Review: The Poisons We Drink

The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Narrated by Lynette R Freeman

Story itself was a bit bland but the narration was A++ *chef's kiss*

I'd love to give a decent breakdown of the plot, but it confused me a lot so all I can tell you is that our main protagonist, Venus, makes love potions and eventually lands in hot water that she has to find a way out of. She is in some kind of debilitating pain for most of the story (for various reasons) and her family is generally a hot mess.

There are all kinds of twists and turns, and because I wasn't paying attention the whole time (the political intrigue was BORING) it was very hard to work out whose side people were actually on. It seemed like there was a lot of switching.

So very twisty, and if you're paying closer attention than me you'll likely catch a few enjoyable surprises.

I wasn't sold on the parent-hating this book seemed to favour. We're definitely seeing a teenage point of view here, with parents seeming to be the root cause of everything that goes wrong in this book. I wasn't real keen on it, and it was another thing that set my mind wandering, because I didn't really want to hear it.

That's the interesting thing about audio - if the opinions of the book aren't really shared then it's easy to tune out. I found a lot of the smaller moments really entertaining but missed the depth in a few of the bigger themes because they were wrapped up in packaging that didn't agree with me.

And there are a LOT of big themes here. There's a looooong list of trigger warnings at the start, so expect some heaviness going into this.

The lighter moments are really what kept me listening. There are some really fun scenes and interactions between characters sprinkled in amongst all the heaviness, and it was extra delightful listening to these because the narration was so fantastic.

And here we come to my absolute favourite part - the narration. Freeman did such an incredible job bringing these characters alive. Jay actually annoyed me SO MUCH but at the same time I adored that characterisation. This one gets an extra star from me just purely based on how much the narration added to the story. It was easy to differentiate between characters, and there was so much personality conveyed. Would happily listen to any audiobook from this narrator.

So while I don't think the story will entertain everyone, I would recommend this book purely on the strength of the narration. It was such a fun listen, even though the second half of the actual story dragged. Just those voices were enough to keep me going.

With thanks to Netgalley for an audio ARC

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