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moxiemin's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
fast-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? It's complicated
5.0
It is hard enough to be a teenager, but to be a teenager who has a odd connection to plants? There is lots to be discovered as Briseis and her family relocate to Upstate New York after an estate lawyer shows up and explains that a long lost relative has left a whole estate to Briseis. An estate with a very secret garden.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
zgreyz's review against another edition
adventurous
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
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
startjpw23's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This is a YA dark fantasy. The main character is Briseis. She lives in Brooklyn. It is summer. It appears to be between her junior and senior years of high school. Her mothers own a flower shop. Briseis helps out in the shop. She has special powers related to plants. She can revive almost dead plants very quickly. She can cause plants to reproduce very quickly. Plants are literally drawn to her. If she doesn't keep up her concentration, they noticeably bend toward her. This isn't a really bad problem while she is in Brooklyn because there are not that many trees and other plants in the locations she frequents. She can't let anyone besides her mom's know about her abilities. Her two friends have grown distant from her. She was adopted when she was really young. An estate lawyer informs her that she has inherited a house in upstate NY from her birth aunt (sister of her birth mother). She and her mom's move to the house for the summer. From there, Briseis learns more about her powers and heritage. The author does a great job revealing details. The last part of the book is thrilling and very tense. I really loved the book and the way it gradually revealed things. Briseis is an appealing lead character. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a YA dark fantasy with an appealing lead character. And a book that keeps the reader wondering what comes next.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent and Injury/Injury detail
thissuitbyrnesbetter's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
asreadbykat's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
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
3.5
True Rating: 3.5 Stars
Content/Trigger Warnings: Discussions of adoption, Violence, Poisoning, Death, Discussion of mythology-based filicide, Mildly grotesque imagery
"Whenever you hear a story about villainous women, you should ask who's telling the story."
This is my first Kalynn Bayron read, and I picked it up because while I wanted something good for spring/summer, I wanted it to have a nice edge to it. I'm not a full-on S/S girl, so I was looking for something summery but also spooky or creepy. This seemed to fit the bill. Did it work? Well...kind of.
Criticism
The Main Character
My biggest problem with this book is our main character, Briseis. While her power is undoubtedly cool and I wanted to learn more about it, and we get tidbits about her life, Bri felt very...bland. She felt very much a part of the scenery, and not the story. By the end of the book, all I could really tell about her personality is that she loves her adopted moms, and she is terrible at trusting people. There was almost nothing else about her that endeared me to her. No true quirks, no personality pluses or minuses, just...a literal blank canvas. This was a problem because the plot really does require us to feel SOMETHING about Bri, but I just didn't. I got more of her moms' personalities than I did hers. I wanted her to do something; either pull a Poison Ivy and be all secretly super into poisonous plants and/or using the plants to help her, or a complete plant nerd who treats them all like her babies and loves them more than people, or...just, something.
There was so much potential for Bri's character in this novel, and it fell flat because it felt like the author cared more about hitting certain plot beats and vibes than even creating a compelling MC. She isn't the worst MC I've ever read about, but she's also not anywhere near good, either. She's definitely just...there. Barely.
Plot Pacing
This is one of the cases where I wish the book were actually longer, or certain plot points had been saved for a different book. There was so much going on, by the last third I knew there was no way the novel could end satisfactorily. We've got family secrets, a spooky old house and a secret garden, a family history with the local town, mysterious deaths, strange neighbors....Yeah, it's a lot, and there was no way this one book was going to do all of it justice. It means that certain plot beats get a lot of focus, and some of them don't. Unfortunately, the plot beats that got more were all backstory-related, and not the ones with the biggest impact on the climax. This meant some plot points meandered, some went super fast, some got stalled...it was a little bit jarring.
Hinted Romance
There is a hinted queer romance here, and all I can say is....it may be the most rushed thing I've ever read, and makes no sense at all. Just...no.
Praise
The Worldbuilding
One of the best things about this story is definitely the worldbuilding. I was so intrigued by the family/world history the author was creating. I wanted to know more about the women in this family and where they came from, how they started their business, why they settled in this house, how the community came to kind of accept and protect them, etc. I wanted the entire book to just be about that and almost nothing else because it was so interesting. It helps that the history was inspired by Greek myth, which I've been interested in for years, but turned on its head. You can tell the author really had love for this world she was creating just from reading this.
The Family Dynamics
Bri's relationship with her moms is absolutely beautiful. I love Angie and Thandie; they're loud, funny, and unapologetically themselves, and they love their daughter with everything they are, and are willing to do anything to make her happy. It's a really nice change of pace to see a family being supportive of a child's powers instead of being terrified of it. Bri herself is a typical teenager embarrassed by her moms, but she also reciprocates their love and wants to keep them safe no matter what. This is the kind of "romance" I love in books, and it was great to see.
The Inspiration
In the acknowledgements at the end, the author states that the inspirations for this novel were not just Greek myth, but also the idea of What if the "little bit of land" from The Secret Garden contained a plant like Audrey II from "Little Shop of Horrors." Just the mix of those ideas is super interesting and intriguing, and while it could have been better executed, knowing those inspirations made the novel even more interesting.
Overall Thoughts
This is far from the best book I've read this year, and I'm giving it a fairly neutral rating. I wouldn't really recommend buying it, but I would say see if you can borrow it from a library or get it cheap secondhand if you're interested. The backstory is intriguing enough that I want to read the second book just to see what happens.
Content/Trigger Warnings: Discussions of adoption, Violence, Poisoning, Death, Discussion of mythology-based filicide, Mildly grotesque imagery
"Whenever you hear a story about villainous women, you should ask who's telling the story."
This is my first Kalynn Bayron read, and I picked it up because while I wanted something good for spring/summer, I wanted it to have a nice edge to it. I'm not a full-on S/S girl, so I was looking for something summery but also spooky or creepy. This seemed to fit the bill. Did it work? Well...kind of.
Criticism
The Main Character
My biggest problem with this book is our main character, Briseis. While her power is undoubtedly cool and I wanted to learn more about it, and we get tidbits about her life, Bri felt very...bland. She felt very much a part of the scenery, and not the story. By the end of the book, all I could really tell about her personality is that she loves her adopted moms, and she is terrible at trusting people. There was almost nothing else about her that endeared me to her. No true quirks, no personality pluses or minuses, just...a literal blank canvas. This was a problem because the plot really does require us to feel SOMETHING about Bri, but I just didn't. I got more of her moms' personalities than I did hers. I wanted her to do something; either pull a Poison Ivy and be all secretly super into poisonous plants and/or using the plants to help her, or a complete plant nerd who treats them all like her babies and loves them more than people, or...just, something.
There was so much potential for Bri's character in this novel, and it fell flat because it felt like the author cared more about hitting certain plot beats and vibes than even creating a compelling MC. She isn't the worst MC I've ever read about, but she's also not anywhere near good, either. She's definitely just...there. Barely.
Plot Pacing
This is one of the cases where I wish the book were actually longer, or certain plot points had been saved for a different book. There was so much going on, by the last third I knew there was no way the novel could end satisfactorily. We've got family secrets, a spooky old house and a secret garden, a family history with the local town, mysterious deaths, strange neighbors....Yeah, it's a lot, and there was no way this one book was going to do all of it justice. It means that certain plot beats get a lot of focus, and some of them don't. Unfortunately, the plot beats that got more were all backstory-related, and not the ones with the biggest impact on the climax. This meant some plot points meandered, some went super fast, some got stalled...it was a little bit jarring.
Hinted Romance
There is a hinted queer romance here, and all I can say is....it may be the most rushed thing I've ever read, and makes no sense at all. Just...no.
Praise
The Worldbuilding
One of the best things about this story is definitely the worldbuilding. I was so intrigued by the family/world history the author was creating. I wanted to know more about the women in this family and where they came from, how they started their business, why they settled in this house, how the community came to kind of accept and protect them, etc. I wanted the entire book to just be about that and almost nothing else because it was so interesting. It helps that the history was inspired by Greek myth, which I've been interested in for years, but turned on its head. You can tell the author really had love for this world she was creating just from reading this.
The Family Dynamics
Bri's relationship with her moms is absolutely beautiful. I love Angie and Thandie; they're loud, funny, and unapologetically themselves, and they love their daughter with everything they are, and are willing to do anything to make her happy. It's a really nice change of pace to see a family being supportive of a child's powers instead of being terrified of it. Bri herself is a typical teenager embarrassed by her moms, but she also reciprocates their love and wants to keep them safe no matter what. This is the kind of "romance" I love in books, and it was great to see.
The Inspiration
In the acknowledgements at the end, the author states that the inspirations for this novel were not just Greek myth, but also the idea of What if the "little bit of land" from The Secret Garden contained a plant like Audrey II from "Little Shop of Horrors." Just the mix of those ideas is super interesting and intriguing, and while it could have been better executed, knowing those inspirations made the novel even more interesting.
Overall Thoughts
This is far from the best book I've read this year, and I'm giving it a fairly neutral rating. I wouldn't really recommend buying it, but I would say see if you can borrow it from a library or get it cheap secondhand if you're interested. The backstory is intriguing enough that I want to read the second book just to see what happens.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Torture
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Cursing
melaniegrace91's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-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? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent and Injury/Injury detail
zombiezami's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Cursing, Death of parent, Grief, Violence, Death, Torture, Blood, Stalking, Injury/Injury detail, and Body horror
Minor: Pregnancy, Racism, Toxic friendship, and Police brutality
sjgautreaux's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
mysterious
tense
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? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent and Murder
Moderate: Blood and Emotional abuse
Minor: Domestic abuse
bookforestsprite's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent and Death
Moderate: Violence and Gore
sar_lion's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
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? Yes
5.0
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail and Death of parent
Minor: Vomit