Book Review Of This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron
This Poison Heart is a young adult, fantasy novel about a 17-year-old girl, Briesis, who has the ability to control plants with her mind. In addition, she’s immune to poisons. What this means is not only does she have her black girl magic going for her, but she also has a pretty badass power that would make anyone pause. Bri has had her powers since birth. She was adopted by a lovely sapphic couple and though they had no clue where her powers came from, they loved her and protected her as best as they could. Fast-forward 17 years later and a lawyer reaches out to them. Apparently, Briesis’ only living blood relative, her birth mother’s sister, Circe has passed and left her a mansion, fully paid for, some pretty large acres of land and weird instructions to an interesting garden. Briesis and her mums make the trip to the town, Rhinebeck where the house is located with intentions to be there for at least the summer. During their stay, some rather interesting things start happening to Brieses and their new home.
I read the entire book in a hurry(because of a deadline ;))but it in no way felt like a chore. I didn’t have to force myself to read it. I wanted to keep going back to it. First of all, I am a massive massive fantasy fan. Anything with magic? Count me in!! This book gave me that and a black queer protagonist with queer parents?? Of course, I couldn’t keep my hands away! I love that Bayron gave us a solid foundation before getting to the interesting bits. In the first few chapters, we get to know Brieses, her incredible bond with her mums and the history(as they know it) of her powers. It sets the tone for everything else. I’m a BIG critic of beginnings because if you mess up the beginning of your book, movie, show or play it’ll be extremely difficult for me to keep enjoying it. I mean, you’ll have to do a complete 180, like shock me to get me to keep enjoying but this? Superbly done!
Additionally, I absolutely adored the black hair representation. Bayron subtly described the realities of a black person’s hair. We read Brieses casually slipping in things like wash day, bonnet, scarf, twists, twist outs and so on. The representation made me smile. Also, I adore the angle she used for queer representation. I love the media that shows people in the community overcoming adversity but sometimes a simple mention of us, in a totally normal way that doesn’t come off as trying to be diverse, sinks into my skin and makes a beautiful home there. I love that and this book gave me all of that and more. Our protagonist has two mums and no one made it seem like that was something to raise their eyebrows at. Simply magnificent. As well, Bri’s attraction to both men and women was normal, no one cared at all. It was truly lovely to read.
As much as I enjoyed the book, a few things put me off. One being Brises' reactions. Some of her reactions came off as inauthentic. I mean what black girl trusts a boy they just met with their greatest secrets?! Also, her reactions to certain truths revealed about the girl she likes felt, for lack of a better word, weird. Like Brieses would panic in her head(as she should) but we would see a somewhat different reaction in front of people or she’d react but not as intensely as you would expect and almost immediately she’d present like she was over it and it wasn’t because she was putting on an act. It’s just how Brieses genuinely was. I feel we, the readers didn’t truly get to see Brieses feel all her emotions before either accepting them or getting over them.
Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in fantasy that features QTBIPOC characters. I genuinely don’t see anyone hating this book. In addition, I give this book a solid 7.5/10. Though I feel that the story overall deserves a 10, the mentioned inconsistencies and what I saw as some slight misrepresentation pushes it down to that 7.5.
