I have two words to describe this book: FREAKING COOL. Witches, potions, social justice, really nuanced and badass characters, The Poisons We Drink was a wild and impressive ride. While the plot is certainly page turning and exciting, the characters and their dynamics with each other and the world around them is what really hooked me with this book. I thought the magic system was incredibly unique and interesting. I loved how it was incorporated into modern day D.C. politics. This book explored so many topics like classism, prejudice, grief and trauma and it handled them so well. It’s a pretty fast paced book, but the last 60% was where things REALLY got going. The ending was fantastic and definitely open enough for a sequel (hint hint). My only complaint (such a minor one) is that the romance felt very out of place. I think it just needed a little more…something. Overall though, I really enjoyed this book and I can’t wait to see what other readers think!
CW: death of a parent, violence, body gore, murder, gun violence, grief, police brutality

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for an advanced digital reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

For the good of her Witcher family, Venus Stoneheart accepted the dangerous role of Brewer to help make ends meet. But Brewing is not easy, and Venus struggles to survive each potion she makes. When Venus’ mother dies unexpectedly, Venus is forced to become more of a leader than she has ever been, and in addition to ensuring her family’s survival, she must get to the bottom of the mystery of her mother’s death. Along the way, Venus grapples with the demons within her and around her, growing and maturing as she uncovers the hidden truths in her midst.

This fantasy story blends the concept of magic with elements of real life in a parallel, yet fictional, world. Witchers are feared by society, and there are great inequities they face on a daily basis simply because of who they are. At the beginning of each chapter, a small piece of information is provided to offer context for readers who are immersing themselves in Venus’ world, and extensive back matter gives readers additional points of reference, if necessary. These inclusions provide more information than the narrative itself can do, and they help to enhance the reader’s understanding of this fantasy world. Though fantasy is a large part of the narrative, there is also a good amount of social commentary woven into the plot, which encourages readers to think critically about inequities that exist in their own world.

Well-written and intriguing, this young adult novel is one that will keep readers engaged from start to finish. Strong language and challenging subject matter make the book best suited to mature young adult audiences, and a content warning at the beginning of the novel helps to guide readers in the right direction. Complex family and friend relationships are found at the heart of the story, and a range of diverse characters surround them. Readers who enjoy rich fantasy storytelling with a strong social message will find this book to be particularly memorable. This is a unique addition to library collections for young adult readers and older.

This book is so timely and important, with themes of racism and institutionalised prejudice ringing very true to events today. With a truly morally gray main character, an intelligent magic system, and a heartwarming found-family-esque cast of side characters, fans of upper YA and urban fantasy will absolutely eat this up.

Phenomenal debut! This book is perfect for the Emerging Adult/New Adult age group, with mature writing and content. Plenty of content warnings are needed, but one is provided at the start of the book which is excellent. One of the few books I've read that really flesh out the entire cast/family and truly show the hard, dark lengths someone would go through for family.

Stunning.

A sweeping, visceral ride. Venus's emotions are portrayed with such rawness and clarity—she's an unforgettable narrator!

I received a free copy of this book thanks to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Fire; all opinions expressed are exclusively my own.

I hesitated on reviewing this book, as I DNF at 35%. However, I realized that what I did read would lead me to easily recommend it to anyone interested in modern fantasy, so I figured that was worth a review! The lore and magic of this world is fascinating, and the characters feel real and complex. I wish I'd realized I was so close to the archive date for me, but that said I really enjoyed the third of the book I got through!

For sensitive readers, there is violence, racism, and removal of consent via magic.

This was an excellent debut. It took me a little while to get immersed, but once I did I was hard to put it down. I loved the representation in it, as well as the parallels of discrimination of witchers to the many ostracized groups in our society. Looking forward to more from the author!

This story centers around an 18 year old Witcher, Venus, who is a brewer of love potions. Secret, powerful, and illegal love potions.
Venus finds her world changed forever, and she will uncover the secrets that seem to plague every corner of her life. In the process, she begins to learn how far some people will go…

The country is divided into humans and witchers, witches with various abilities. Witchers are being watched, are forced to use segregated spaces, and are being targeted and killed by human groups. Very reminiscent of a pre-civil rights world.

This book does an excellent job addressing political issues and paralleling racism in society. I thought this book was so well written, many family relationships are also examined. We feel the full range of emotions our families can bring us. Love, friendship, distance, grief, regret, absence, and so much more. Our families are truly what we make them - the people we care about most, we will do anything to protect.

There is a lot of plot in this book and originally I had a little trouble following it about the 30-50% mark. However, the end of this book did a PHENOMENAL job wrapping it all up. Everything came back and served a purpose. I was AWE STRUCK how incredibly this story wrapped up. The last 15% of this book had me going crazy - I couldn’t wait to find out how this was all going to unravel!!

thanks to NetGalley for the eARC

⭐️=2.75?? | 😘=4 | 🤬=4.5 | ⚔️=5 | 16+

summary: so basically there’s witchers and humans and our FMC brews like evil potions and stuff idk

thoughts: this was incredibly boring and felt three thousand pages too long and there were too many villain monologues and an incomprehensible plot with a weird number of twists that didn’t feel foreshadowed enough to be twists and the world building was just like not well developed (like it relied on a lot of “as you know, character B, here is the political turmoil currently destroying our specific demographic” stuff) and also the whole It character was weird to me––like is it a mental illness/disability metaphor or is it a monster that makes the MC freak out with violent fits that kill people or is it a cutesy animal sidekick that banters with her like make up your mind please?? but also mental illness is complicated so I get it?? that’s probably the thing that consistently bugged me the most, but also I know that the author is disabled so I’m not going to point fingers and say “disability representation bad.” it was just weird for me. anyway. a book I liked that had the “magical ailment as mental illness metaphor” thing was A Song of Wraiths and Ruin , which is inspired by West African folklore and one of the main characters has anxiety and also a demon living in his brain but like it really worked for me and for some reason The Poisons We Drink didn’t. also I think it was too sexy for YA which is a pet peeve of mine lol.

Overall I enjoyed this. I did get a free ARC from Netgally for my honest review.
First, I know this is just an arc, but I hope the final product that is released later this month has better editing. There were a lot of typos and missing words or sentences that were messed up.
For a debut, I think this pretty good. I would have liked to see the world fleshed out a bit more. I did like how we got information at the heading of each chapter and that helped.
The magic system was interesting and unique. I’d like to learn more about aberrations though since it was such a big part of who Venus was. I also wish they’d called it something other than It. Or hadn’t also italicized it on top of capitalizing it. It was said so much in some sentences it was a bit jarring.
That being said, I hope there is a sequel so we can see more of it.

(2.5) The Poisons We Drink is a high-stakes, low fantasy, immersive, and wonderfully diverse tale. Just not for me.

I found it really difficult to get into the writing style, and while the wide range of characters were interesting, I just found it hard to connect to them. The slow pacing despite the supposed high stakes similarly added to its tedious nature.

I have also heard some complains about the on-page s*x and graphic descriptions, which I definitely agree with. This is a New Adult book, not a YA one.

I do think that this book has the potential to be good. Perhaps I would be able to enjoy it better in the future.

This book was a little bit of a slow burn for me and took me a few chapters to really get into it. Venus is a tough-as-nails character who brews love potions in order to support her family. Magic has a cost, and being a brewer means there are horrific blowbacks from potions. Every time Venus brews, her potions have effects on her, such as broken bones or burned skin.

Regardless of the blowback, Venus is the main breadwinner of her family. Her mother, Clarissa, sacrificed her magic by breaking a magical vow, and her father is dead. When Clarissa is killed with iron bullets, Venus is sucked further into the underground trade of magic potions. The world is about to burst with humans demanding that witchers be on a public registry, a registry that would allow people to find them and likely kill them. Venus gets roped into a political scheme to poison senators with love potions to sway their opinions.

The story builds its tension beautifully, and while I did find some plot points fairly predictable, this book still had plenty of twists and turns. Venus's little sister Janus can create portals and is determined to follow in her activist father's footsteps. A lot of Venus's motivation is to protect Janus. I thought the push-pull of their relationship was so realistic and well done. I also have a half-sister, and the dichotomy is similar.

Presley's character was easily my favorite character. I thought the expression of their gender fluidity/non-binary expression was well done. Too many people get caught up in the idea of pronouns. Presley didn't have a painful coming out or confrontation. They just were. I enjoyed that the author didn't try to add an additional level of struggle.

I did think that the secondary storylines were a bit hobbled together. We understand Venus's motivation isn't political, but the other characters seem to have no motivation but power. It just didn't flow well. I kept expecting like a villain info dump to better understand the power dynamics and struggles. The issues between humans and witchers also lacked nuance, which sort of made sense when looking at the parallels of racism.

Overall, I thought this was a good read, and I'd read the next in the series.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the ARC.

Bethany Baptiste has created such a unique, intricate, and vibrant world with their sharp writing and extraordinary characters! I loved being a part of the world and the intrigue of The Poisons We Drink!

This was difficult for me to get into, but I've come to learn that fantasy just isn't for me. That being said, I can definitely see the appeal for someone who does enjoy fantasy, especially the kind that seamlessly blend magic and what one might call 'contemporary life through the growth of a strong, Black female lead.

What a ride. The world build for The Poisons We Drink sucks you in with it's real life honest truths.

We see a future that could happen in the world we live in today. Obviously witches is an allegory so moving forward with that in mind. Hating and fearing the unknown has deep roots across the globe. This book takes you on a journey with a community of witches trying their best to navigate a country that views them as 'other'. They have to decide if they should fight or shrink themselves. Each choice came be life or death, even if it's just going to the grocery store. It's chilling and inspiring.

The strong female characters. Supportive family bonds. Secrets, and past regrets. Even a small budding romance. Everything about the plot and sub-plots make this book a phenomenal read. You never know what you're in for when it comes to YA reads. These characters are well written. They make rash decisions built on emotion and doing what they think is best, but also own up to their mistakes and come back around to their elders when it gets too deep.

Multiple mysteries are happening throughout the story, and it all comes together in an epic ending. I was relieved and sad but also hopeful for the future of these witches. While they've lost a lot of key people in their lives, the strength of these characters left me feeling like they were going to hit every goal they set for a better future for witches.

You'll love this book if you enjoy political, civil disobedience, and characters that stand up for the right for every human to be able to get human right to live their lives without fear.

Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this read.

I was so excited for this and really expected to love it going in but it just fell flat sadly. The concept and the idea were amazing but the execution just wasn’t the best. I wasn’t a huge fan of Bethany Baptistes writing style, it felt very stilted and clunky and just didn’t flow very well which made reading it a bit hard. The concept of the magic system was so unique and so interesting but the world building itself left a lot of confusion for me. I feel like I never really got to understand the world. There were instances where something important to the magic system was mentioned offhand but we didn’t get an idea of what it actually meant until much later.
The characters had so much potential and were so complex but it was hard to really get to know the characters when I was focusing so hard on understanding the magic system. The themes in this were top notch and so important and I wish I could’ve enjoyed it more. I definitely think people will love this upon release, I just sadly wasn’t one of them.

The concept for this particular novel was absolutely fascinating, but unfortunately, I struggled with the style of Baptiste’s writing throughout its entirety. Sentences were clunky, and it did not flow well at all. Pacing suffered because of this, too. It also made getting to know the characters difficult. The themes that were explored were solid, and we need more stories like this. I think I just struggled too much with the execution to find it worthwhile.

This book will appeal to many but sadly it did not appeal to me. There were to many trigger warnings in the writing and the book seem to be much longer than needed and for me personally more graphic then I prefer.

No doubt this will appeal to many young people and I hope adults in their lives will read it as well so there can be conversations regarding its content.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book is set to release March 5, 2024

This review was made possible via an ARC through NetGalley

The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste is a YA contemporary fantasy where Venus, a teenage Witcher, makes potions for money at the cost of her own health. When her mother is murdered, Venus is given the chance by her coven’s Grand Witcher to get her revenge, but, in exchange, Venus will need to make potions to control influential politicians.

Parts of the plot are very strongly rooted in the American political climate from allegories of racial tension to the Washington DC setting to the politicians and deals. Venus makes potions at a great personal cost in exchange for cash, mirroring how many politicians will make deals that force them to compromise their morals in order to get other things done. Give and take, deal and compromise, getting what you really want in exchange for giving someone else what they really want: no matter how you dice it, it’s very similar to how the US system works behind closed doors.

Venus is often juxtaposed or using traditionally feminine things, such as flowers for potions and the thinking about the language of flowers, having pink hair, and various kinds of love are mentioned and Venus is a Love Witch. The book, at its heart, is about love, from romantic to platonic to familial and Venus’ relationships, especially with her mother, show the messiness of love but also how they can be powerful motivations.

I would recommend this to readers looking for grounded fantasy set in the US and readers looking for main characters who are looking for books with a stronger focus on familial love and all the ways it can come in.

The book starts off running with Venus being asked to brew a potion by the grand Witcher right after her mother’s tragic death. Venus is quickly pulled into a world of magic she was not ready to face.

I found the book to be fast paced and interesting. I liked the magic system and how it was different from others I’ve read. I enjoyed the world building however it confused me a little at times. I felt like the characters all had depth to them, which was great but again slightly overwhelming at times. I also love a book that keeps me guessing. Books with twists always get me.

Overall I will definitely recommend this book. This is by far my favorite fantasy book I’ve read so far this year. A great debut!