This Poison Heart by. Kalynn Baron | Book Review

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: This Poison Heart

Author: Kalynn Bayron

Format: ebook (own)

Pages: 384

Publication Date: 6/29/21

Publisher: Bloomsbury YA

Categories: Contemporary, Fantasy, Mythology, LGBTQIA+

Darkness blooms in bestselling author Kalynn Bayron’s new contemporary fantasy about a girl with a unique and deadly power.

Briseis has a gift: she can grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms with a single touch.

When Briseis’s aunt dies and wills her a dilapidated estate in rural New York, Bri and her parents decide to leave Brooklyn behind for the summer. Hopefully there, surrounded by plants and flowers, Bri will finally learn to control her gift. But their new home is sinister in ways they could never have imagined–it comes with a specific set of instructions, an old-school apothecary, and a walled garden filled with the deadliest botanicals in the world that can only be entered by those who share Bri’s unique family lineage.

When strangers begin to arrive on their doorstep, asking for tinctures and elixirs, Bri learns she has a surprising talent for creating them. One of the visitors is Marie, a mysterious young woman who Bri befriends, only to find that Marie is keeping dark secrets about the history of the estate and its surrounding community. There is more to Bri’s sudden inheritance than she could have imagined, and she is determined to uncover it . . . until a nefarious group comes after her in search of a rare and dangerous immortality elixir. Up against a centuries-old curse and the deadliest plant on earth, Bri must harness her gift to protect herself and her family.

From the bestselling author of Cinderella Is Dead comes another inspiring and deeply compelling story about a young woman with the power to conquer the dark forces descending around her.

Content Warning: violence, death, poison reactions

There is a lot to like about This Poison Heart. I love that it’s a story about a girl, Briseis with plant powers and that makes her immune to very poisonous plants. Now the story of how she has these powers is fascinating and tied into Greek mythology. The mythology story that explains Briseis’ family tree is the one about Medea and Jason and The Golden Fleece which honestly…I don’t even remember. I don’t know much about Medea but I have heard of Jason and The Golden Fleece, but ask me what it is about and I have no recollection. But the story gives us the background about it.

A lot of this book is a mystery because Briseis is adopted and then she’s willed an estate which was owned by her bio aunt, Circe. We learn that all is not as it seems at this new home Briseis and her moms have moved into. I loved that Briseis has two very loving moms. Her moms were my favorite characters in the book. The story is wonderfully diverse with Briseis moms and she herself being bisexual. There is a blossoming love interest in this story as well.

Briseis is very trusting and that bites her in the end. At times I just wish she wasn’t so trusting but she has to make her mistakes and learn but it’s a hard lesson in this story. The second half of the book was so much better than the first half. The first half was a little too slow for me but it’s due to setting up all the backstory of Briseis connection to Medea. The second half pulls the story together and there are some crazy things that happen. It definitely sets everything up nicely for the sequel.

Why you should read it:

you like Greek mythology
Briseis’ moms are amazing and other lgbtqia+ reps
Briseis’ plant powers and poison immunity is really cool

Why you might not want to read it:

slow beginning but it’s setting up the story so push through

My Thoughts:

I took my time with this one and I’m glad because the ending was really great and makes me look forward to the sequel.

📚 ~ Yolanda

Quotes from the book:

“Can’t be done no other way. You fixin’ somethin’ for somebody you love, for this healin’. Gotta do it with your bare hands and your whole heart. Understand?”
This Poison Heart by. Kalynn Baron

Book Review | Circe

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: Circe

Author: Madeline Miller

Format: Hardcover (owned)

Pages: 391

Categories: Greek Mythology, Adult Fiction

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

I saw this book everywhere and was intrigued, so I finally bought it. I can see why so many people fell in love with this book!

I am not a hard-core greek mythology fan. I remember learning about them in school thinking the Gods were just so wild. The way Athena was born was pretty crazy, straight from Zeus head, kinda cool, kinda weird. Also there was nothing relatable to me about the greek Gods. They were all too powerful, their epic battles and adventures were pretty awesome, but I couldn’t relate since I was not a god.

But this book Circe, is relatable. Obviously I am a mere mortal, but Circe is so unlike the Titans and gods in her family or those on Mount Olympus that she almost felt human. How can that be?

The writing is exquisite, the story-telling just sucked me in, much like Charybdis and her whirlpool! I felt like I was there with Circe. Now one of the reasons reading greek mythology challenged me was the family tree. Because they are pretty much related to one another. There is the incest – then again, they are Gods – what is the meaning of sex or sexuality to them? Not the way we mortals perceive sex that’s for sure. But yes, I usually need a visual family tree to follow greek mythology. The author, Madeline Miller, did such a good job telling this story, I didn’t get lost or confused. I mean Circe lives forever – so keeping her story linear through centuries, without boring me or losing me, was impressive. Also there is a helpful Cast of Characters list in the back of the book in case I forgot who was who, but I didn’t. Yay!

Circe is so unwanted. She is not goddess material, or so everyone tells her. She’s not tricky enough, not smart enough, not hard and vicious enough, she was not pretty enough. All her life she is told she is not enough. And it takes her awhile to learn some hard lessons but soon she learns who she is and accepts her strengths.

Just knowing what Circe had been through for centuries, at one point in the story, I agreed with her sister Pasiphaë, Circe was just being walked all over and she didn’t fight enough. But when she does fight back, it is glorious.

What touched me most about this story is Circe is a survivor. Through centuries of not being wanted, of losing her family, her home, her lovers and child even, she comes through. She is quiet and strong and always want to do the right thing. And when she becomes a mother I laughed because Circe is a goddess and even she was tired taking care of a mortal child! Same, I could relate, though I am just a mortal mom! Telegonus, her son, sounded like my son who was colicky as a baby. 😂 Watching their relationship grow, is so bittersweet. Okay wait, I didn’t laugh though, when she gave herself a c-section 😫, I had two c-sections myself and oh hell no would I want to perform that on my own.

This story is truly epic, in story-telling, scope and emotion. It doesn’t shy away from the violence of the gods or that they were incestuous, and had a thing about mating with magical bulls or cows. 👀 These gods and goddesses were often blood thirsty or just cold alien beings. At times I thought, is this story about Circe because she seems to have no power or is it about everyone else who has more power than her? In this book we read about the glorious stories of Daedalus, Odysseus, Helios, Scylla, Perses, Pasiphaë, Achilles, Athena and everyone under the sun and ocean it seems. I enjoyed it because I didn’t know half the stories. But what of Circe? Is she just there to be witness to all their greatness and nothing more?! I was so frustrated for her. Because let’s be honest, they all seemed more fascinating than Circe.

But it was the fine line she walked, wondering if she was a worthy goddess or more like a mortal, that was the most interesting thing about her. She may have seemed weak against goddesses like Athena, but her true voice was brave and strong. She stood up for what she believed in, no matter how they tried to suppress and threaten her. Her love for her child knew no bounds and she took care of herself and the both of them all by herself! You go, woman!

As for immortality and power, would you leave it all behind to become mortal? I ended that book wondering what I would do in her place. In the end, her choice was brave, it made me tear up. It takes courage to chose a life knowing it will be short but filled with love, despair, joy, pain and happiness. And death will be waiting in the end. Brave, that is what Circe is. The goddess and the book.

All my life I have been moving forward, and now I am here.”
Circe, Madeline Miller

First Lines Fridays

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

Happy Friday book lovers! Another week in August is coming to an end and I just learned my son will have a spelling test every Friday. 😩 That emoji is the face I will be making every Thursday when I tell him it’s time to study for his test. 😂 I can already picture his face of annoyance. Sigh…oh well! So what book have I been reading this week?

“WHEN I WAS BORN, the name for what I was did not exist. They called me nymph, assuming I would be like my mother and aunts and thousand cousins.”

💛

I am slowly savoring this tale of Circe, I can see why so many people love it. I haven’t read a Greek mythology retelling in awhile because I felt like there was so much out there already. But this one feels fresh and the writing is beautiful, my goodness Circe’s siblings are such bullies though! Okay gotta get back to my book so I can write up a review for it soon. 😘 Have a lovely weekend everyone!