This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron- Spoiler Free YA Fantasy Review

This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron is a fun YA fantasy with plant magic and awesome moms! This spoiler-free This Poison Heart review will walk you through all the pros and cons of this fun urban fantasy!

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Are you ready for a fun YA fantasy with a super unique magic system, awesome parents, and a surprising amount of Greek mythology? Then keep on and check out This Poison Heart by Kalynn Baron.

This Poison Heart Review

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What is the synopsis of This Poison Heart?

This Poison Heart is Kalynn Bayron’s sophomore novel. It is an urban YA fantasy set in New York. We follow Bri and her two adoptive moms as they move from the city to a large country manor that Bris inherited from her biological aunt. 

Bri has a unique magic that we learn about right at the start of the book. She can manipulate plants, make them grow, and, as we find out, is immune to poison. 

During the course of the novel, we follow Bri as she slowly uncovers the mystery of her biological family, her magic, and this mysterious house that holds more secrets than she could have ever expected. 

Pros of the Book

This was such a fun YA urban fantasy, with a lot of pros to talk about.

For one, the moms in this book were fantastic. Quite different from most ya fantasy books, the moms in this book are both alive, present, loving, and super supportive of their daughter.  Honestly, this was a breath of fresh air, especially for me as a mom myself. It is nice seeing young adult books with good parental representation and I think this really makes the book so much better than some of its YA counterparts. 

Secondly, this book has a ton of Greek mythology mixed into the plotline. I wasn’t expecting that at all and was pleasantly surprised when it started playing a big part in the story. The way Kalynn Bayron weaves Greek myths into her world is really interesting and makes the world a lot more fleshed out feeling. 

The magic system in This Poison Heart was just a lot of fun. It is a soft magic system but still made perfect sense with the way the world worked. As I mentioned, it is a plant-based magic system. Our main character can make plants grow and command them, a power that she barely understands herself. We are learning along with her and I feel like there will be more explanation in the second book.

I have to talk about the setting of This Poison Heart. The setting was so cool It is in a large run-down manor house with a secret garden, an apothecary, and is situated in a creepy small town. It gave me horror vibes without the horror and I loved it so much.

Cons of the Book

No book is perfect, and this one is no exception. Even when I really enjoy a book, I tend to find a few things that I am not the biggest fan of. 

For me, one of the bigger cons of This Poison Heart is the romance. While this book isn’t super romantically focused, the romance felt a little off to me. There was one character who I thought would be the love interest, and then it changed to another one. The “insta-love” was a little strong for me and this is one of my least favorite fantasy book tropes. 

Also, there were a few characters that, to me, felt a little too sketchy right from the start. While I love a good shady character, it seems like you are supposed to trust these few in the beginning and yet you always have this feeling of “nope, I don’t trust you at all”. This isn’t a massive drawback, but just something that I wasn’t the biggest fan of so I had to mention it in my review of This Poison Heart. 

My final “con” for this book is pretty personal and I don’t think most people will even really notice it, but I wanted to mention it anyway. Since I worked as a paralegal at one point for a firm that handled probate law, I felt like the inheritance of the homemade very little sense. Again, this isn’t something that people without legal knowledge of the probate system will really even notice though. 

Should You Read This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron?

Only you can decide if this book sounds like one you want to read, but I say go for it. This Poison Heart was a lot of fun. A great young adult fantasy book with great parents, interesting magic, and a cool setting. 

It does end on a bit of a cliffhanger, but it made me very excited for book two to come out.

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