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A review by libertyskies
The Poison Diaries by The Duchess of Northumberland, Maryrose Wood
1.0
Okay, I didn't like this book, but that's not to say some one else might. I thought the idea of this book was new, original and could have been great.
For starters, I found the blurb of this book misleading. It suggested that this would be a romance novel, but frankly there was little romance. The characters were undelvelopped and all plot development was inconceivable.
I felt that the main character seemed spoilt and naive and therefore understandably fell 'in love' with the only boy/ man she'd ever met that wasn't her father. This 'love' interest was deranged. And so was the father. In fact, the only sane character in this book was a minor character who had to put up with the craziness of the love interest. Even minor characters were mentally deficient, ranging from a woman who had no care about the death of her child, to a humanised plant. All this topped up with the crazy father's actions and hunger for power, the cruel nature of the love interest and the heroine spending the climax of the story in a hallucination or dream. (this is a debatable point).
As for the plot? Every aspect seemed focussed on the perculiar idea that the plants had voices, not neccesarily bad but things only got worse. The aforementioned humanised plant was in fact the prince of poisons and seemingly the villain of the story. There was no moral to the story and a rather melodramatic ending with no building up to the climax.
I develop the animal cruelty point below. If you still feel like reading this book then skip to the end of the stars.
****spoiler****spoiler****spoiler****spoiler****spoiler****spoiler****
To top it all off, there was this main theme of death and murder as well as animal cruelty. The love interest watched several deaths of animals, which, in nature is fair enough, but then he himself killed a stoat and then he killed a human and attempted to kill another (none less than the father of his 'love'). The heroine as well was responsible for the death of a cat and the father killed some asylum inmates just for knowledge.
***end****end***end****end***end****end****end****end****end****end****
I found the whole book insane and I am surprised I read all of it. I did so in the hope things would improve. I'm warning you now, Things DID NOT improve! Perhaps I'm a little biased as I feel so strongly against animal cruelty.
For starters, I found the blurb of this book misleading. It suggested that this would be a romance novel, but frankly there was little romance. The characters were undelvelopped and all plot development was inconceivable.
I felt that the main character seemed spoilt and naive and therefore understandably fell 'in love' with the only boy/ man she'd ever met that wasn't her father. This 'love' interest was deranged. And so was the father. In fact, the only sane character in this book was a minor character who had to put up with the craziness of the love interest. Even minor characters were mentally deficient, ranging from a woman who had no care about the death of her child, to a humanised plant. All this topped up with the crazy father's actions and hunger for power, the cruel nature of the love interest and the heroine spending the climax of the story in a hallucination or dream. (this is a debatable point).
As for the plot? Every aspect seemed focussed on the perculiar idea that the plants had voices, not neccesarily bad but things only got worse. The aforementioned humanised plant was in fact the prince of poisons and seemingly the villain of the story. There was no moral to the story and a rather melodramatic ending with no building up to the climax.
I develop the animal cruelty point below. If you still feel like reading this book then skip to the end of the stars.
****spoiler****spoiler****spoiler****spoiler****spoiler****spoiler****
To top it all off, there was this main theme of death and murder as well as animal cruelty. The love interest watched several deaths of animals, which, in nature is fair enough, but then he himself killed a stoat and then he killed a human and attempted to kill another (none less than the father of his 'love'). The heroine as well was responsible for the death of a cat and the father killed some asylum inmates just for knowledge.
***end****end***end****end***end****end****end****end****end****end****
I found the whole book insane and I am surprised I read all of it. I did so in the hope things would improve. I'm warning you now, Things DID NOT improve! Perhaps I'm a little biased as I feel so strongly against animal cruelty.