Reviews

Both horrifying and kind of satisfying. Pamela suffers medical and emotional abuse at the hands of her father, sexual harassment from a classmate whose father also happens to be orchestrating environmental destruction in the town. With all this going on, Pamela harnesses a terrific power over the plants around her and can bend them to her ends, good or bad.

doubledemin's review against another edition

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dark emotional fast-paced

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

4.0

kmoore52's review against another edition

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dark sad tense fast-paced

2.0

This was a super quick read, so it was hard to feel connected to the characters. The mood of this is definitely pretty dark and, like, sad -- I just didn't really enjoy reading it.

loyalblackbird's review against another edition

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3.0

I think the book just did not meet my expectations. It's short so it's hard to explore heavy hitting themes, but the romance feels a bit flat despite the character being likable.

ladykaylee's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is the second or third time I’ve read this YA graphic novel. High school senior Pamela Isley gets a hot goth girlfriend and learns to stand up to men who want to control her body

(her father who wants to experiment on her in a desperate attempt to save his mysteriously poisoned wife, and a jerk at school who thinks that his money and family name have earned him the right to force Pamela into intimacy) by murdering them.

I’m a sucker for origin stories, and for queer YA novels. This is both in one: the origin of Batman villainess Poison Ivy, and a dark story of a girl who has to go to extremes to stand up for her own bodily autonomy.

fairytalesfolkloreandfantasy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I think maybe I'm just not the target audience for this book. I love poison ivy, I love gothic fiction, I love a LGBTQ love story. But this felt a bit more teen drama than gothic romance. Poison Ivy felt out of character, the love story felt flat and at no point was the story feeling like the gothic horror drama it was advertised as. I loved the art work and I wanted to like the story but it never really took off.

jakekilroy's review against another edition

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4.0

Although written for middle schoolers and/or the young adult crowd, there's a Victorian eeriness to Poison Ivy's life at home in this modern-day origin story. It makes for a quick read, but it's true to nature (yuk yuk yuk). All that Poison Ivy has been in her eons of comic book existence since the '60s lines up with this take on how she came to be who she is at her core—someone with a great deal of empathy protected by a thorny malevolence.

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