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A review by bluekaren
A Fierce and Subtle Poison by Samantha Mabry
2.0
This story is set in Puerto Rico. The main character is Lucas, a gringo, who spend summers on the island with his dad. A Fierce and Subtle Poison starts right off with the myth of the girl with green skin and grass for hair. She lives at the cursed house at the end of Calle Sol. People dream of her and Lucas just wants to know if she is real. When Lucas’ latest fling, Marisol, disappears Lucas starts getting notes from the mythical girl.
The author of this book uses beautiful descriptive language to tell the story of a boy that I didn’t really care for. He spends his summers in a room at the hotel his father owns. Lucas is a privileged gringo who has way too much time on his hands. There are some encounters with other boys on the island, but I mostly see Lucas as thinking he is better than his friends. Of course, he is the only one the mythical girl, Isabel, wants to communicate with.
Isabel was a bit of a mystery, even now I still don’t understand her. Her father married a woman who was cursed, which resulted in a cursed child. Isabel is poison, literally. She surrounds herself with poisonous plants. The people there dream of her and throw wishes over the wall of her home. Lucas and his friends throw their wishes over too, but they don’t like to admit that they believe in the myth. The story starts with her story, or the myth of her anyways. I wish this pacing would have continued, but once we started to focus on Lucas I lost interest.
I wanted to love this book. The author talks about the island as if it is a small town. The descriptions enabled me to imagine this place, this real place, without any difficulty. I kept reading because of that beautiful writing. But, the story didn’t flow well. Lucas was a flat and unimpressive male lead. Isabel was far too accessible to be that much of a mystery. The ending was kind of adventurous, but then that too fell flat. I left this book with a meh feeling and I hate that.
The author of this book uses beautiful descriptive language to tell the story of a boy that I didn’t really care for. He spends his summers in a room at the hotel his father owns. Lucas is a privileged gringo who has way too much time on his hands. There are some encounters with other boys on the island, but I mostly see Lucas as thinking he is better than his friends. Of course, he is the only one the mythical girl, Isabel, wants to communicate with.
Isabel was a bit of a mystery, even now I still don’t understand her. Her father married a woman who was cursed, which resulted in a cursed child. Isabel is poison, literally. She surrounds herself with poisonous plants. The people there dream of her and throw wishes over the wall of her home. Lucas and his friends throw their wishes over too, but they don’t like to admit that they believe in the myth. The story starts with her story, or the myth of her anyways. I wish this pacing would have continued, but once we started to focus on Lucas I lost interest.
I wanted to love this book. The author talks about the island as if it is a small town. The descriptions enabled me to imagine this place, this real place, without any difficulty. I kept reading because of that beautiful writing. But, the story didn’t flow well. Lucas was a flat and unimpressive male lead. Isabel was far too accessible to be that much of a mystery. The ending was kind of adventurous, but then that too fell flat. I left this book with a meh feeling and I hate that.