"A deep meditation on grief, love, and the complexities of the human experience, Alec B. Hood's Rest in Pretend is a tribute to the fallen, a reminder of memories, and a love letter to emotions we lose ourselves in. A mixture of love, loss, madness, and the existential thoughts that grip us, Hood explores the meaning of death and how it follows us on both positive and negative fronts." - Flor Ana, Author of The Truth About Love

"With Rest in Pretend, Hood invites us into a surrealist dream, perhaps the fragments of a soldier's life flashing before them as they bleed out on some battlefield on a remote continent of the world. The poems run on into each other, with no clear division between them, a stream of consciousness that seeks to understand the nature of morality, if there is a reason that justifies violence, and if love can truly redeem." - Renzo Del Castillo, Author of Still: A Poetry Collection

"Rest in Pretend explores the intricacies of grief and introspection with eloquence and delicate respect. Dressing darkness almost as a gentle hero, Hood fearlessly reflects on the bitterness and eventual medicine that comes from sitting down with our demons. Each poem in this collection offers readers a cathartic contemplation of the profundity that is the human condition. The layered metaphors translate the nuances of layered emotion encountered when one experiences and works through unsettling trials and confining tribulations that can break the spirit." - Elizabeth Knightly, Author of Choose To Choose Me: A Collection of Organized Chaos

"Hood weaves a melancholy web of loss, grief, and heartbreak-with love finding its way through the cracks. The illustrations bring an added dialogue to the poetry that is sure to tug at the feelings that bury themselves within us all." - Fin Rose Aborizk, Author of On the Ever-Lovely Morrow

"Hood's grief is raw and sometimes painful to see, but he takes you with him through his allegories to a place where anyone can relate. You may shed a few tears, but you will definitely marvel at his sensitivity and intellect. Hood's poetry is not seeking answers, it is not offering answers; it is grasping your arm and pulling you down to the precipice to peer at the depths. This vulnerability is sublime." - Erin Flanagan, Author of Haikus to Irish Tunes