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Film for Her

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With both pen and camera lens, Orion Carloto captures the dreamlike beauty of memory.

Film for Her is a story book of people, places, and memories captured on film. Through photographs, poetry, prose, and a short story, Orion Carloto invites readers to remember the forgotten and reach into the past, find comfort in the present, and make sense of the intangible future. Film photography isn’t just eye candy; it’s timeless and romantic—the ideal complement to Carloto’s writing. In Film for Her , much like a visual diary, word and image are intertwined in a book perfect for both gift and self-purchase.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published November 17, 2020

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Orion Carloto

2 books2,249 followers

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5 stars
2,354 (29%)
4 stars
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3 stars
2,037 (25%)
2 stars
798 (10%)
1 star
233 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,344 reviews
Profile Image for Michelle Curie.
1,084 reviews456 followers
November 30, 2020
I believe that every poem deserves to be written – it's such a personal form of expression, how could someone be taken from the right to form feelings out of words, to their own benefit? When it comes to publishing poetry, however, that's a whole different matter. Which poems will have merit to people from outside your own four walls?



Film for Her is Orion Carloto's second poetry publication, a girl living in Los Angeles whom I have never heard of before picking this volume up. What intrigued me was the set-up: Carloto wanted to write about the in-between moments, not the highs and lows, but but the quiet seconds that end up meaning so much to us. An intriguing endeavour.



The poems confused me. I just couldn't connect with them at all. I couldn't find a flow in them, reading them out loud made me stumble and stutter. What a found instead were themes I thought of as very self-indulgent. It's like Carloto decided she was going to be a poet and then begun living and interpreting life accordingly.

"These people here bore me;
I don't care much for
empty conversation
blanketed with narcissism."


There's a lot of suffering in here, she writes about self-doubt and fighting with self-hatred, she romanticises past relationships and daydreams about new ones. All of this is fine, I guess, yet I felt her way words were as mundane as the themes she chose to write about. Writing about the every day only becomes intriguing once you display it in a new light, not when you write about it in an equally every day manner.

"I crave a bond so mad,
devoted to consumption,
aching delicately with joy,
engulfed in a cocoon of miracles
where we lie together
at the edge of desire."


What I did like were the visuals accompanying the poems. The book itself is lovely to hold and lovely to look at. Apparently, film photography is Carloto's second passion next to writing and I enjoyed the spontaneous and quiet photographs. I feel like I don't have the right to judge writing that. am aware means a lot to the writer, so I'll leave it by saying that this wasn't for me.
Profile Image for N.
123 reviews
October 26, 2020
(2.5)This just wasn’t for me. I liked some of the poems and prose in the beginning but found myself losing interest as I read on. There wasn’t much that I found relatable, some parts just reeked of privilege, money and the influencer life which personally isn’t interesting to me at all. This book just seems to have been written/put together for her fans who adore the type of aesthetic she sells on her social media platforms. Most of it just felt like a pretty instagram/tumblr page with poems and prose that often try too hard and at times become incomprehensible.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.
Profile Image for kennedie.
31 reviews45 followers
February 10, 2021
this was so.. boring. orion girl i love u so much but this book just felt like reading tumblr poetry from 2013 and not the good kind
Profile Image for Megan.
24 reviews71 followers
January 14, 2021
Give a narcissist a book deal, and this is the trash she'll create. I've never read anything more trite and self-absorbed than this. I couldn't even finish it. I think this girl should stick to modeling because she CANNOT write.
Profile Image for Malena.
102 reviews1 follower
September 25, 2021
If this book was published in 2014, Tumblr would’ve ate this up. This is the love child between Rupi Kaur and Halsey’s poetry. A few standout lines, but I found the photos much more beautiful than the words. Something about this didn’t feel entirely genuine…maybe I’m just turned off by people who romanticize the trauma? Idk. It almost felt as if she was writing poems how she thought she was supposed to be write them…some of the phrasing seemed incredibly familiar, but not in a personal way…it’s always easier to critique than to create, but this didn’t do it for me. Glad I read it though! Learning what you don’t like is just as important as learning what you do.
Profile Image for Meghan Hughes.
156 reviews2,257 followers
December 21, 2020
Another book finished from a dear friend & I’m feeling so satisfied with reading this moment in time of her life journey. I honestly loved this just as much as I did Orion’s first poetry collection “Flux” if not more. I felt as though her vocabulary & writing style grew more ripe with age & it really showed in this book. Orion has a very specific & well-crafted aesthetic that was really depicted nicely in this collection. I loved her inclusion of film photography because she is insanely talented at curating what shots to include. Comparing this to other poetry collections I’ve read with photography included, this was very well done & I always felt like the photos made sense, were intriguing to look at, & not just used as placeholder images to flip through. I will say, I enjoyed the first half of this book a bit more than the end. I normally dog-ear my favorite pages & most of the dog-eared bits are at the front, but there were definitely a few more towards the end that really struck me too! Just less consistently I guess. I always want to make my reviews unbiased EVEN IF the author is my friend. It has been a pleasure to read another book from Orion & I look forward to many more. This specific book made me understand not only more about Orion’s life, but also it made me admire how well she is able to capture moments through words & photos. It put into perspective how the years of her dedication to tumblr, youtube, & instagram have influenced the way she is able to share her life. From the perspective of another online creator, her raw talent is unimaginable. This book made me feel like I vacation at a French chateau during my summers eating baguettes, drinking fine wine, & dipping my tanned toes in the pool. Even aside from aesthetics, her writing showed the depths of her being & journey through heartbreak, childhood nostalgia, comparison, & much more. The themes felt relatable & well-represented & I was entertained throughout. I would recommend this to anyone as a coffee table book not only for the beautiful canvas look of it, but also because if your guests flip through it, they will be immediately captured by this collection. This was a great read to end off our year of book club with! It was our first poetry selection all year & I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did!
Profile Image for Jenin.
42 reviews
June 4, 2021
I wanted to like this soooo bad. Probably because the book itself is beautiful. The binding, the cover, the photography! Carloto has a high eye for aesthetics and this book showcases just that.

But, the poetry doesn’t make sense and is valid. The only pieces from this book I can can remember is the prose. But even that seems hollow. Where Flux was enraging with how cheesy and bad the poetry was, this is just vapid. I think Carloto tries to make everything fit her aesthetic, but when you’re writing poetry that can take away the emotional connection. Nothing about chain smoking at Paris cafes or eating fruit in Italy is personal. Or all that remarkable. Carloto is trying real hard to fit an aesthetic, but you can’t bend and mould poetry to an aesthetic and expect it to say anything meaningful. It’s lacking emotion and at times a sense.

Profile Image for Isa.
176 reviews873 followers
October 12, 2025
3.5/5 A heartfelt, personal, and raw meditation on the most mundane parts of life that can flourish into something beuatiful. Although I did find some pieces from this collection redundant, (Kaur-esque in their tumbalrian tone), much of her words resonated with me, and I appreciated her writing style a lot. She notices the sort of things I find myself noticing and recording, making my sunday evening quite a pleasurable one. It is the start of something; it is the in betweens of life. Not necessarily extraordinary, but I do not the regret the time spent reading this book, and I do believe I will find myself amongst these pages again...
Profile Image for Geoff.
994 reviews130 followers
January 22, 2021
A mix of personal poetry and photography, Film for Her is a documentation of growing up. While I liked the theme and found the photos to be really interesting (especially in the 90s indie band album cover style of composition), the poems weren't for me. A good example is 'Reflections after January':

I thought I had a dream, but it wasn't mine.
In front of me: mirage of you so cruelly lonely.
Mutilation in your expressions, mocking my gentle
attempts
to write a poem out of this

I fear this insignificance that's needled
it's way back into my frontal cortex.
A past of watching the kids eat from their silver spoons,
close enough to feel their body heat
but far enough to be teased.

Growing restless in this weary mind,
savaging what once was,
you become a figment
in the rifts of my imagination
only appearing when I close my eyes
long enough to feel my hollowness.

There's lots of emotion there, but the language is too simultaneously straightforward and vague for me to really enjoy. 2.5 stars.

**Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
Profile Image for soundousse Hayaty.
103 reviews32 followers
Read
August 7, 2022
I don't want to rate this, because it felt personal that i didn't actually treat ot like an actual memoir/poetry collection.

Giving it a bad rating will mean that i didn't love it, which wont do the tike i spent enjoying it justice.and giving it a good one will mean its good which honestly it isn't lol.
Profile Image for Ava Burzycki.
37 reviews17 followers
July 26, 2023
how can someone so dedicated to cultivating a life of literary aesthetics be so blind to her own bad writing?
Profile Image for Francheska.
41 reviews2 followers
February 5, 2021
I wanted to like this so bad but it’s just another cliche poetry book with pretty pictures attached to it for the aesthetic. Most of the poems were pretty repetitive. She is a good storyteller though and her short stories were well written and captivating, I just wish there were more of them. And by the end I just didn’t seem to care.
Profile Image for Eric.
175 reviews40 followers
February 1, 2023
A very well written, yearning and lustfully romantic sophomore poetry collection.

Carloto carries this collection with crisp and amorous imagery, with images somewhat related to the poem right next to it.

While the writing oftentimes was simple, she utilised that simplicity and used it to tell the story of her love, heartbreak, and the purity’s of adolescent longing.

I felt that some of the topics kept repeating, which at times felt redundant, but overall the book was very well told and clearly stylistically independent and grounded.

Clear strings of motifs and topics discussed and apparent in the book, though oftentimes felt overly discussed.

I liked the comfortability that Carloto had with this book, not afraid to shed the vulnerable and hardships of her life, while still being able to shine lights on the romantic and beautiful parts of life.

Strangely this book carried a weird sense of nostalgia, though I have not experienced the things Orion discusses the same way or at all. Though something about seems so beautiful and pure, like the colours you see as a kid. I enjoyed those moments.

all in all: good, romantic, though oftentimes redundant poetry collection. may pick up her other collection, Flux.
Profile Image for sophie ☾.
25 reviews124 followers
July 22, 2022
really liked the way she spoke about love and heartbreak + thought it was rlly relatable but some of her poetry was just ... bad i'm sorry
Profile Image for nysa.
163 reviews
October 29, 2021
Not to be THAT person, but does anyone know what poetry is anymore? It’s not just a few buzzwords linked together in lowercase letters- it’s prose, it’s symbolism, it’s the expression of rawness that stories sometimes can’t provide.

This book reeked of privilege, self-centeredness, and overconfidence. Stick to Youtube. Or write better.

“Oh like you could do better” I really couldn’t. But at least I’m aware of that.

I will say, the visuals in this are gorgeous. That is all though. Every other word is insufferable.
Profile Image for Ale A..
20 reviews1 follower
August 5, 2021
Just a picture in there that says “it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” ….. and she was serious.

If orion wasn’t a conventionally attractive youtuber she wouldn’t be published and if she was I think less people would find her work anything but fake deep. Just a henri Matisse - beige trouser - loafer wearing Instagram feed come to life.
Profile Image for Anna Kelly.
73 reviews15 followers
December 3, 2020
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Let me first start off by saying, I have always struggled with poetry & prose collections. I find there are individual pieces I like, but the work as a whole never resonates with me once I take my eyes away from the page. Unfortunately, the same thing happened to me with "Film For Her".

I think where Carloto shone as an author was in her longer pieces about her family and, most notably for me, her writings about her various travels. 'Maybe, I Don't Miss New York?', '5 P.M. In My Brooklyn Apartment', 'This Is Twenty-Three' and 'Amuse-Toi Bien À Paris My Dear' were my favorites because I could feel the nostalgia, in all its various forms, that she was trying to present me with.

I gave this book two stars because it didn't feel revolutionary in any way. Some pieces in the collection felt like what I would call "Instagram Poetry", aka the whole piece was a short sentence or two that was supposed to be deep but just felt cliche to me.

An example:

"And I'm on my third
cup of coffee
working overtime in my
tireless thoughts
trying to remember what
it feels like to forget"
-Internal 9 to 5


Also, in our modern social media age, the photographs, ticket stubs, postcards, and handwritten notes felt generic to me and like I could have found plenty of others just like them on Tumblr or VSCO.
.
The author seems lovely and if she ever wrote a short story, or something with a more structured theme I would be interested in seeing more. If you like authors like Rupi Kaur and Amanda Lovelace then definitely pick this up because I think you will adore it!

Overall, this book definitely has an audience who will eat it up and love every second, that audience just isn't me.
Profile Image for Aki Dayag.
40 reviews
January 7, 2022
I like the first few pages consisting of longer prose about her younger childhood and life. However, the more I got into it, the more it felt stagnant and repetitive. The themes in most of the poems were about the same—heartbreak, romanticism, etc. It felt very Tumblr-y. Her poetry is missing underlying depth. Her poems consisted of tell, not show. I think this is an aspect that made it feel stagnant as well. Some of the writing felt like deep Tumblr poems you would put under an aesthetic Instagram post. Albeit, I did like the aesthetic and the film photos alongside the poetry. It might align and touch others, however, it just did not spark anything for me.
Profile Image for Prpages.
257 reviews3 followers
October 22, 2020
ARC Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.



“Film for her” is a collection of Poetry, prose and photography written by Orion Carloto.

******************************************

There’s definitely a certain aesthetic this book fits into that I think many people could enjoy.
Of the Alexa Chung-It girl-variety.

It’d definitely be a book to look for if you want something dreamy, with a heaping of romanticization.

However, I felt it leaned a bit too heavily into these aesthetics for my taste.

This book isn’t all bad. I did actually enjoy the photography; just wasn’t a fan of the poetry and very little of the prose.

Perhaps I’ll come back to this later on when I’m in the right mood, but for the time being I wasn’t particularly impressed with this one.
Profile Image for ava.
97 reviews36 followers
September 5, 2021
i know many people find “short poetry” exhausting or repetitive but i didn’t find myself thinking that at all while reading Film For Her. i purchased the book about a month ago and read every page in one sitting. since then i’ve read it like ten times. i enjoy writing poetry but i often find myself lost when trying to find inspiration, this book however put so much motivation me to keep writing and it’s safe to say it was the inspiration for a lot of my recent work. not to mention her photography is absolutely stunning. i would also highly recommend Orion’s first book, Flux, as well, though it doesn’t contain any photography it is still such an incredible piece of literature!!!
Profile Image for mae.
75 reviews
May 18, 2022
the poems are absolute trash. so goddamn pretentious- and not in a fun way. the author is trying to be deep, but she’s just regurgitating the same things ever other modern “poet” does. i was completely dumbfounded as to how this book even got published and why i see it pushed everywhere, that is, until i checked her social medias, and it was clear that this was just a cash grab.

the reason it’s two stars is because the book is absolutely gorgeous, i will say that and give credit where credits is due. but besides sitting on a coffee table and looking pretty, i don’t see any other value to it.
Profile Image for lexi ✨.
411 reviews157 followers
May 1, 2022
i wouldn’t be mad if this book was just filled with film photography, because these pictures are incredible. it was definitely my favourite thing about this book & now i want to create a collection of my own film photography to look back on. i think this meant a lot to the author & even though i could only really relate on a surface level to most of the poems i think that this collection holds a lot of meaning. i feel like now i’ll be more mindful to appreciate & look back on the very simple things in life.
Profile Image for julia.
127 reviews13 followers
October 2, 2020
(4.5 stars = really liked it)

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for making this book available.

I'm pretty sure that the first time I read the summary for Film For Her, I thought it was a work of fiction, but I am not disappointed by what I got! In this book, Orion Carloto collects poems and pictures, tells stories about her life, and explores friendship, family, romance.

I've been following Orion for ages. Her videos never failed to entertain me or make me go [heart eyes] at the images she captured or make me feel an ache in my heart at her words. Although I still haven't read her debut book Flux, I was extremely happy to find this book available to read on NetGalley, as I was really looking forward to it.

I think Orion's words are so beautiful, and I found myself bookmarking several pages that held passages that I felt in my heart and pages in which the entire poem just did everything for me. Even when I couldn't relate to the topic (not many romantic adventures in my life lol), I was still able to connect or reinterpret her words (usually accidentally) in my own way. I'm a sucker for texts that feel like someone is framing life with a golden frame, where hot days feel special and not just sweaty, and sticky hands feel magical and not just, well, sticky. It just makes me feel like the moment is being enjoyed and there's beauty being found in everything. And although I, as Carloto, can't always live in the moment~, reading texts like these help me try to appreciate the little things more, when I'm faced with them.

It's amazing how ALL of the pictures in this book pleased my eyes immensely. But then again, I follow her on Instagram. I knew what she was capable of.

This wasn't a full 5 star for me because I felt like the last ¼ of it wasn't as… good? as the first ¾. It just didn't hit the same, but that's okay.
Profile Image for katie.
43 reviews4 followers
December 27, 2021
not good. it was like milk and honey but make it 2021 aesthetics
Profile Image for Jessi ❤️ H. Vojsk [if villain, why hot?].
835 reviews1,024 followers
May 12, 2023
Perhaps it’s my overwhelming desire for belonging that helped me build a home in you.
Now, even to this day these drowsy bones,
draped in misery, are still trying to reach for your hand.

Consume me whole,
for I am a creature of habit.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,344 reviews

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