Do yourself a favor and add this to your TBR, your cart, your library hold list ASAP.

"Has history taught us nothing? Old worlds must be burned for new worlds to rise. You cannot want a revolution and fear its fire. Everything must burn."

The Poisons We Drink is set in a version of Washington DC where witchers are segregated from society and brewing, or having possession of a potion is illegal. In a tumultuous time, the senate is about to review a bill that would require all witchers to be on a government held registry.

This book is not only fast paced and exciting and has an awesome magic system, it also talks about important social issues we're dealing with today with nuance and humanity. Bethany Baptiste will forever be an auto-buy author for me now!

3.75/4

"Fear and hatred don't nurture prosperity. They strangle it. We cannot call ourselves the greatest nation if we hold little regard for one another. This nation needs to be on the right side of history or we'll imprison future generations to live in our past."

YESSSSSSS, THIS IS SUCH A POWERFUL STATEMENT! Overall, I liked this read - I did have a hard time getting into the book, but Baptiste does a great job of building her plot and characters within fantasy realism. The second half of the book moved forward a bit faster for me and, oh boy, the emotions I felt! Baptiste put a lot of thought into her characters and their growth as individuals as well as a connected group. The turmoil in our FMC was enough to make me want to throw my Kindle down (in a good-ish way) because it's hard to watch someone lose it all, including the little respect/love she had for herself. The messages in this book are powerful - the strength of love, the need for connection, and the inhumane treatment of "otherness" with the fight for human rights - all tough subjects that Baptiste weaved together with her power of storytelling. I also really appreciated the little anecdotes before each chapter to help build out the world a bit more.

Thank you to NetGalley, Sourcebooks Fire, and Bethany Baptiste for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I want to start off saying thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for allowing me to read this ARC. I thought the premise of this book was awesome, I loved the representation in this book. Unfortunately I was not a fan of the writing style and the pacing of the book. I had a really hard time following along and this really took away from the story as a whole. I think the idea behind this books was great but that it was not executed the best. Overall a great story.

Do you love young adult urban fantasies that feature politics, family, and love potions? If so, then look no further than The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste. The country is divided between humans and those with magic. Eighteen-year-old Venus Stoneheart supports her family by making illegal love potions. Magic users are being discriminated against and tyrannized by humans. An impending Registration Act law will result in further restrictions on magic users.
When tragedy strikes their mother, Venus must now keep her younger sister Janus safe. When the head of the magic wielders offers her the chance to get revenge, it comes with a steep price. Magic, power, trust, and corruption mix with magic and power in this compelling story.

Venus wants to live in peace, but an event three years ago caused a deviation in her. It’s dangerous and unpredictable. Who will end up controlling who? Janus is reckless, but fun-loving and powerful. The secondary and tertiary characters are well defined and complex as well, but there are many of them.

The worldbuilding was excellent in this one. However, there were some occasional pacing issues and the book seemed a little too long because of that. There is plenty of action and violence as well as a few surprises along the way. A long list of content warnings is provided at the beginning of the book. There are many kinds of love potions, not just the one that immediately comes to mind. A list is provided at the end of the book along with a glossary of terms.

Overall, this was an entertaining story with compelling characters, excellent world-building, some differences in the magic system. Political intrigue, accepting responsibility, discrimination, family, friendship, love, grief, death, trust, vengeance, power, love, fear, and fractured relationships play various roles in this exciting story. I hope this is the first book in a series featuring Venus and her family and friends.

SOURCEBOOKS Fire and Bethany Baptiste provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. Publication date is currently set for March 05, 2024.

Loved the magic system and the diversity of the characters. The teenage attitude reminded me of my students when I taught high school, so that was fun. It was too long but it kept me interested enough to finish it though it was a little slow and repetitive at times. It does touch up on some dark themes, but overall its a good story and easy read.

4.5/5 ⭐️
I loved this one! I couldn’t put it down because I needed to know what would happen next. Venus is a potion brewer in a world that treats witches like second class citizens. It was an easy read that had a lot of twists, some that I predicted and some that i genuinely didn’t expect. This book had a very cool magic system with consistent rules, and that’s something that I prioritize in fantasy books. The characters were fun and likable and the queer characters had actual depth. My only complaint is that I feel like it could’ve been a shorter book but it was still a very easy read so it wasn’t really a problem. This book comes out on March 5th and I highly recommend it!

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Bethany Baptiste has arrived! Guns blazing, this was an amazing debut, and I cannot say enough about all of the feelings I felt while reading this fantastic story! I've already preordered my copy, and cannot wait to get my hands on the physical copy to enjoy again! Baptiste has written a beautiful, witchy and magical story that shares so much with the world we live in and see day to day, and just brought it together so beautifully. I cannot say enough good things about this read.

Thank you to NetGalley for sharing an arc of this with me in exchange for an honest review. Easily a 5+ star read for me!

The Poisons We Drink is a YA fantasy that imagines a world where witches and witchcraft are commonplace but hated and are on the verge of being forced into hiding via anti witchcraft laws. Our FMC, Venus, is a love potions brewer who is managed by her mother for all her jobs. In this world brewing potions comes at a physical price of pain and suffering. When her mother ends up killed Venus is guided into a spiders web of political intrigue and backstabbing to get justice for her mother.
Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the opportunity to read and review this book which I am giving 3.5/5 ⭐️.
While I didn’t actively dislike any of the characters in this book, I didn’t feel like any of them were fleshed out particularly well and there were a lot of them to keep track of. We are told that Venus has a demon like entity residing inside her due to a potion or spell gone bad (think the Nightmare from One Dark Window) this character is never explained well or explored.
The political intrigue aspect of this book was my least favorite part and was repetitive. Where the book excelled was in exploring the family dynamics and relationships to other witch families. I would have really enjoyed more aspects of the other forms of witchcraft or even more forms of the types of potion brewing to the heavy political storyline.
Social media posted video link added 3/3/24.

I received a copy from NetGalley for review.

So I have a ton of mixed thoughts on this story. I think it's interesting and well written, but also so dark and heavy. It's not for the faint of heart. It follows Venus who is a Witcher (not the Henry Cavill kind, but still badass in her own right) and what happens in an America where magic is trying to be outlawed and heavily regulated. The allegories to how things in the USA and the state of the world currently in this story are so gripping and forced me to slow down and digest this book for what it really is. At times it was difficult to read because of how in your face the discrimination that Venus and her family face. I definitely think it's worth the read.

This is an amazing book, and it's righteous fury is so very, very needed. I can't wait for it to be out in the world and to blow up in popularity!

Thank you to Net Galley and the Publisher for the ARC. I really wanted to like this book. In fact, there is a lot of things I really like in this book. I love the setting and the magic, and Venus's character. I think the concept of being a brewer is really interesting, how they can only make specific potions, and the recoil, I really loved that. I generally don't read urban fantasy, but I think the urban setting really works for this story. Unfortunately, the pace of this story was a bit slow, and it was difficult for me to get invested enough to continue reading. I read around 40% of the ARC before I realized I was forcing myself to read rather than actually wanting to read the book.

A potion maker finds her life turned upside down when her mother is murdered and she will do anything to get revenge. in a country where humans and witchers are divided, Venus Stoneheart must find a way to make a living as a brewer of illegal love potions to support her family. Brewing love potions illegally could lead to Venus being sentenced to prison or even executed. Yet when her mother is killed Venus will do anything to get her mother's killer. So when the Grand Witcher, the head of the coven, offers Venus the opportunity to get her mother's killer, Venus gladly accepts... yet everything has a price and this one is that she will have to brew an extremely dangerous poison that would enslave D.C.'s most influential politicians. Is the price worth it? This one unfortunately was a big let down for me and I had to DNF, I tried to go on reading it but at the 50% percent mark this book still was dragging on and I found zero joy or investment in the characters or the plot. I was so intrigued by the premise but the actual book itself was a bit of a harder one to get into. I really didn't care all that much about the characters or Venus's revenge journey, which is so sad because I normally love revenge books with high stakes. I just couldn't bring myself to continue reading the book and put it down at last. So while this book didn't work out for me if you enjoy contemporary present day paranormal socio-political books, maybe this one will work out better for you than it did for me.

*Thanks Netgalley and SOURCEBOOKS Fire, Sourcebooks Fire for sending me arc in exchange for an honest review*

The quick cut: A girl finds herself stuck in a battle of power when she's asked to brew potions that will poison politicians.

A real review:
Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for providing the arc for an honest review.

Revenge is a powerful thing, but can it heal deep wounds? Or will it just create new ones? These are relevant questions for Venus.

Venus lives in a world where the country is divided by humans and witches. Brewing love potions may make her money, but doing so comes with side effects and is dangerously illegal. When Venus's mom ends up killed by an iron bullet, she's left to protect her sister. Can she keep what's left of her family safe? Or will it end up in a new danger?

This YA debut has really great world building and an understandable potion/magic system. So what's the problem then? All the elements for an amazing story get bogged down by fluctuating pace issues and a overly complicated political plot. It's far too much packed into a single story.

Venus is asked to be responsible for so much at such a young age. She's trying to support her family any way she can when her mom dies, leaving her to take care of her sister. So much responsibility and with very few ways to do so. It's a tough burden incapable of being escaped.

Revenge plays a big role here, but even more so is how many of these characters are put in impossible situations. They may be presented as choices, but the truth is that they're not. The story starts slow, but once these impossible scenarios start, the pace becomes a snowball tumbling down the mountain.

A vibrant world is burdened by an overly complicated political plot.

My rating: 3 out of 5

Overall this was a great story with compelling characters and a lot of political intrigue. I really enjoyed the magic system. There were some pacing issues but the action made up for it.

LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! What a beautifully crafted and spell-binding novel. I will be on the lookout for more books by Bethany Baptiste! Again, a stunning and strong YA debut! I will post a separate review on Goodreads on pub-day, but this was a 5-star read for me!

Unfortunately this book just wasn't for me. The pacing and the writing was very odd and this book is just too long. I am DNFing at the 50% mark

The Poisons We Drink is a book for those who like their main characters to continually be stuck in situations where no choice is a good choice and we have to watch them do the best they can and hope for the best result. This book covers many topics such as racism, mental illness, political control, grief, and much more. These topics are explored with great care and crafted into the story beautifully. That is not to say that these topics are discussed in only kind terms. The characters wrestle with the way that these things affect them and the world around them in a way that is very authentic and moving. The characters feel like real people going through these situations as they do their best and then must face the repercussions. The plot is a great adventure, with several twists that will keep you guessing. This book is definitely worth checking out and I can't wait to see more works from Baptiste!

The Poisons We Drink has:
⭐️Teenaged snark (lots of it)
⭐️Diverse cast
⭐️VENGEANCE
⭐️Big family dynamics
⭐️A complex magic system
⭐️Social commentary through fantasy

The Poisons We Drink is a YA Urban Fantasy about Venus, a potion-brewing Witcher who's taken over for her mom when her mother can no longer brew. Brewing potions is agonizing, requiring pain from the creator, while simultaneously being illegal. When Venus's mother is murdered, she begins working with the Grand Witcher to exact vengeance on the ones responsible. But everything is not as it seems.

I really enjoyed the magic system; the depictions of the gruesome nature of Venus's work were not...enjoyable exactly, given the nature of the description, but really well-written and agonizing to read. Maybe it's just my English Lit degree popping to the forefront here, but the layers of metaphor of being a Witcher and brewer are really interesting and through provoking, particularly through the lens of social commentary and magical racism.

One thing to note about TPWD is that it felt very episodic in nature. Not necessarily in a bad way, but it felt almost like an entire season of a TV show in a book. It's very past-paced with little down time. Not a negative for me, especially since it makes picking up and putting down the book a little easier, like you don't have to figure out where you are if you start the next chapter, you're just on to the next section of the adventure.

Also, I really enjoyed how Baptiste really nailed teenage sarcasm, snark, and that sort of gnarly twist of feelings that come with being a teen. Baptiste's language felt really genuine to kids that age. Props, because that's not easy to do.

Thanks to Netgalley, RB Media, and Bethany Baptiste for the ARC.

This was a fast-paced YA story about Venus trying to harness her powers, protect her family, and solve a murder. The story has several great layers to it, and the cast of characters are unique and likeable. The plot development + character placement works well to keep the story moving and slowly unravel information without being too obtuse or too obvious.

I liked the mix of underworld magic + real world politics. The secrets of the adults + the secrets of the kids. Metaphorical lines in the sand + personal limitations. It all balanced well to deliver an engaging, unique story.

Overall: 4 stars (I really liked it)

I'll tell my students about: LGBTQIA+, language, sex, parental death, magic/supernatural, alcohol, violence/gore/murder

**Thank you to NetGalley & SOURCEBOOKS Fire, Sourcebooks Fire for the free ARC. All opinions expressed are my own.**

It took me a while to finish this book as I was still transitioning from my reading slump, but once I had time to actually read it, I loved it. The writing style was filled with such beautiful prose, which is a style I greatly appreciate since it helps me visualize the characters and scenes better. The story was a little confusing at first due to the amount of world building required to understand the magic system. However, once the pace started picking up and the plot twists kept coming, I could not put it down. An amazing debut from a new BIPOC author!