Scan barcode
A review by kaitlynisliterate
The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste
3.0
I thought that this was a pretty decent debut. There were a lot of good moments and aspects that I really enjoyed but unfortunately, it didn’t really all come together for me.
First off, the pacing was all over the place. The beginning of the book is slooow with the first 20% dedicated to set-up, background, and world-building. Then there seem to be extremely important scenes that happen off-page with a single sentence. Conversations happen constantly but are always kept short so emotions go from 0 to 100 and back to 0 quickly.
The world-building was pretty good and I liked the individual components of the magical system. However, I never got the sense that the various magical mechanisms interacted or related to each other to create a single cohesive magical system. Anima, auras, blood oaths, blood tethers, familiars, callings, vow of abnegation, purification baths, Sister Magick/Sister Nature, potion notes, enchanted items. These are just some of the various magic systems or mechanisms that are introduced. And because they all operate more or less separately from each other, it’s very easy to forget one of these mechanisms exists until it's brought back 150 pages later.
I would also recommend not thinking too deeply about how the potion economics or recoil work because if you do, the entire thing stops making sense. Most of the time, the recoil from a trinary-note potion will literally almost kill you and you have to drink a mending potion to not die. But when Venus is required to brew two trinary-note potions back to back, she can withstand the recoil if Patches and Leap fight (??) the potion? Shouldn’t brewers have developed a better system for dealing with recoil than literally lying on the floor with shattered bones, bleeding out, slowly dying until someone else pours the mending potion into your mouth? Why would Leslie offer Venus a *free* Ironskin potion when we’re told it costs seven figures for a single bottle because it’s extremely dangerous to brew? And why the hell would Venus say no without a second thought, especially since it would help her later on?
I loved the premise of this book and I think it mostly managed to live up to my expectations. However, one issue that I had with the main plot was how little of it is explained to Venus (and by extension, the reader). Since Venus is only roped into the enslave-Senators-with-potions plan at the very end after all of the details have been figured out, the reader never gets a clear sense of the stakes or consequences. The reader is not given a baseline understanding of this fantasy-Congress (how many Senators are pro-witcher, which regions of the US are more witcher friendly, what’s the status of the House of Representatives, etc). It’s explained that Venus doesn’t know these details because she doesn’t follow politics but then how is the reader expected to care about the Registration Act passing if the main character literally doesn’t? I mean, all we’re told is that these 5 Senators are “swing votes” but if you’re going to give them a love potion anyway, why does that even matter? You could literally just love potion 5 “no” votes and it would have an equal if not greater effect. I think part of this is that I work in DC politics so these unexplained details stand out to me more but it’s pretty frustrating when the main character is basically clueless about the secret plot she’s participating in for the entire book.
Another related issue is how smaller story elements are introduced in one chapter, leading you to believe that it will have long-ranging implications for the rest of the book but it just… doesn’t? Something that would seem extremely important or life-changing to Venus is basically never mentioned again. For example, Venus is given a letter from her deceased father in Chapter 5 and for reasons that are not explained, tosses it aside without opening it. It’s only until Chapter 32 that this letter is suddenly rediscovered and we’re told that Venus has avoided opening it because she didn’t feel ready but that was never mentioned in Chapter 5. Another example is the inheritance syndrome which basically gives a resurrected person (in this case, Venus) the magical abilities of the person sacrificed. This concept is introduced in Chapter 26 and wouldn’t you know it, Venus very conveniently discovers that she has inheritance syndrome in the same chapter. The fact that Venus can now brew healing potions is never mentioned after Chapter 26 even though there are so many potential uses for it in the story.
Finally, some of the phrases felt awkward and clunky to me. Since I read an ARC, I have no idea if the exact wording will remain in the published version (presumably the straight-up typos or grammatical errors will be edited out). Some examples of phrases that I found awkward: “a biblical flood of patrons had flooded the Golden Coin” or “tired screeched to sleep as Venus slammed her foot on the brake” or “a shower washed the crumbles of sleep away” or “Venus needed to gather her strength’s last crumbles to get out of here.”
Anyway, this review ended up way longer than I expected but I should reiterate that I thought this was a pretty good debut and a 3-star rating is not bad at all.
Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
First off, the pacing was all over the place. The beginning of the book is slooow with the first 20% dedicated to set-up, background, and world-building. Then there seem to be extremely important scenes that happen off-page with a single sentence. Conversations happen constantly but are always kept short so emotions go from 0 to 100 and back to 0 quickly.
The world-building was pretty good and I liked the individual components of the magical system. However, I never got the sense that the various magical mechanisms interacted or related to each other to create a single cohesive magical system.
I would also recommend not thinking too deeply about how the potion economics or recoil work because if you do, the entire thing stops making sense.
I loved the premise of this book and I think it mostly managed to live up to my expectations. However, one issue that I had with the main plot was how little of it is explained to Venus (and by extension, the reader). Since Venus is only roped into the enslave-Senators-with-potions plan at the very end after all of the details have been figured out, the reader never gets a clear sense of the stakes or consequences. The reader is not given a baseline understanding of this fantasy-Congress (how many Senators are pro-witcher, which regions of the US are more witcher friendly, what’s the status of the House of Representatives, etc). It’s explained that Venus doesn’t know these details because she doesn’t follow politics but then how is the reader expected to care about the Registration Act passing if the main character literally doesn’t?
Another related issue is how smaller story elements are introduced in one chapter, leading you to believe that it will have long-ranging implications for the rest of the book but it just… doesn’t? Something that would seem extremely important or life-changing to Venus is basically never mentioned again.
Finally, some of the phrases felt awkward and clunky to me. Since I read an ARC, I have no idea if the exact wording will remain in the published version (presumably the straight-up typos or grammatical errors will be edited out). Some examples of phrases that I found awkward: “a biblical flood of patrons had flooded the Golden Coin” or “tired screeched to sleep as Venus slammed her foot on the brake” or “a shower washed the crumbles of sleep away” or “Venus needed to gather her strength’s last crumbles to get out of here.”
Anyway, this review ended up way longer than I expected but I should reiterate that I thought this was a pretty good debut and a 3-star rating is not bad at all.
Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.