Book Review: Poison Study

Poison Study (Study #1)
Maria V. Snyder
Young Adult Fantasy

            About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She’ll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.
            And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly’s Dust—and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison.
            As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can’t control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren’t so clear…

________Book Review________

 

            Wow! What a book! So disappointed in myself for waiting so long to read such a good story! It’s completely gripping and wonderful, filled with an amazing story line and even more amazing Characters. Maria V. Snyder weaves together action, murder and magic in a fantastic story with a fairy tale like web.    
            The Plot is unique and has a very relatable, not so perfect in anyway heroine named Yelena who has had so many interesting and terrible and wonderful things happen to her that you cannot help but cheer her on and hope for the best.  Yelena is nothing remotely close to a ‘Mary-Sue’ and I absolutely love this fact to death.  She is one of my favorite female characters that I have ever read.
           Valek the ‘Poison’ master is also a very well developed extremely well written character. He’s hidden and deep and there is so much about him that I cannot wait to read the next few books in the series. Valek was written by a woman and I think Maria V. Snyder has done an incredible job writing a male character, he is very believable.
            All of the characters in this book are fantastic; all have their own voices, and all have their own story. This book has done what quite a few books can’t quite accomplish, it has built an incredibly believable world with equally believable characters, all the events make complete sense they are all developed and though this is the first book in the story she has wrapped up all the secondary plot lines and opened your eyes into what the bigger plot line was.
           The story is dark and yet has light happy moments thrown in. You don’t learn anything too fast and though it doesn’t move overly quickly it’s fast enough that you’re practically gripping the book because you want to finish it so badly!
          This was easily 5 stars for me. I am looking forward to reading the next few books in the series and looking more into the other books that Maria V. Snyder has written.
          I recommend this story to anyone who can appreciate a well-developed story that honestly didn’t leave a single plot hole as far as I can tell.