Marlene Rhein’s How to Find God on the Dance Floor is a soul-stirring collection of poetry that doesn’t tiptoe—it stomps, dances, and rages its way across the messy floor of human emotion. Rhein paints an unfiltered portrait of what it means to crave connection, wrestle with loneliness, and dig through the ruins of trauma in search of joy, self-worth, and transcendence. At its core, this is a book about movement—of body, of spirit, of memory—and the sacred power of music, particularly house and hip-hop, as a lifeline to God, to self-love, to sanity.

This is not the tidy, soft kind of poetry you wrap in a Hallmark card—this was truth with cracked lipstick and a pounding bassline. Rhein’s voice is funny, furious, messy, and sharp as glass. The poems are wild and untamed. They jump from nightclub floors to childhood wounds, from pop culture absurdity to sacred vulnerability, and somehow, it all holds together. There’s something deeply cathartic about the way she refuses to keep it cute. She says what we’ve all felt but were too afraid or ashamed to admit. That sometimes you need to dance to remember you’re still alive. That sometimes love comes in the form of sweat and strobe lights, not church pews and neat prayers.

I loved how she blends humor with heartbreak. One minute I was laughing at a dig about pop music at the dentist’s office, the next I was crushed by the weight of a poem about childhood neglect. It’s a rollercoaster, but one you don’t want to get off. Her writing is vulnerable in a way that makes you want to both cheer and cry for her. She doesn’t flinch from her pain or disguise it in metaphor—she spills it, owns it, dances through it. Her spirituality isn’t the polished, book-club kind. It’s gritty, found in flashing lights and gut-level knowing. She makes you believe that healing is possible, even if it’s slow, sweaty, and filled with bad DJs and loneliness.

This book is for anyone who’s ever felt like they didn’t belong, anyone trying to claw their way out of depression, anyone who finds God not in silence but in the chaotic joy of movement. It’s for the feelers, the survivors, and especially the dancers. If you’ve ever needed a reason to get off the couch and reclaim your magic, this book might just be your anthem.

Pages: 112 | ASIN: B0FBX5PDXZ