physical abuse, blood, guns and death

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I was given an ARC courtesy of NetGalley.

I was hesitant to pick up this book today, but I'm really glad I did. There is such a raw, unflinching acknowledgement of what happened and it is beautiful.

This book deals with heartbreak, loss, grief and the path to find acceptance.

This is my first experience with this author and I'm looking forward to reading more. I did find it getting a little repetitive about half way through - but it added another layer to the honesty. Haven't we all felt this way before, when you're clawing your way out of an experience?

I rate this book 4 stars because of the touch of repetition, but definitely recommend picking this up!

[Valérie Montour · Rating 4 out of 5]

« There’s not a rational part of me
that still loves you, but I think my fingertips
still do. they reach in your direction
whenever we find ourselves in the same room. »

Not my favorite from Catarine, simply because it was a whole book on one subject and her others were diversified. But, I did experience a toxic relationship, so I related to this a lot and I just wished I read it sooner in my healing process. Her poetry inspires mine a lot, and whenever I need to write again, I go back to her. I feel like her books are shifting styles and I cannot wait to read the next ones I ordered. 8/10

[Danah Slade · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just read the first half in the bookstore. DNF! Could NOT finish! Did NOT buy! Thought it must be a great book if it's stocked more than any other poetry book. Wrong. This poetry was really missing something. A lot of words for not saying anything original or even interesting. Barely any stylistic featured used. I love a good emotional poem, simple and short can be great. I can respect a cliché poem if it's written well enough but this didn't even hit the mark for that. I don't often leave bad reviews on my books, mainly because I sample and research them prior to buying them and committing too much time. But here you go, a book I did not like.

[sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Before I read this I read the other reviews describing the things the author has said about the LGBT+ community, which left a sour taste in my mouth while reading the rest of the book. But tbh even if I didn’t read those reviews I still would’ve given this 2 stars....I almost felt weird reading the poems, like I was invading someone’s privacy. the poems read like repetitive diary entries or letters to the person the author is writing about. 2 stars for the (very) few lines I thought were impactful, but overall....not worth it.

[Melissa Melfessity · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think if I met this author , looking into her eyes would feel like looking into a mirror. Ive never read a book before where every single word felt like it was pouring out of my wounds onto the page instead of it being just words on a page I relate to. This read and rating and review is honestly so biased and personal and im not even sorry about it. Because i feel seen. Thank you Catarine.

[thatbookwormgirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

TW: mention of emotionally abusive relationship. This poetry was raw and very moving. I can relate to a lot of the poems in this book. There were some of them that I feel could have been edited down some, but I understand that this was to cope. I write poetry to cope as well. I understand that every word has meaning. I would recommend this author for poetry to read after a rough breakup.

[Mary Rose · Rating 1 out of 5]

A collection of chicken scratches masquerading as poetry but without any semblance of poetics, insight, vision, or wisdom.

[Michelle M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I FEEL ATTACKED! LIKE THIS POETRY LOOKED DEEP INTO MY SOUL AND SPOKE TO ME. BOTH PERSONALLY AND CREATIVELY. THIS IS UP THERE FOR THE BEST POETRY I’VE EVER READ. FIVE FUCKING STARS!!!

[Abby · Rating 1 out of 5]

These poems were absolutely not for me. While I can sympathize with the author for the harshness of her relationship, I cannot say that these poems were good.

Writing
The opening poem was cliche, there were lines I had seen used numerous times before, but often, those uses were better. This is odd to say for a poetry collection, but I wish the poems were actually poetic. There was no descriptive or flowery language that is central to a poem. Adding line breaks every few words does not make regular sentences poetry. I honestly believe that these shouldn't have been poems at all. I think this would be much more successful and well-done if the line breaks were removed and these were formatted as letters because they read more like letters than poetry.

When the author does try and be more "poetic" it feels stiff and unpracticed. These stories were all telling and no showing, which made them feel banal. Sadly, I think my favorite part of the story was the title.

The Author
Before reading/requesting this book, I was completely unaware of who the author was, and I definitely should have done my research, as I would have known to avoid this book. I saw that they had written other works, and when I read a review of one, I was severely disappointed. I will link a review I saw here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..., but for the most part, the author has written very problematic works, including the use of slurs, which I absolutely do not condone. Just a heads up if anyone is thinking of checking them out, there is much better poetry out there from people who don't say slurs. :))

Disclosure: I received a copy of this from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

[Ariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off, I don't think it's fair to automatically 1 star this based on her first book. Her intentions weren't malicious as far as I'm aware (I've only read a handful of poems from that book) and she was a teenager when she wrote that for crying out loud. Generally at that age, your awareness of social issues and how best to approach them is not going to be very profound or nuanced. Even if she wasn't a teen when she wrote it, I think it's ridiculous to cancel her outright for some politically incorrect mistakes. Her intentions were only to be supportive and the issues people are cancelling her for are very easy to learn from and grow. Now if she had been blatantly racist or malicious, for example, then I can understand not wanting to support her at all as those are much more serious and more deeply rooted issues. But the issues people are pointing out here seem to largely be superficial ones of naivety and ignorance. Her execution may not have been all there, but she honestly had good intentions to be an ally and to highlight important issues. I don't think it's fair to punish her for trying and I don't think it's fair to not give her a second chance to redeem herself by automatically 1-starring her other books.

The cancel culture against this author is a shame because I actually thought this was a fairly decent book. Compared to Lang Leav, who is the last modern poetry author I read, this book has much more substance and depth and wasn't cheesy at all. I think it's a good example of what modern poetry should be; simple and accessible, but not devoid of substance.

That being said, I only rated it 3 stars because while I appreciated the quality of the writing and could tell the author had put a level of care and effort into it that other modern poetry authors don't quite seem to afford their projects, none of the poems really blew me away. I reserve my 4 stars for books that really move me and make a lasting impression on me. While I did appreciate the longer length of her poems as it showed me she was a genuine writer and that this wasn't just another cash grab of publishing a collection of 1-word sentences and calling it poetry because it looks aesthetic. Nevertheless, there is something to be said for succinctness and I found myself wishing she would have cut down some of her poems to really get to the heart of them and bring out their best, rather than bogging them down with length. There were just a few too many long poems for my liking.

As for the content, I will say it was a little weird to read how hung up she still is on this guy after 5 years. At first, I began to react to it the same way I did to Whitney Hanson's Home and felt the author could probably use some serious therapy too if she's still constantly thinking about him, especially when she's already in a new, healthy relationship. It was weird to read about what effectively seemed like emotional cheating. But then when the author began acknowledging the fact that she knew she shouldn't still be thinking about him after all this time, that self-awareness helped put things in perspective and started to change things for me from a girl overly obsessed with her ex to a girl who's been severely heartbroken and is still struggling to get over it despite her best intentions.

I can't say I relate to the situation, so I suppose that had something to do with why I didn't immediately understand her not being able to forget about him. But then in "some thoughts from the hyatt in louisville" when she wrote, "you could have been the love of my life. you could have held my hand onto glass elevators for the next fifty years," it put things in better perspective for me. This wasn't just some guy things didn't work out with. She legit thought he was the one for a moment and was deeply hurt by him. And it made me realize that her relationship/breakup with him must've been deeply traumatic for her, which is something I didn't quite immediately discern that from her earlier poems. I mean, I understood he hurt her badly, but I didn't quite realize just how deeply. So even though after that poem it was initially still slightly weird to see her keep writing about him and even acknowledging that he wasn't the one and that it was the right thing for their relationship to end, I didn't immediately understand why she kept thinking about him so much. But everyone's life experiences and perspective are different, so I tried to step out of my shoes a little bit and thought about how if her trauma had instead been an unstable upbringing, it would only natural for something like that to deeply impact your life and for you to regularly think about it years later and to never be able to forget about it. So assuming it was some sort of trauma for her, then it kind of makes some sense to me. Although, as other reviewers have noted, though she ends the book claiming to have healed and let him go, it sounds really forced and doesn't come across as true at all. It feels like that poem was included for the sake of providing a conclusion to the narrative, but it felt fictitious. Which is totally fine, maybe all the poems are fiction, but the transition to this so-called healing just wasn't there so this claimed seemed a lot to swallow. I was not at all convinced that she had let him go. It seemed quite the opposite.

So all in all, despite the initial similarities to Whitney Hanson's Home in terms of the narrative, I much preferred this book because of it's self awareness which helped me to understand and relate to a perspective I otherwise wouldn't have. By contrast Whitney Hanson's Home, lacked this self awareness, although I DNF'd at about 30% so perhaps that changes later on. Even though I didn't even make it to halfway of that book, the poems were too hyperfocused on the same person and came across as clinically obsessed and I just couldn't keep reading partly because of that as it was just so weird to me and frankly made for a rather repetitive read. Catarine Hancock's sometimes i fall asleep thinking about you works better because there's more narrative distance to them and they're not quite telling a linear story, so that helps cut through the fact that these poems are all about the same person while simultaneously directing the spotlight away from that and towards the emotional resonance of the poems. Basically, it's less about all the ways she's constantly thinking about her ex and more about all the ways she was affected and is still affected by him and that variability makes a huge difference.

I really wasn't a fan of the way the handwritten poems looked though. I guess I liked the break up between all the text, but as pseudo-illustrations they just didn't work for me at all. They detracted from the book and made it seem like it was trying too hard to add an illustrative element like Rupi Kaur, but settling for this because she's not an illustrator? In theory the idea is fine to me, but the way it was executed didn't do anything for me. It lacked interesting stylization and didn't come across as aesthetic at all.

TL;DR: I don't really know why Catarine Hancock isn't more popular, whether it's just a publicity/marketing thing or because people are cancelling her for her first book. Either way, it's a shame because she is one of the stronger modern poets out there.

[Ebby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a sucker for a good poetry book. And this one made me cry so hard cause it’s so relatable right now.

[Valeria · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Leah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This poetry is nothing like the pitch for this book. It is not about not getting closure or about healing (although there is some healing by the end). It's about working out the anger and frustration of being treated unfairly and abusively by a man you love.

It reads like the poetry you scribble in your tear-stained notebook when you're wine drunk at 2am after a bad breakup or the death of a friend, or some other loss, especially at a young age when you don't have much loss behind you. I have no doubt that writing this poetry helped the author process a very significant event in her life, and I applaud for doing that work. In a lot of ways, it is relatable. I think many people can point out a time in their lives when their feelings were all over the place and it took every ounce of energy not to think about someone who did you wrong who is now gone and you are left on your own to process. But this poetry does not add insight into that. But I will say that the structure of this work does match the content: grief is messy and disorganized, and so are these poems.

What I had hoped to see here was creative use of metaphor to give perspective to intangible experiences, enlightening introspection into intense emotions, purposeful healing that models how to move forward from a lost relationship. What I got was raw and shallow grief, awkward repetition, and poems that shifted perspective and structure halfway through. There is a progression from hurt to healing, and by the end, the author is clearly in a more empowered place, but it also feels like a false sense of closure. In "if you made it this far," she talks about how many times in the last five years she has sworn this boy off and how she is really, definitely, very done this time because she is just so tired. But there is just not much there to support why things are different this time. The hurt is real, and for her sake, I hope she can move on, and that getting this book out there felt cathartic and helpful for her.

I also did not look too much into who the author was before I opened this book, so I want to boost this review.

Even though this book was not for me, I greatly appreciate the eARC from Central Avenue Publishing and NetGalley.