A review by himalaya
Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston

3.5

 This has super interesting worldbuilding!! the writing didn’t quite work for me though.

The arrangement of sentences made it quite hard for me to follow a lot of the time. I think it worked for Awa’s POV, being quite dreamlike and wandering, but for the other being more complex and political it just didn’t work for me. 

I did actually notice later on when they’re both talking - there was a mention of them switching languages, and I noticed the sentence structure was way easier to follow? So I can see this being an intentional choice mirroring how different languages structure things. But unfortunately doesn’t change the fact that I personally felt it was hard to follow in some parts. I don’t think I would have made it through not on audio. 

I definitely enjoyed Awa more as a character, watching her grow and learn, her bee friends, and the sweet sapphic romance she had. And I liked the animal POVs, and use of music as magic, the whole smokelands thing….there’s definitely lots of good stuff in here also!