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saucy_bookdragon's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
This is a shit YA paranormal romance, but an EXCELLENT horror novel.
YA paranormal romance of the 2000s-early 2010s tends to be shitty, it doesn’t have to, Vampire Academy was a pretty good series even though it fizzled out in quality after three books. Twilight (and note I am going off the movies and what others have said about the books) is deeply flawed with Edward being a walking red flag and its racist depiction of the Quileute tribe. It also has certain qualities that are good such as Bella being a protagonist relatable to the core demographic (sad nerdy teenage girls) (and I do not use that derogatorily, merely as a descriptor) and its romance is quite angsty and drama filled, giving it a soap opera-esque appeal.
Even by those standards Poison Princess is shit. The love interest, Jackson, somehow has more red flags than the vast majority of YA paranormal romance love interests. He threatens Evie, is pretty upset when she won’t agree to have sex with him which considering that they’re in an apocalypse and pregnancy can be dangerous even with modern medicine and AIDs is deadly without medical care so it’s pretty reasonable for her to not want it, lies to her, and is even outright misogynistic at times and uses his gender essentialist views to justify why he is shitty. Just look at these lines!
”There was something possessive in his expression, something masculine and… older that I had absolutely no idea how to decipher.”
”Hell, Evie, you’re probably the last girl on earth for me. Would it kill you to put out for me?”
”Just think you women civilize us men. Without you around, we… devolve or something.”
I also need to emphasize the fact that this was all in just one chapter. Chapter 27 my beloathed. That last one especially annoys me due to the gender essentialism and smacked my rating down from a two star to a one star. The whole idea that men are inherently more brutal and violent is a pretty good way of making sure they don’t get held accountable, that they don’t learn. Because men can be better, there are men who are peaceful and progressive and genuinely nice to be around, and that makes it frustrating! Men don’t have to be Like That™ they’re socialized that way.
Now I for one don’t think that you are under any obligation to depict romance as healthy, part of what makes good drama is having unhealthy romances. It would be hypocritical for me to be like that considering I enjoy the Folk of the Air series and the main romance in that certainly ain’t healthy. But the drama at least needs to be enjoyable. Girl x misogynist ain’t entertaining or special, that's just a huge portion of real life couples.
As I said, I considered giving this two stars. The saving graces that almost did that is the fact that Evie seemed to actually care about her bestie, something rare for this genre, and the world building.
What I mean when I say this would make an excellent horror novel, is that the world building is horrifying. It’s an apocalyptic world where one minute aurora lights were everywhere in the world as scattered unrelated catastrophes happened around the globe, then those lights flashed. The next minute everyone who was exposed to the lights is dead, mere ash. All plant life has been destroyed and a good portion of animal life too. All above ground water evaporated including the ocean.
At the point the book is happening, which is about seven months after the apocalypse started, it hasn’t rained a single drop. Not even a cloud can form in the sky leaving the sun to scorch the earth into a desert. Zombies roam the land looking for blood, their bites infecting people and turning them into zombies. The few remaining survivors fight each other for the limited resources, many of them having resorted to cannibalism and slavery. All while this is happening, the arcana of tarot are real people and may be involved in this apocalypse somehow.
It’s a pretty terrifying situation, one where if it actually happened I’d want to be taken out with the lights. I do not have the survival motive to survive zombies and mass famine, have a good apocalypse y’all I’m out. The arcana aspect could add divine cosmic horror to the apocalyptic horror as it could show that there are forces at work that humanity is at the whims of. Even the romance could add to this and be presented as an outright abusive relationship.
The book still has other problems that wouldn’t be solved with switching to horror. It takes far too long on Evie’s high school life before getting to the apocalypse and the plot is all over the place, switching from high school contemporary to adventure to romance to the fucking Avengers (Tarot’s Version) depending on the section, making the book plotless with the thinnest threads to attempt to masquerade it as a plot. It’s more a sequence of events.
With more focus and if this were written as straight up horror it could’ve actually been pretty decent. This is why it's important when writing to always interrogate what genre would best fit the story you’re writing, what doesn’t work in YA romance and fantasy may work in a gruesome adult horror or dark romance. I’m not seriously saying this should’ve been an outright horror (well, kinda) but rather I think it’s a fun way to analyze this. If I read a bad book, I might as well get a fun self indulgent review from it.
TWs: general apocalyptic stuff such as viruses and climate disasters, threats of rape, violence, gore, misogyny, death, mentions of cannibalism, starvation
YA paranormal romance of the 2000s-early 2010s tends to be shitty, it doesn’t have to, Vampire Academy was a pretty good series even though it fizzled out in quality after three books. Twilight (and note I am going off the movies and what others have said about the books) is deeply flawed with Edward being a walking red flag and its racist depiction of the Quileute tribe. It also has certain qualities that are good such as Bella being a protagonist relatable to the core demographic (sad nerdy teenage girls) (and I do not use that derogatorily, merely as a descriptor) and its romance is quite angsty and drama filled, giving it a soap opera-esque appeal.
Even by those standards Poison Princess is shit. The love interest, Jackson, somehow has more red flags than the vast majority of YA paranormal romance love interests. He threatens Evie, is pretty upset when she won’t agree to have sex with him which considering that they’re in an apocalypse and pregnancy can be dangerous even with modern medicine and AIDs is deadly without medical care so it’s pretty reasonable for her to not want it, lies to her, and is even outright misogynistic at times and uses his gender essentialist views to justify why he is shitty. Just look at these lines!
”There was something possessive in his expression, something masculine and… older that I had absolutely no idea how to decipher.”
”Hell, Evie, you’re probably the last girl on earth for me. Would it kill you to put out for me?”
”Just think you women civilize us men. Without you around, we… devolve or something.”
I also need to emphasize the fact that this was all in just one chapter. Chapter 27 my beloathed. That last one especially annoys me due to the gender essentialism and smacked my rating down from a two star to a one star. The whole idea that men are inherently more brutal and violent is a pretty good way of making sure they don’t get held accountable, that they don’t learn. Because men can be better, there are men who are peaceful and progressive and genuinely nice to be around, and that makes it frustrating! Men don’t have to be Like That™ they’re socialized that way.
Now I for one don’t think that you are under any obligation to depict romance as healthy, part of what makes good drama is having unhealthy romances. It would be hypocritical for me to be like that considering I enjoy the Folk of the Air series and the main romance in that certainly ain’t healthy. But the drama at least needs to be enjoyable. Girl x misogynist ain’t entertaining or special, that's just a huge portion of real life couples.
As I said, I considered giving this two stars. The saving graces that almost did that is the fact that Evie seemed to actually care about her bestie, something rare for this genre, and the world building.
What I mean when I say this would make an excellent horror novel, is that the world building is horrifying. It’s an apocalyptic world where one minute aurora lights were everywhere in the world as scattered unrelated catastrophes happened around the globe, then those lights flashed. The next minute everyone who was exposed to the lights is dead, mere ash. All plant life has been destroyed and a good portion of animal life too. All above ground water evaporated including the ocean.
At the point the book is happening, which is about seven months after the apocalypse started, it hasn’t rained a single drop. Not even a cloud can form in the sky leaving the sun to scorch the earth into a desert. Zombies roam the land looking for blood, their bites infecting people and turning them into zombies. The few remaining survivors fight each other for the limited resources, many of them having resorted to cannibalism and slavery. All while this is happening, the arcana of tarot are real people and may be involved in this apocalypse somehow.
It’s a pretty terrifying situation, one where if it actually happened I’d want to be taken out with the lights. I do not have the survival motive to survive zombies and mass famine, have a good apocalypse y’all I’m out. The arcana aspect could add divine cosmic horror to the apocalyptic horror as it could show that there are forces at work that humanity is at the whims of. Even the romance could add to this and be presented as an outright abusive relationship.
The book still has other problems that wouldn’t be solved with switching to horror. It takes far too long on Evie’s high school life before getting to the apocalypse and the plot is all over the place, switching from high school contemporary to adventure to romance to the fucking Avengers (Tarot’s Version) depending on the section, making the book plotless with the thinnest threads to attempt to masquerade it as a plot. It’s more a sequence of events.
With more focus and if this were written as straight up horror it could’ve actually been pretty decent. This is why it's important when writing to always interrogate what genre would best fit the story you’re writing, what doesn’t work in YA romance and fantasy may work in a gruesome adult horror or dark romance. I’m not seriously saying this should’ve been an outright horror (well, kinda) but rather I think it’s a fun way to analyze this. If I read a bad book, I might as well get a fun self indulgent review from it.
TWs: general apocalyptic stuff such as viruses and climate disasters, threats of rape, violence, gore, misogyny, death, mentions of cannibalism, starvation
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Violence, Animal cruelty, Gore, War, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Animal death, Trafficking, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Rape
madravingintrovert's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, War, Violence, Emotional abuse, Drug use, Death of parent, and Death
Moderate: Blood, Self harm, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Sexual harassment, Murder, Gun violence, Classism, Child death, and Child abuse
Minor: Cannibalism, Torture, Suicide, Alcoholism, Slavery, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Kidnapping
Religion and religious accessories are mentioned a handful of times. There is no animal abuse or outright death, there is implied death and malnourishment due to apocalyptical events. The kidnapping is specifically familial kidnapping. The drug use is multiple instances being referred to of someone drugging others.
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