I loved this book!! I’m a huge fan of snow white retellings but my goodness, the plot twists, the suspense, the morals, WAS ASTOUNDING!!! Definitely a book I will read over and over again.
The authors writing style was so poetically descriptive and beautiful. Imagine a bard telling an epic tale – It’s like that.
It’s both a fantasy and a coming of age tale. There are definitely feminist vibes coming from this which is a thing that I didn’t realise I liked in a book until now.
It’s dark, which I didn’t think that this book would be. For that reason, I would recommend it to a person of 16+ years.
It’s fast paced which I like in a fantasy book.
The change in perspective/narrator in each chapter was confusing at first. It was definitely a grim retelling. There’s a theme of mystery and a lot of ambiguous language used to portray that.
It does jump between 1st and 3rd person pov in the beginning which is why the beginning was a little confusing for me.
I can only assume that the huntsman is the main narrator in the beginning. All of this is cleared up later in the book.
It follows different characters from the story in each chapter.
This book also flashbacks to the past which was an interesting narrative approach as the reader has to keep up with the timeline. It starts off with an event that leaves you wanted to read more in order to find out why that event happened. Basically, it jumps straight into the action.
Poisoned really stays true to the Grimms brothers element – its dark and interestingly, it’s set in Konigsburg (which according to my research, was an old prussian/German city)
At times it was humourous, in the interaction between some of the characters. Tbe characters were likeable, in the sense that they were well developed and it was clear to see what type of people they were. This transparency within characters reminds me of the typical fairytale tropes of ‘good’ and ‘evil’.
I actually loved the metaphors that Donnelly used.
This book also had sort chapters. In my opinion, this makes it fast paced and keeps the readers attention.
There were definite political themes in this book, political fantasy is my favourite thing to read so I didn’t mind this theme at all.
This book was chock-a-block with shocking events and plot twists at every turn.
On the back cover of the book, the four words that the publisher used to describe this book and its contents was: Apple, stepmother, friendship, feminism.
My verdict: a real page turner
The authors writing style was so poetically descriptive and beautiful. Imagine a bard telling an epic tale – It’s like that.
It’s both a fantasy and a coming of age tale. There are definitely feminist vibes coming from this which is a thing that I didn’t realise I liked in a book until now.
It’s dark, which I didn’t think that this book would be. For that reason, I would recommend it to a person of 16+ years.
It’s fast paced which I like in a fantasy book.
The change in perspective/narrator in each chapter was confusing at first. It was definitely a grim retelling. There’s a theme of mystery and a lot of ambiguous language used to portray that.
It does jump between 1st and 3rd person pov in the beginning which is why the beginning was a little confusing for me.
I can only assume that the huntsman is the main narrator in the beginning. All of this is cleared up later in the book.
It follows different characters from the story in each chapter.
This book also flashbacks to the past which was an interesting narrative approach as the reader has to keep up with the timeline. It starts off with an event that leaves you wanted to read more in order to find out why that event happened. Basically, it jumps straight into the action.
Poisoned really stays true to the Grimms brothers element – its dark and interestingly, it’s set in Konigsburg (which according to my research, was an old prussian/German city)
At times it was humourous, in the interaction between some of the characters. Tbe characters were likeable, in the sense that they were well developed and it was clear to see what type of people they were. This transparency within characters reminds me of the typical fairytale tropes of ‘good’ and ‘evil’.
I actually loved the metaphors that Donnelly used.
This book also had sort chapters. In my opinion, this makes it fast paced and keeps the readers attention.
There were definite political themes in this book, political fantasy is my favourite thing to read so I didn’t mind this theme at all.
This book was chock-a-block with shocking events and plot twists at every turn.
On the back cover of the book, the four words that the publisher used to describe this book and its contents was: Apple, stepmother, friendship, feminism.
My verdict: a real page turner