Blog Tour Review with Giveaway: Poisoned by Jennifer Donnelly

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Poisoned by Jennifer Donnelly
Published by Scholastic Press on October 20, 2020
Genres: YA Retelling, YA Fairy Tale
Pages: 320
Source: the publisher
Format: ARC
My Rating:
Goodreads

Synopsis:

From Jennifer Donnelly, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Stepsister, comes a fairytale retelling that’ll forever change the way you think about strength, power, and the real meaning of “happily ever after.”

Once upon a time, a girl named Sophie rode into the forest with the queen’s huntsman. Her lips were the color of ripe cherries, her skin as soft as new-fallen snow, her hair as dark as midnight. When they stopped to rest, the huntsman took out his knife . . . and took Sophie’s heart. 

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Sophie had heard the rumors, the whispers. They said she was too kind and foolish to rule — a waste of a princess. A disaster of a future queen. And Sophie believed them. She believed everything she’d heard about herself, the poisonous words people use to keep girls like Sophie from becoming too powerful, too strong . . .

With the help of seven mysterious strangers, Sophie manages to survive. But when she realizes that the jealous queen might not be to blame, Sophie must find the courage to face an even more terrifying enemy, proving that even the darkest magic can’t extinguish the fire burning inside every girl, and that kindness is the ultimate form of strength.

Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, Audible, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, TBD, Bookshop.org

GRAB STEPSISTER NOW!

My Review:

I have loved the books I’ve read by this author in the past, so I was very excited to read this one. I have Stepsister sitting on my TBR to read as soon as I get the chance as well! And after finishing Poisoned, I’m even more eager to go back and read it, as well as hopeful for what other fairy tales this author might tackle in the future, based on things mentioned in the epilogue.

While I don’t know that I’ve actually read the Brothers Grimm version of Snow White, I have read some of their other stories, like Cinderella, and so I know how dark they really are. And while this retelling definitely has a lot of the darkness in it, the world that Donnelly creates is so vivid and imaginative that I could see it in my head as I read, as if I was watching a movie. There were so many different ways of telling this story, things that were added that took the story so far behind anything it had ever been before, in my opinion. Our Snow White was named Sophie, and her stepmother and the mirror had their own evil, but there was a darker, more sinister evil behind all of it. But it wasn’t only the usual fairy tale characters, we had some other classic figures such as Death, and Fear, and Pain. A few more were even there at the end, in what I hope is leading us to some future retellings by this author.

The beautiful cover is perfectly matched to the beautiful story inside, and I can’t wait to share this book with fellow readers, as well as students at my school.

About the Author:

Jennifer Donnelly is the author of A Northern Light, which was awarded a Printz Honor and a Carnegie Medal; Revolution (named a Best Book by Amazon, Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and the Chicago Public Library, and nominated for a Carnegie Medal); the Deep Blue series; and many other books for young readers, including Lost in a Book, which spent more than 20 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.

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Giveaway:

3 winners will receive a finished copy of POISONED, US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

10/1/2020	The Book Nut : A Book Lovers Guide	Review
10/2/2020	oddandbookish	Review
10/3/2020	popthebutterfly	Review

Week Two:

10/4/2020	A Backwards Story	Review
10/5/2020	Fictitiouswonderland	Review
10/6/2020	Kait Plus Books	Interview
10/7/2020	The Book Rookery	Review
10/8/2020	History from a Woman’s Perspective	Review
10/9/2020	Momfluenster	Review
10/10/2020	Thindbooks Blog	Review

Week Three:

10/11/2020	The Momma Spot	Review
10/12/2020	Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers	Review
10/13/2020	Bookhounds YA	Review
10/14/2020	Seeing Double In Neverland	Review
10/15/2020	Book-Keeping	Review
10/16/2020	Nays Pink Bookshelf	Review
10/17/2020	Lisa Loves Literature	Review

Week Four:

10/18/2020	Two Chicks on Books	Interview
10/19/2020	The Pages In-Between	Review
10/20/2020	Two Points of Interest	Review