The Indonesian critic, Dami Toda, describes Herliany's writing as revealing "a struggle to understand human experience in all its reality - not as an ideal but as a fact that displays profound suffering and hurt, without, apparently, any hope of redemption." In her introduction to this book, the British poet Linda France writes: "The energy and violence expressed in the title of this collection run through the work like a ruptured vein, fragile and vulnerable, but necessary for survival. Underneath this troubled surface, there is so much tenderness and openness, in shocking contrast to the 'Other', represented by the world of politics and war, that the speaker of the poems is aware she is in danger of annihilation." Another poet, Annie Kantar, is equally emphatic: "Herliany's poetry is intent upon opposing personal and political oppression. She does not attempt to mend, her poetry does not offer a vision of a final Utopia. Instead, it takes the first step towards change by waking, inciting, shattering."