Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - This Poison Heart

Oh my God, so good. The premise was enough to draw me in, but the content was enough to hook me. The characters were so well written and felt real. A little slow in the beginning although it kept me intrigued enough to want to read the rest.

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noodlesny's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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teabeansss's review

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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blkunicorn's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

The plot “twist” was very predictable.

Overall the book was nice and a little fun. Bri frustrated me in her thought process sometimes.

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spicycronereads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I really liked this book. It centers on Briseis, a 16-year-old Black woman, living in Brooklyn with her mom and Mo (her two adoptive moms). She has a special affinity for growing and caring for plants. And it borders on the unnatural. The narrative centers on what happens when she finds out that her birth mother’s sister has died, and left her an estate in upstate New York.

The narrative focuses on what it is like for these three Black women to locate relocate to the small town where weird things start happening. There are all sorts of mysteries and a family legacy involving ancient characters like Medea and the goddess Hecate.

Briseis is lonely and misunderstood in Brooklyn and it seems like plants are her best friends. She begins to thrive once they relocate, making friends and meeting new love interests. I recall reading a review of this book that thought she wasn’t very smart. I do admit that it took her a really long time to catch onto some things that really seemed quite obvious, or to begin to question things that just didn’t seem to add up. She did seem a little naïve. Though, admittedly, they tell us in the narrative that she didn’t get the best grades in school. 😂

The world building is pretty effortless here. The magic system and Briseis’ powers are really cool. I look forward in subsequent books to seeing how this continues to be fleshed out. And yes, this is book one in a series. It ends on a pretty big cliffhanger.

The secondary characters are richly detailed, and seem to have interesting motivations of their own. They make a great supporting cast. And the book does a lovely job of demonstrating that found family ties can be just as rich and meaningful as biological.

There were a few elements of romance here and there though I would not call this book a romance or romantasy. I give it 💖.

In terms of diverse representation, we have Briseis and her two moms. Briseis is either bi or pan (I listened to the audiobook, and I don’t recall them ever saying, explicitly how she identifies). Their entire family is Black. There are additional people of color in the narrative. So there is quite a bit of racial and sexual diversity. Briseis’ family is struggling financially when they are living in Brooklyn and trying to run a small business. And when they move to this town in upstate New York, they definitely seem to move into a more financially stable status.

The audiobook performance was great. Jordan Cobb does a fantastic job with her performance and giving unique voice to a wide cast of characters.

Overall, I really liked this. The sense of humor of the characters and the magic system were a lot of fun. The vocal performance was great and made my commute fly by on some days. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/💖

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bookrecsplease's review

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dark informative mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

The plot is really slow moving, and a lot of it had that common YA trope of people being pointlessly mysterious to the protagonist instead of explaining all the things that they know. The last 20% was really great, but I wish the rest of the book had been paced similarly.

I loved the setup of Briseis’ relationship with her moms, but it never changed throughout the book. Neither did Briseis, unfortunately. She made one character trait decision at after the inciting incident that was a positive change for her, and then never evolved at all again.

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