Review of Poison Study by Maria Snyder

The library did not have an audiobook of Poison Study, so I had to go back to reading hardcopy. I was a little worried about having time to read, but it turns out it wasn't a problem.

I blazed through this book.

It was easy reading, but that's not to say it wasn't also intelligent.

An intriguing idea - the comparison of love to slow poison. Or is being in love only like slow poison until you confess it, share it, and find out it is returned; then is love the antidote?

Yelena, the main character, is likeable for a number of reasons. She's a bit gritty with some dark history and bleak sentiments - making her similar to what a real person might be like who undergoes what she does. I liked that about her.

She is believable as a jaded character but not in a whiny or cheesy or one-dimensional way. In fact, Yelena is actually quite... decisive. And...

Dynamic. That's the word.

I'm still deciding about the love story.

On the one hand, I loved that it started out subtle. You don't realize that you've already met the love interest until, well... you start looking for him. And then you start reading into small reactions a little bit more.

But then once the love story started to gain steam, I felt like a few things happened a little too fast.

*SPOILER ALERT BELOW*


 1) Another character pointed out the supposed obviousness of their feelings before Snyder had built up enough tension to convince me that strong feelings existed. This is a classic blunder that we writers refer to as "telling" instead of "showing."

2) The relationship was consummated a bit too hastily (even though it was near the end of the book). Let's leave room for some tension for the 2nd and 3rd books, shall we? I also wanted to see the brave but emotionally fragile Yelena struggle a bit more to reach the point where she was ready to be with him. (Part of her dark history included rape, after all - so I would have believed more readily in hesitance as opposed to haste.)

3)The lover seemed a little too easily accepting of her magical abilities, especially for an assassin's history of killing anyone with magical demonstrations. I just thought Snyder could have played with that tension a bit more too.

But maybe we'll see more relationship strain in the 2nd book. I have reason to believe we will.

Aside from those smallish criticisms, I'm enjoying the series and have already begun tracking through Book 2. Hope you're liking it too!