A sexy title for a sexy book. No, seriously. It’s sexy.
About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.
And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly's Dust—and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison.
As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can't control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren't so clear…
*
To put it simple, this book was delicious. A well thought of universe than hints at a dystopian society, is filled with a creative cast of characters and contains a May-December romance. There’s also plenty of
magic. (Magic makes the world go round! n_n)
The summary itself is powerful enough to make you want to pick the book up, though it does reveal crucial plot points like Yelena’s magical powers. Though, to be honest, those are obvious for the non-naive reader.
Anyway, I very much enjoyed the book. Yelena was a strong and smart character who makes you support her instead of wanting to face-palm yourself into oblivion with her actions. The romance was not obvious from the start -- okay, wait, it was obvious because as a reader you knew it would eventually happen (if not in this book somewhere down the trilogy), but it progressed slowly – we got to see Valek and Yelena trusting each other before they became friendly, become friends before they started wondering about other stuff and wondering about other stuff before the other stuff happened. Oooh, I’m so coherent, aren’t I?
The supporting characters were also lovely. The cook equals a pot of love in my book, the mean girl (whose name I forgot) and the guards who teach Yelena how to fight (so much win!) too.
I also loved Ambrose. I won’t say more because I do not want to spoil the story for you readers.
What stood out more about this book, however, was how the author portrays what could possibly be a dystopian society – no magic allowed, everyone wears a specific uniform according to his duty, if you kill you must be killed (no exception) – yet almost justifies it. We almost have to agree that the world is better than what it was when the king reigned and we learn to accept the reality of that world. We can see that the rules are far from perfect and the attempt at standardization crushes freedom of expression, but at the same time, in the story, it works. The people are happy.
Nowadays where dystopian-lit is the new book seller/page turner it is a breath of fresh air to find a society that while attempting to be a utopia and having many things that may make you cringe is not full blown and obviously wrong and evil (at least from the start). The book makes you think.
To finish, the sub-plot (well, it wasn't much of sub-plot, more like part of the main-plot) around coffee made me smile.
I fully recommended this book. It is a page turner, has a well developed (even if at times obvious) plot and portrays an intelligent heroine. I loved it.
It is truly a shame that the sequels don’t live up to the first book and are rather bland, boring and repetitive. Yelena becomes stupid, is always hurt and Valek only serves as her sex slave. While I understand why many may want to know the rest of Yelena’s story and I won’t deny that the last two books in the trilogy are readable and interesting enough, this books stands much better on its own. The sequels aren’t really needed. In my opinion, you should just imagine what happens after Poison Study.
That is all. u_u
My rating: 4/5
Have you read Poison Study? Opinions? I’d love to hear more.
END NOTE:
Friends, Romans, countrymen, I come to you today after months have passed *gasp* to offer you the power of SPAM *bows down*. No, but seriously, to compensate the lack of posts over the past months (due to studying, exams and stress – and then the wonderful, wonderful summer) I shall try to post with more frequency now.
New posts shall vary between reviews of Poison Study, The Duff and Buffy Season 8 (the comic). Hurray!
Those posts must however wait a bit, since I’ve just felt a sudden inspiration to re-read the Hunger Games. ^___^
Love,
Karla
