Lydia Kang
ARC provided by Netgalley I think overall I was disappointed with this book, I was really looking forward to it, I felt it had so much potential but during the first half I was kind of bored, It picked up during the second half and I was interested in finding out the identity of the murderer and I will admit I didn't even suspect it to be who it was, but it was still rather anticlimactic.
I knew it had to be someone in the circle, but it could have been any one of them for any number of reasons and all it would have felt like was humdrum.
The biggest miss for me was the lack of detail, The whole setting, NYC during the Spanish flu epidemic, could have been riveting, It just wasn't. There were very few scenes that illustrated the magnitude of deaths it caused and there wasn't any real feeling of impending doom or dread that came across.
I didn't think there was nearly enough description of what the city was like, the buildings, the homes, the automobiles, or even descriptions of clothing.
I had to rely on Google quite a bit,
At some point, the lack of action led me to believe that this was intended to be more character driven than anything else and I was okay with that.
But that was also lacking, All three main characters were selfish and despicable to each other and that was the most interesting thing about them.
I like to read about characters I can't stand if it's entertaining but once again it just fell short, Abandonado alde la lectura, La forma de escribir de la autora me resulto demasiado pretenciosa y los personajes hablaban y pensaban como si estuvieran en el Siglo XXI a pesar de que el libro está ambientado a finales del.
Tiene una premisa interesante, pero sólo dos capítulos fueron suficientes para confirmar que esta historia no es para mí.
I'm rounding this book up from a,star rating to abecause it's definitely better than my standardstar rating but not quite a,
Overall, I did really enjoy this book, I felt like it was more than the routine mass market murder mystery and I definitely was kept in suspense and didn't guess the murderer at all.
In fact, I probably suspected every other character but I'm not giving anything away!
Also, I liked how although the story is focused around these murders there is more going on within the lives of each of the characters.
The reader is exposed to more information of their lives as well as what has happened in the past, It added to the story and kept it more entertaining to know more background information,
A positive aspect about this novel that I appreciated is that you could definitely tell that this book was written by someone in the medical profession with a scientific background.
For me, that added an extra element to the story that I'm not used to because although it's fiction it appeared well researched and that the author knew what she was writing about.
I definitely would recommend this one to those who love mysteries, especially murder mysteries, I'm interested to know how many people guessed the murderer correctly as well as some of the major surprises that were revealed in the end.
Thank you to the publisher for supplying me with a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review It was an okay story, unfortunately I didnt really get into it and was tempted to save myself some time and just jump ahead.
The pace picked up at the end though, there were quite a few plot twists that I hadnt expected and the book ended on a positive note for me.
As for the audio, I quite enjoyed the narrators voice and her interpretation of the characters, my focus and mood are not great at the moment, so this was a very good choice as a quickreading distraction.
i really enjoyed the era and the science and medical aspects of this novel, as well as all the flawed characters.
so. many. flaws. heh! but i found it all a little bit, . . twee maybe there were some pretty clunky moments and the red herrings were too obvious, yet it was still a good bit of fun, I won a Kindle copy of A Beautiful Poison from a Goodreads Giveaway,
I'm not a fan of historical fiction but the blurb intrigued me if its a murder mystery, I'll give it a whirl!
I needed a few days to consider how to write a review for this book because the tone was so odd, I would call it disturbing and not in a good Tim Burton kind of way, but more of an Eli Roth kind of way.
The basic premise isn't complicated: a young woman dies unexpectedly at the engagement party of socialite Allene and her fiancé.
When her best friend Jasper determines it is murder, he, mutual friend Birdie and Allene try to solve the mystery, which entails them sneaking into the morgue late at night ooh, spooky, Allene stealing evidence at a murder scene and basically the threesome acting like a ridiculous parody of The Three Stooges, instead of The Lone Gunmen.
The strangeness stems from the description
of the three characters, Follow along if you can:
, Allene is described as a young woman interested in chemistry and science but the only scientific thing about her is her name.
She enjoys reading scientific textbooks and spouts from memory whatever she just read,
She never demonstrates her seemingly big brain or intelligence but rather is a narcissistic, selfcentered, bratty only child who continually insists on having Jaspar and Birdie close to her because she doesn't want to be alone.
She mocks people for their poor fashion sense, their lack of decorum and manners and, okay, its not her fault she is this way.
Its her parents' fault.
. Jasper is the man between this Twilight love triangle for Allene and Birdie, There is an unsettling sexual tension between all three characters and I wonder if Ms, Kang did this deliberately or forgot what her true intentions were,
Jasper doesn't hide the fact that he would marry Allene if she had proposed the idea but keeps a picture of Birdie in a book.
There is a Sapphic moment between the girls when they are sleeping in the same bed.
Heck, I don't mind sexual tension but even I'm not sure what the point of all this was,
, Poor Birdie. She is the girl next door in this twisted story about love and poison, The child of the maid in Allene's household, the girls grew up together until a scandal and Allene's mother forced them out of the house, causing Birdie's mother to turn to prostitution to make ends meet.
When Allene's duplicitous fiancé falls for Birdie, she finds herself in her mother's shoes, but needs the man's influence, money and connections to keep her small, struggling family afloat.
And can you blame the poor girl No!
At the same time, she is slowly succumbing to radium poisoning, due to her job at a clockworks factory.
I knew this already because I read Radium Girls! Pick it up! It's a very good read!
People close to the gruesome threesome begin dropping like flies and all signs point to gasp! poison.
Who is removing all these problematic people in their lives
And to make matters worse, a virulent flu has settled over the city at the same time, claiming people close to Allene.
Poison is the method of choice for female murderers! Hint! Hint!
When the murderer and the motive behind these vengeful acts is revealed, it is satisfying in that only vengeance can make sense and does require a bit of disbelief suspension take that, pedophile sicko! and yet typical because you can guess the events that led the person down this path and how it all started.
A cast of deeply unlikeable and forgetable characters combined with a bit of a convoluted plot left me wanting less, not more of A Beautiful Poison.
.The Gilded Age, Manhattan, the night of Allene's engagement party, and things have taken a horrible turn, A young woman is found dead, at the bottom of the stairs, a woman many did not like, Was it an accident as it appears on murder The police think accident, a decision aided by Allene's father, who wants only to avoid a scandal.
When they were younger Jasper, Birdie and Allene had been inseparable, great friends who shared in all kinds of adventures.
Now at eighteen things are very different, their lives taking different paths, They will however, join together to solve this mystery, convinced there is poison involved in the death, Allene has a fierce love of chemistry, Birdie working at a radium dial painting factory this is years before it was known just how dangers this was and Jasper is working in the mortuary.
I enjoyed the tone of this novel, reminded me a little of a Nancy Drew story for grownups, this was both fun and serious at the same time.
The horrible deaths from influenza also plays an important part as more bodies are found, each close to one of the three friends.
Thought the author did a very good job combining real history with made up events, Secrets, well yes there are always secrets, are exposed, things you don't expect happen, and all in all I found this a very entertaining read.
ARC from Netgalley,
.
do love a good mystery!
Lydia Kang's A Beautiful Poison takes place in, Incorporated into the story are interesting historical elements such as the beginnings of forensic medicine, theinfluenza pandemic, and factories employing women to paint dials with radium.
With the first page opening immediately with a murder, this book grabbed my attention right away and didn't let go.
Perfect for mystery/historical fans, Mini : A well plotted murder mystery set in the underutilized time period of the Gilded Age, the first book I've read from that period.
While I thought the writing was pretty good and the mystery intriguing, so much of this book revolves around a love triangle.
The characters obsess over each other constantly, but they also seemed so bitter towards each other, If a historical murder mystery sounds interesting to you and you're okay with love triangles, I do think this book has a lot to offer.
"It always came back to the three of them, Together, the girls gave him direction, like the triangular point of an arrow telling him where to be, " A bit on the nose, . .
ARC provided by Netgalley I think overall I was disappointed with this book, I was really looking forward to it, I felt it had so much potential but during the first half I was kind of bored, It picked up during the second half and I was interested in finding out the identity of the murderer and I will admit I didn't even suspect it to be who it was, but it was still rather anticlimactic.
I knew it had to be someone in the circle, but it could have been any one of them for any number of reasons and all it would have felt like was humdrum.
The biggest miss for me was the lack of detail, The whole setting, NYC during the Spanish flu epidemic, could have been riveting, It just wasn't. There were very few scenes that illustrated the magnitude of deaths it caused and there wasn't any real feeling of impending doom or dread that came across.
I didn't think there was nearly enough description of what the city was like, the buildings, the homes, the automobiles, or even descriptions of clothing.
I had to rely on Google quite a bit,
At some point, the lack of action led me to believe that this was intended to be more character driven than anything else and I was okay with that.
But that was also lacking, All three main characters were selfish and despicable to each other and that was the most interesting thing about them.
I like to read about characters I can't stand if it's entertaining but once again it just fell short, Abandonado alde la lectura, La forma de escribir de la autora me resulto demasiado pretenciosa y los personajes hablaban y pensaban como si estuvieran en el Siglo XXI a pesar de que el libro está ambientado a finales del.
Tiene una premisa interesante, pero sólo dos capítulos fueron suficientes para confirmar que esta historia no es para mí.
I'm rounding this book up from a,star rating to abecause it's definitely better than my standardstar rating but not quite a,
Overall, I did really enjoy this book, I felt like it was more than the routine mass market murder mystery and I definitely was kept in suspense and didn't guess the murderer at all.
In fact, I probably suspected every other character but I'm not giving anything away!
Also, I liked how although the story is focused around these murders there is more going on within the lives of each of the characters.
The reader is exposed to more information of their lives as well as what has happened in the past, It added to the story and kept it more entertaining to know more background information,
A positive aspect about this novel that I appreciated is that you could definitely tell that this book was written by someone in the medical profession with a scientific background.
For me, that added an extra element to the story that I'm not used to because although it's fiction it appeared well researched and that the author knew what she was writing about.
I definitely would recommend this one to those who love mysteries, especially murder mysteries, I'm interested to know how many people guessed the murderer correctly as well as some of the major surprises that were revealed in the end.
Thank you to the publisher for supplying me with a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review It was an okay story, unfortunately I didnt really get into it and was tempted to save myself some time and just jump ahead.
The pace picked up at the end though, there were quite a few plot twists that I hadnt expected and the book ended on a positive note for me.
As for the audio, I quite enjoyed the narrators voice and her interpretation of the characters, my focus and mood are not great at the moment, so this was a very good choice as a quickreading distraction.
i really enjoyed the era and the science and medical aspects of this novel, as well as all the flawed characters.
so. many. flaws. heh! but i found it all a little bit, . . twee maybe there were some pretty clunky moments and the red herrings were too obvious, yet it was still a good bit of fun, I won a Kindle copy of A Beautiful Poison from a Goodreads Giveaway,
I'm not a fan of historical fiction but the blurb intrigued me if its a murder mystery, I'll give it a whirl!
I needed a few days to consider how to write a review for this book because the tone was so odd, I would call it disturbing and not in a good Tim Burton kind of way, but more of an Eli Roth kind of way.
The basic premise isn't complicated: a young woman dies unexpectedly at the engagement party of socialite Allene and her fiancé.
When her best friend Jasper determines it is murder, he, mutual friend Birdie and Allene try to solve the mystery, which entails them sneaking into the morgue late at night ooh, spooky, Allene stealing evidence at a murder scene and basically the threesome acting like a ridiculous parody of The Three Stooges, instead of The Lone Gunmen.
The strangeness stems from the description
of the three characters, Follow along if you can:
, Allene is described as a young woman interested in chemistry and science but the only scientific thing about her is her name.
She enjoys reading scientific textbooks and spouts from memory whatever she just read,
She never demonstrates her seemingly big brain or intelligence but rather is a narcissistic, selfcentered, bratty only child who continually insists on having Jaspar and Birdie close to her because she doesn't want to be alone.
She mocks people for their poor fashion sense, their lack of decorum and manners and, okay, its not her fault she is this way.
Its her parents' fault.
. Jasper is the man between this Twilight love triangle for Allene and Birdie, There is an unsettling sexual tension between all three characters and I wonder if Ms, Kang did this deliberately or forgot what her true intentions were,
Jasper doesn't hide the fact that he would marry Allene if she had proposed the idea but keeps a picture of Birdie in a book.
There is a Sapphic moment between the girls when they are sleeping in the same bed.
Heck, I don't mind sexual tension but even I'm not sure what the point of all this was,
, Poor Birdie. She is the girl next door in this twisted story about love and poison, The child of the maid in Allene's household, the girls grew up together until a scandal and Allene's mother forced them out of the house, causing Birdie's mother to turn to prostitution to make ends meet.
When Allene's duplicitous fiancé falls for Birdie, she finds herself in her mother's shoes, but needs the man's influence, money and connections to keep her small, struggling family afloat.
And can you blame the poor girl No!
At the same time, she is slowly succumbing to radium poisoning, due to her job at a clockworks factory.
I knew this already because I read Radium Girls! Pick it up! It's a very good read!
People close to the gruesome threesome begin dropping like flies and all signs point to gasp! poison.
Who is removing all these problematic people in their lives
And to make matters worse, a virulent flu has settled over the city at the same time, claiming people close to Allene.
Poison is the method of choice for female murderers! Hint! Hint!
When the murderer and the motive behind these vengeful acts is revealed, it is satisfying in that only vengeance can make sense and does require a bit of disbelief suspension take that, pedophile sicko! and yet typical because you can guess the events that led the person down this path and how it all started.
A cast of deeply unlikeable and forgetable characters combined with a bit of a convoluted plot left me wanting less, not more of A Beautiful Poison.
.The Gilded Age, Manhattan, the night of Allene's engagement party, and things have taken a horrible turn, A young woman is found dead, at the bottom of the stairs, a woman many did not like, Was it an accident as it appears on murder The police think accident, a decision aided by Allene's father, who wants only to avoid a scandal.
When they were younger Jasper, Birdie and Allene had been inseparable, great friends who shared in all kinds of adventures.
Now at eighteen things are very different, their lives taking different paths, They will however, join together to solve this mystery, convinced there is poison involved in the death, Allene has a fierce love of chemistry, Birdie working at a radium dial painting factory this is years before it was known just how dangers this was and Jasper is working in the mortuary.
I enjoyed the tone of this novel, reminded me a little of a Nancy Drew story for grownups, this was both fun and serious at the same time.
The horrible deaths from influenza also plays an important part as more bodies are found, each close to one of the three friends.
Thought the author did a very good job combining real history with made up events, Secrets, well yes there are always secrets, are exposed, things you don't expect happen, and all in all I found this a very entertaining read.
ARC from Netgalley,
.