soap&diamonds

3.25 / 5 stars

The Poisons We Drink is a magical whimsical adventure that explores the discrimination that people “other” than what society deems normal face.

As always, I’ll start with the good.

The cat. The cat was amazing. I love the cat. But seriously? The magic system that was introduced in the beginning was really well crafted and I enjoyed it thoroughly. (My opinion changes but I’ll talk about that later.) There was a solid dynamic between the characters and I loved each characters’ development throughout the book.

Unfortunately, that’s where my good opinions end.

I really wanted to enjoy this book. The premise was really cool, and the introduction to the world felt really solid. But as the book went on, magic felt like a deus ex machina: something that was able to explain away every problem. Sure, using magic had side effects, but we never were able to delve deeper into those side effects. There was no emotional development built with the characters that were lost due to magic, so Venus, the main character, seemed to be protected by “the protagonist’s shield”. The plot was hard to follow. There were multiple dramatic plot twists in the subplots alone.

I was really confused when the ending came. I left the book feeling more confused than satisfied and even after a reread, I still struggle to follow the storyline. The romance was absolutely unneeded. In fact, I feel as though it takes away from the story. There was no development between the characters nor did the romance feel well integrated into the story. It could very well have done without all of that and just left the two characters as friends. Especially as, throughout the book, a lot of unresolved trauma and tension is revealed to be entwined with those two characters.

Overall, I wanted to give this book a chance. Do I recommend you read it? Yes. The world is so wonderfully interesting and while the plot was confusing, it does raise some issues with the modern world that need to be addressed. The characters were fun and I would love to be friends with all of them if given the chance.

Diamond Out!