The Poisons We Drink

Thank you for the early copy Coloredpagesbt and Sourcebooksfire! 
This was a really rough read for me. Especially since this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024. There are things about this book that I thought were absolutely phenomenal! I loved that there was a spectrum of love when it came to brewing potions. I loved that Venus was truly a “morally grey” character, and that it was family above everything. The complexity of the magic system and how witches brew their potions. The different powers that each witch possessed, and how the brewers couldn't delve into each other's respective practices. 
 Annnddd I think that's where my love for this book dies. 
I found myself being frustrated with the pacing, the plot, and the characters. 
The pacing of this book truly threw me off. It was terribly staggering, and sometimes just slow. I felt like plot lines linger for what longer than they need to. The so called “gotcha” or the big revelations that happened just fell so flat for me, that as I was reading I had to keep verbally saying “huh” “what” “why did that happen” because the lead up, and dialogue before had just didn't build up like how it was supposed to. I almost DNF'd at 60% because I kept have to rereading and going back thinking I was missing things. I don't really want to spoil anything, so I'm just gonna leave it at that. 
When it came to the characters I truly did not like Venus OVERALL. Yes, I did appreciate some parts of her character and personality BUT her as whole was just infuriated my soul. At some parts it felt like she was combative to just be combative. Like holy shit girl you are staggering your own progress in your own ordeal. And then it just kept happening over and over and over again. Like... at some point in even morally grey characters have to have some kind of growth in their demeanor in order to get to that next step right? 
I didn't rate this any lower because I feel like I did enjoy a lot of parts when it came to reading this BUT I didn't have a good experience overall especially with this being such a highly anticipated book for me. 
I also want to add that I think this should have been categorized outside of YA? But that's not my ministry to speak on in depth, just my opinion.