Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder

20 reviews

paigesquared's review against another edition

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DNF due to a whack-ass transphobic storyline that I'm not interested in seeing through. Bye!

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_rowantree_'s review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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xolindsey's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

3.5


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ekcd_'s review against another edition

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adventurous tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I read this in high school (15 years ago) and I have thought about it regularly since then. What a good book it was, how I knew it was the beginning of loving fantasy. 

Decided to read it again and uh. It’s kinda bad? The prose is trash, like truly trash. FMC is a little annoying, a little too situationally perfect. Valek is whatever. Of course the only loveable characters are the hulking loyal body cards Yelena befriends by being ~so smol and fierce~

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soupe's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

Started with a strong premise, but even before I got halfway through, the cracks started to show.

The world building was lacking, I had no real sense of time and place reading this (is it a medieval fantasy?There were grappling hooes, water bottles, and backpacks, so I still don't know). Plot-wise, it was too unfocused, introducing plot points, characters l, and backstory in the second half that really should have been alluded to earlier to get any payoff. Even then, some of those points were so flimsy there was no salvaging it.

This was a big disappointment.

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jackiepreston's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0


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spaghettii's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I could not put this book down! I had a hard time predicting a lot of the book, which was a nice change.
I knew Rand was going to betray her at some point because of how Valek described him, but wow. I like that despite being portrayed as the bad guy there was still depth to the chatacter.

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maevebillings's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5


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malima's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Poison study starts with Yelena, a girl that has been in prison for a year because she killed the son of a powerful man, both of which had tortured her, being selected to become the food taster of the Commander, Ixia's ruler, after the previous one had died.
She learns to recognise poisons and to defend herself, she makes some friends, falls in love, finds out she has magic, and gets involved in the country's politics.
Mostly, this book is okay. It's exactly what you'd expect from a YA Fantasy book, nothing less, nothing more. Nothing bad about it, but also nothing special about it. 
All the relationships - both platonic and romantic - somewhat lack chemistry, but not to a degree that makes them unbelievable either.
I kept reading because it was an enjoyable enough read and I had no reason to stop, but planned not to continue with the sequel. Luckily, the end does pick up, and once we get to know more about the political plot brewing inside Ixia and Yelena gets involved in it, the plot did catch my interest.
The relationships didn't become any more interesting, though, but the dimension of their political allyship between Yelena and her love interest made me willing to overlook their lack of chemistry towards the end.
There is no way this series will become one of my favourites, but the glimpse we got into the magical and political landscape in Ixia and its neighbour Sitia towards the end, makes me think the series will probably turn out to be in overall an enjoyable, if mediocre, read after all.

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msstearns13's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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