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A review by writerdgabrielle
This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron is the first in a series about a young girl, Briseis Greene, with a gift. Living in the concrete jungle of Brooklyn, it was impossible for Briseis and her (adoptive) mothers to grasp the full extent of her gift but Briseis can control plants. What started as swaths of green grass in parks and helping her moms' flower shop thrive, becomes something very different when Briseis inherits a palatial manor in upstate New York.
Rhinebeck is a town with secrets. Which is something that can be said about any small town but Rhinebeck's secrets run deeper than maybe even the townspeople guarding said secrets know. Witchcraft, alchemy, a poison apothecary are just scratching the surface.
This Poison Heart is a little slow to start, as to be expected from a first in series. The set up, establishing Briseis's abilities and her tumultuous relationship with them, the relationship with her moms, hints at magic in her adoptive and biological family all take up a firm 60% of the book. But once the mystery starts taking over and Briseis is in too deep to get out, the last third became next to impossible to put down.
While I started out by pushing myself through a couple chapters at a time, I found myself devouring the final 150 or so pages in two bites. One thing that kept me going the deeper I dug was the connections to my lifelong passion (obsession?) with Greek mythology. As a child, I read the myths for fun but my access to them was limited to the World Book and Childcraft encyclopedias. As I got older, my academic access was limited, first by a teacher who offered us a choice because he knew we'd get a heavy dose of it in the coming years, then by a system that never made good on his promise.
But I continued to love the myths, even finding ways to work them into my own writing. The only true academic exposure I was given to these stories was the exact story This Poison Heart is built around, Medea and Jason.
We even put Medea on trial in 12rh grade World Literature. Did she murder her children? What really happened? Ultimately, we found her not guilty on all five counts of infanticide. But like Professor Kent tells Briseis, the story of Medea is one that is told far less often and that may be due to her connection not to the "standard" gods but to the ancients, the primordial gods, to Hecate.
The primordials just kind of get swept aside in favor of the Chad of all gods, Zeus, and his siblings. I love that Bayron has centered This Poison Heart and the rest of Briseis's story around the primordial gods (in addition to Hecate, Nyx also makes an appearance; don't think I didn't notice her) and all that came before Zeus burst onto the scene.
The slow beginning is the biggest reason for the 4 star rating. If Bayron keeps pace in the next book, I expect it to be even closer to five stars.
Rhinebeck is a town with secrets. Which is something that can be said about any small town but Rhinebeck's secrets run deeper than maybe even the townspeople guarding said secrets know. Witchcraft, alchemy, a poison apothecary are just scratching the surface.
This Poison Heart is a little slow to start, as to be expected from a first in series. The set up, establishing Briseis's abilities and her tumultuous relationship with them, the relationship with her moms, hints at magic in her adoptive and biological family all take up a firm 60% of the book. But once the mystery starts taking over and Briseis is in too deep to get out, the last third became next to impossible to put down.
While I started out by pushing myself through a couple chapters at a time, I found myself devouring the final 150 or so pages in two bites. One thing that kept me going the deeper I dug was the connections to my lifelong passion (obsession?) with Greek mythology. As a child, I read the myths for fun but my access to them was limited to the World Book and Childcraft encyclopedias. As I got older, my academic access was limited, first by a teacher who offered us a choice because he knew we'd get a heavy dose of it in the coming years, then by a system that never made good on his promise.
But I continued to love the myths, even finding ways to work them into my own writing. The only true academic exposure I was given to these stories was the exact story This Poison Heart is built around, Medea and Jason.
We even put Medea on trial in 12rh grade World Literature. Did she murder her children? What really happened? Ultimately, we found her not guilty on all five counts of infanticide. But like Professor Kent tells Briseis, the story of Medea is one that is told far less often and that may be due to her connection not to the "standard" gods but to the ancients, the primordial gods, to Hecate.
The primordials just kind of get swept aside in favor of the Chad of all gods, Zeus, and his siblings. I love that Bayron has centered This Poison Heart and the rest of Briseis's story around the primordial gods (in addition to Hecate, Nyx also makes an appearance; don't think I didn't notice her) and all that came before Zeus burst onto the scene.
The slow beginning is the biggest reason for the 4 star rating. If Bayron keeps pace in the next book, I expect it to be even closer to five stars.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
Moderate: Cursing, Violence, Blood
Minor: Hate crime, Racism, Murder, Toxic friendship