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A review by ragesandpages
A Fierce and Subtle Poison by Samantha Mabry
3.0
** I received an advanced copy of this audiobook from the LibraryThing's Early Reviewers Program**
Lucas, considered an outsider in San Juan, has been getting tangled up in the lore of the island. He’s a half Puerto Rican, half American. He is disliked by the locals, and even more so by the police captain. Yet, he keeps getting drawn back into the island and the stories that make up her history.
He meets Isabelle, half myth herself and very dangerous, and together they right a terrible wrong and quell the gods’ storms that have been brought upon the island. The tone is mysterious, like most magical realism titles. Pacing is steady, with few “storms” that make the plot push through.
Initially, it was hard to me to get into the audiobook. I had been listening to it during morning commutes, and eventually tucked it away. I brought it back out, and then I got more into the story once the mythology of the island started to pour out of the narrative. I like magical realism, and this story is full of those elements -- old tales and half broken stories that have been passed down by word of mouth, fantastical elements like a girl with leaves for hair and green skin, and a good man who was driven to bad things by love.
I had a hard time trying to understand Isabelle’s and Lucas’s character at times. It seemed like a retelling of a fairy tale but darker. But I enjoyed the mixture of the island’s lore and mythology combined with the Lucas’s point of view. It wasn’t a story about Isabelle, or Marisol, or even Lucas; it was a story about the island - how tales are forgotten and remembered, and how magic keeps them alive. It was a very enchanting tale, but it was full of clichés regarding the dichotomy of white versus native culture; these brought the story down a few notches, in my opinion. I would have appreciated an elaboration of this theme within the story (more detail regarding the complexities, not just stating that ‘everyone hated my dad because he was an outsider’, etc.), and think young adult readers would be able to as well.
Lucas, considered an outsider in San Juan, has been getting tangled up in the lore of the island. He’s a half Puerto Rican, half American. He is disliked by the locals, and even more so by the police captain. Yet, he keeps getting drawn back into the island and the stories that make up her history.
He meets Isabelle, half myth herself and very dangerous, and together they right a terrible wrong and quell the gods’ storms that have been brought upon the island. The tone is mysterious, like most magical realism titles. Pacing is steady, with few “storms” that make the plot push through.
Initially, it was hard to me to get into the audiobook. I had been listening to it during morning commutes, and eventually tucked it away. I brought it back out, and then I got more into the story once the mythology of the island started to pour out of the narrative. I like magical realism, and this story is full of those elements -- old tales and half broken stories that have been passed down by word of mouth, fantastical elements like a girl with leaves for hair and green skin, and a good man who was driven to bad things by love.
I had a hard time trying to understand Isabelle’s and Lucas’s character at times. It seemed like a retelling of a fairy tale but darker. But I enjoyed the mixture of the island’s lore and mythology combined with the Lucas’s point of view. It wasn’t a story about Isabelle, or Marisol, or even Lucas; it was a story about the island - how tales are forgotten and remembered, and how magic keeps them alive. It was a very enchanting tale, but it was full of clichés regarding the dichotomy of white versus native culture; these brought the story down a few notches, in my opinion. I would have appreciated an elaboration of this theme within the story (more detail regarding the complexities, not just stating that ‘everyone hated my dad because he was an outsider’, etc.), and think young adult readers would be able to as well.