Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Walking on Wednesday with Audios ~ Poison Study

Title ~ Poison Study
Series ~ Study, #1
Author ~ Maria V. Snyder
Narrator ~ Gabra Zackman
Publisher ~ Harlequin
Published ~ 1 November 2005
Genre ~ YA/Fantasy

*Book source ~ Purchased from Audible

My Rating ~ 5 bites out of 5

Yelena has been in the dungeon a very long time waiting to be hung for committing murder. It doesn’t matter that she was defending herself, the Commander of Ixia’s law is clear: there is no excuse for killing. However, when her time comes she is instead taken to Valek who is head of the Spy Network and the Security Forces. There is a rule: the first person due to be executed after Commander Ambrose’s Food Taster has died is given the option of becoming the new taster instead of hanging. Yelena is surprised to be given the option, but she takes it and begins studying with Valek all about poisons. Yelena’s only trouble now should be avoiding being poisoned. However, there is more going on than she is aware of and she ends up in the middle of it all.

Guest reviewers today:
My 16-yr-old daughter A
My 14-yr-old son T
My 13-yr-old son K

Plot:
This story was a hit with all three of them. A said she liked it a lot then changed her answer to stupendous when T & K said it was awesome. There followed a discussion on whether awesome was better than stupendous. They liked the plot and the fact there was magic, but T kept expressing his disappointment in the fact the story was dragonless. The world is pretty cool, magic is pretty cool and they didn’t like what happened to Yelena or her foster siblings at the hands of Reyad who they said was an asshat (my word) and deserved to be killed. They really liked the fighting and training scenes.

Characters:
A like Yelena more than the boys did though they didn’t have any objection to her in a general sense. Everyone thought Valek was the most awesome character and Ari & Janco followed close behind as favorites. A liked Rand, but was disappointed in him and no one liked Marge though I don’t think she was meant to be liked. They thought the Commander was tough but fair except when it came to executing people for having killed in self-defense. They thought that was grossly unfair.

Other points:
A thought criollo sounds like it would be pretty tasty and would love to figure out a way to try some. T said he thought the book would make an awesome movie even though they’d probably just screw it up. Um, I wonder where he gets that from? *whistles innocently* K likes all the fighting that happened and wants to learn how to do it.

Narration:
Everyone liked the narration.

All-in-all they were very happy with the story and look forward to moving on to the next in the trilogy.


4 comments:

  1. What a fun review! that's great all three of your kids enjoyed this one. It sounds like a very exciting story. hope you all enjoy the next one!

    -lauren

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    1. We've been listening to audios for years. I don't know why I didn't think of having them review sooner. lol

      I read Posion Study back in 2011 (I think) and I finally got around to having them listen to it. I'm glad they liked it as much a sI did. :)

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  2. Lovely review and yes I have jaded my kids too when it comes to movie adaptions..LOL My girls won't watch any movie till they have read the book first to see how it was suppose to be..hehehe!

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    1. Thanks, Kimba! I'm so glad they liked it as much as I did. Not all books I've loved have bowled them over. I'm so disappointed they didn't like Anne McCaffrey's 1st Dragonriders book! I mean, dragons! *disbelieving look*

      Anyway, we are not fans of adaptations around here. It may not be *all* my influence because they have listened to a boatload of books before many of them were turned into movies and I've heard them comment on the fact that things were or were not in the books without me ever opening my mouth. LOL

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