Rating: 85% | B | ★★★★★ Warnings: + Violence + Mild sexual content Synopsis (from Goodreads): Choose: A quick death…Or slow poison... About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia. And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly's Dust—and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison. As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can't control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren't so clear... Spoiler-Free Section I enjoyed this book beyond propriety. Even now, two weeks after reading it, I'm shocked by how high I graded Poison Study. I picked up this book after remembering a few booktubers commenting on how much they enjoyed it and how it was underappreciated. They were right. What sets Poison Study apart from similar books is its strong sense of story. All the components of the novel flowed into each other. Yelena's voice was authentic and incredibly ordinary for someone in a position like hers. It was refreshing to experience her narration because it didn't feel overly formal or like a protagonist trying too hard to take in everything around them. No, it felt like something that I could hear myself narrating. (And this book may have just sparked a reignited appreciation for the first-person point of view in me, which . . . I'd never thought I would enjoy again.) The characters glued this book together. Poison Study ultimately suffers from overzealous attempts to raise the stakes and incorporate all sorts of plot avenues into a story that is already bursting at the seams. The plot feels like a delivery person taking thirty flights of stairs to their customer instead of the elevator. The destination is the same, but the labor and confusion is drastically different between the two scenarios. Pacing of the plot was an issue, especially towards the end. Overall, I would recommend Poison Study to anyone who enjoys strong female protagonists, hints of fantasy, and humor and heart in the most unexpected places. (Click "Read More" for spoilers!) Plot (24/30)
The plot was by far the messiest part of this novel. Snyder resolves all subplots just in time for the final showdown, but were those subplots necessary in the first place? Beginning (9/10) The novel starts right away. Yelena's nightmare was a confusing start for me. Jumping back and forth between her past and her present, I felt like I'd just groggily woken up from my own slumber. I wonder if Snyder had a different beginning planned for the novel, since it seems like the reader is thrown right into the thick of the action without knowing anything. Being introduced to Yelena, the protagonist, is one thing, but getting to know Valek seems like a second chapter type of situation. Or perhaps Snyder knew that she couldn't afford to cut the drama because the stakes just keep rising. First chapter: Yelena is dragged from prison. Second chapter: Yelena is poisoned. Third chapter: Yelena nearly dies. Fourth chapter: Yelena nearly dies (again). Every chapter in the first third of the book is more dramatic than the last, the reader constantly kept on the edge of their seats. But the plot's faults also reveal themselves in the first third of the novel. For one, the threat of Brazell coming after Yelena is constantly perfuming the castle air. That, coupled with Yelena's new post as food taster, is somewhat exhausting for readers to keep up with. Ah, and of course: the magic threat. The part of the story I was the most unhappy with, by far, was the magic subplot (or main plot?). I know the rest of the series is magic-heavy, but it didn't make sense for this particular book in my opinion. Ixia is billed as a place free of magic, and it seems like magic is a threat taken seriously. But the attack on Yelena at the Fire Festival seemed to come out of nowhere, especially after Valek fought the magicians off without breaking a sweat. Yelena being put into the field to test Valek's plan of attack is another example of my being confused during the story. Why is Yelena in the field? What is the purpose of this? I imagine the intended outcome was for her to meet Ari and Janco, but it seems like such a circuitous route to reach them. Middle (8/10) The middle third of the story becomes even more convoluted. I enjoyed Yelena taking initiative and learning how to fight. I thought it was a nice way to tie in Ari, Janco, and Maren. The fighting chapters are also where Yelena's voice shines through, especially when she's sweating and out of breath and thinking about how much she hates training. That authentic voice and those ordinary thoughts are what makes Yelena a sympathetic character. But the subplots! So many subplots, wrapped up neatly for the most part but still of doubtful necessity. Margg trying to paint Yelena as a traitor is one. Why meet Captain Star, who appears once in this chapter and once at the end? Why go to such lengths to expose Rand as a traitor? Even Yelena herself realizes what a long-winded game they are playing when she thinks back to how long Valek has spent egging her on. The only solid arc to come out of this section is Valek and Yelena's burgeoning relationship. The mentor-turned-paramour relationship is undoubtedly trite, but I never mind reading different iterations of it. Poor Yelena! Trying to figure out Valek's feelings for her only to be pushed away and humiliated. As if I could. I laughed. A drunken sound, tattered and ragged, the music of my thoughts. Look around you, Yelena, I chided myself. The poisoned food taster who converses with ghosts. I should be thankful that I breathed, that I existed. I shouldn’t long for more than freedom in Sitia. Then I could fill the emptiness. Dismissing all sentimental, weak thoughts, I focused on the business of staying alive. End (7/10) I wouldn't say the ending unsatisfied me, but it did leave something to be desired. Mainly in the cohesion of the plot. The problem with making magic a hidden subplot (and by that I mean the magic subplot separate from the Sitian magicians who ambushed Yelena) is that it smacks you out of nowhere. Valek mentions that there is a magician in the castle in one chapter, and then all of a sudden the Commander is being brainwashed by Advisor Mogkam. Yes, there is a link, but it's tenuous at best. The scene with Valek pardoning a prisoner also perplexed me. Why was it included? There was no need to further endear Valek to the reader. It was a sweet scene, but unnecessary and slow. And there's little connection between the scene and any other subplot, including the magic subplot. I think one of the problems with the magic in this world is that it's unclear. The magicians, what do they do? What powers do they have (because it seems like they have all the powers in the world)? None of this is clarified. Then, at the very end: Yelena's return to MD-5. It is impossible not to feel for her. Yelena has such good intentions at heart. She doesn't want to kill Reyad to save herself, but to save her sisters from him. She defends Valek from Rand's insults. She tries to save Rand at the end despite his betrayal. She is so unequivocally good. When Yelena told Valek of Reyad raping her, I was relieved. Yelena finally has someone that she can confide in. She doesn't have to carry these secrets by herself anymore—Valek is helping her carry them. I purged myself of the black stain of Reyad. But I have to say: for a book that has been nothing but high and higher stakes each chapter, the ending feels anticlimactic. The plotlines just don't seem to converge cleanly. The criollo mystery is solved. The Commander is freed from his brainwashing. Valek and Yelena confess their feelings for each other. Brazell and Mogkam get what they deserve. But the Commander forcing Yelena to leave Ixia? Yelena's newfound magical powers? Her separation from Valek? It all seems rushed, even for the first book in a series. And the ending didn't exactly inspire me to pick up the next book. (Full disclosure: I read through snippets of the rest of the books in the series—enough snippets to get a sense of where the series was going. It's true that I found the ending of Poison Study lackluster, but another reason I didn't read the rest of the series was that I read a number of reviews that did not speak favorably about the rest of the series. Many people seemed to think that the rest of the series lacked the charisma of Poison Study, and I was unwilling to compromise my impression of these characters and this story by muscling through books that would only leave me disappointed. Perhaps I'll pick them up at a later date, but for now, I'm content with the events of Poison Study and my knowledge of how Yelena's story plays out.) Characters (28/30) Development (13/15) Yelena's character development was great. Reyad's ghost, as awful as it may sound, was a wise (if cliche) choice to showcase growth. But more than that, Yelena came into her own over the course of the book. She argues with Valek. She trains with Janco and Ari. She fights off unsavory characters. It's a far cry from the subservient girl who was thrown into jail at the start of the book. Valek's character development I have issues with. Of course, with a first-person point of view, it's inevitable that any non-protagonist characters will faults, but I found Valek's character to be slightly static. His declaration of love at the end seems, to me, overblown and dramatic. And that's because I honestly didn't see enough development of Yelena and Valek's relationship throughout the novel. I was convinced of their love, but aside from saving Yelena a few times, egging her on, and flirting while intoxicated, Valek shows little affection. Writing (16/20) Descriptions (5/5) Snyder does an excellent job at describing emotions and flavors—especially important for this book. But little things, like uniform colors and facial expressions, lend heart to the story. Flow (4/5) Of course, with my disapproval of Poison Study's subplots, I don't consider the flow of this story to be immaculate. It's a lazy river, long and winding. Snyder also does something that I don't see very often. That is, she inserts chapter breaks in the middle of a continuous scene. A chapter will end in the middle of a conversation, and the next chapter will pick it up without pause. I'm not sure I have a positive or negative opinion of it, but it's something that I've rarely seen done. World Building (6/10) At this point, I'm sure I've said more than enough about my opinion of the world building in this novel. Ixia and its government is easy enough to understand. Dead royalty, a commander, generals, and soldiers. Simple, clean, easy to build a high-stakes plot around. But add in magic, and things start to crumble. The problem with the magic in this book is that one, it's not fully developed; two, Yelena has only a tangential relationship to it until the very end, when she somehow becomes the key to it; and three, it becomes an ex machina of sorts. The faults in Mogkam's circles are what allows the heroes to save the day. But the circles weren't introduced until the very end, and it seems like it's a solution dropped right into Yelena's lap. For me, I can confidently say that the messy world building was one of the main reasons why I had little interest in picking up Magic Study. Closure/Set-Up (18/20) Logic (10/10) The subplots were messy, yes. Some characters were more static than they should have been, yes. But ultimately, I find no fault in the logic of the ending. It made sense for Yelena to return to MD-5 and for her to face her fears. And the magic, I will begrudgingly admit, played a logical part in the end. Lure/Closure (8/10) I think I've exhausted my emotions on this matter. Poison Study interests me, but not enough that I am (currently) willing to pick up the next book. But that's really just me. Thanks for reading!
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