A review by superfangirl818
This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I believe this is the third book I've rated 3.75 stars this year and my definition for that rating has become "the better end of mid; has potential to be better." This book had a very solid start and I really liked how the author was able to explain Briseis's abilities without info-dumping.

But, I started losing interest as the book went on. I had issues connecting with the characters. I ended up not really caring about any of them. I also noticed that there's pretty much no distinction between character voices and in my head, all of the character's voices seemed to meld into one. I'm also not a fan of the ending. I'm not fully sure why, but it felt abrupt and unsatisfying, even for the first book of a series.

I also want to talk about Marie's immortality. I understand that romances where one character is immortal and the other isn't has a lot of nuance, but in this case, Marie fully lived and experienced all 376 years... while she's trying to get with a 16 or 17-year-old Briseis... feels kind of off to me.

But, yeah. I'm not fully sure about this book. It's not bad -- it's actually pretty decent, but it's nothing new and I just didn't end up loving it.