Very good. Somewhere between a 4.5 and Special Shelf, I think. Full review to come. 
 Originally posted on Small Review 
 Kyra can come to my sleepover, IF she brings her potions kit 
 Kyra is the kind of main character I like, but don't LOVE. She's determined, loyal (to some), and prepared to do whatever it takes to do the right thing--even if it's heartbreakingly hard. So, MAJOR respect points. 
 She's also an awesome potions master, which is just flat out cool (just try to imagine how much more amazing a sleepover party would be with an actual potions master in attendance!). All the potions talk added about a million points to the book for the sheer "I wish that were real" factor. 
 But, Kyra's also prickly, and much as I do like prickly characters, her style of prickly made her a little hard to get close to. She's always pushing people away, which is a trait I don't tend to like, especially when the reasons are as thin and unexplained as Kyra's were. I don't like it when I start to roll my eyes and yell at the main character because I think they're behaving in unnecessary ways. 
 Kyra's first-person narrative voice did help me like her a lot more than I would have had this been written in third person. Her internal feelings and explanations prevented me from actually disliking her when she did things I didn't think she should. So those actions turned into a slightly annoying quirk of someone you know and love rather than something that full on annoyed me. 
 Kyra also loses a few points because she isn't a big animal lover. She's more of a grudging tolerator eventually evolving toward unadmitted liker. So, good, eventually, but not great. I just can't fully get on board with a character who hardens her heart to the charms of adorable animals. 
 Fluffy romance 
 It's sweet and it's sort of a slow burn hate-turned-love type of romance, but not quite. It's also totally the lite version of those types of romance. There were undeniably a handful of swoony moments and the banter was great (their initial meeting is darn near perfect), but the overarching vibe of the romance was more Jessica Day George style middle grade cute than swoooooony. 
 Which can be totally fine, just so long as you go into it expecting Jessica Day George style romance and not fainting-couch, be-still-my-heart, hand-fanningly hot swoon (and while I knew I wasn't going to be getting the latter--this IS a Disney book!--I was hoping for something a little more YA than MG, so cue my very mild disappointment). 
 With the exception of his name (Fred?? Sorry Harry Potter fans, I just can't swoon over that name!), he's a pretty great guy. He's funny, sweet, adventurous, and clever. 
 But...maybe he's a little *too* great. He's always so happy-go-lucky (gosh, I might even call him chipper) and while that's nice and all, I like my male leads to be a little sarcastic. I'd even go so far as to say I like them to be a little surly. 
 And manlier, definitely manlier. Fred is very boyish. 
 I also can't help but be disappointed by his niceness because that robbed me of the "hate" part of the hate-turned-love romance. Kyra definitely doesn't not fall for him right away and they DO have some fun banter, but this was a very one-sided hate. The whole thing lacked the combative spark I hope for. 
 Fred seemed mildly amused with Kyra's attitude and gamely tagged along with whatever she was doing. I also never truly understood why he loved her. He was charming and sweet to her from the beginning and his attitude toward her never really changed. 
 Was it love at first sight for him? If so, why? (and, if so, bummer. I am so NOT a fan of love at first sight, which is pretty much the antithesis of hate turned love). 
 Friendship 
 While the friendship between Kyra and Princess Ari doesn't come close to a Ten Tissues on the Beaches Scale of Friendship, it IS a super sweet friendship and gets points for making me want to break into spontaneous hugging. 
 Their friendship added depth to Kyra and I found myself liking Kyra the best when she was with Ari. Kyra softened and loosened up a little whenever Ari was around. Putting Ari in Kyra's presence was like handing a puppy to a grumpy person and defying them to look into the puppy's little puppy face and try not to smile. 
 Not only that, but I truly felt for Kyra and her predicament as a result of this friendship. Kyra was trying to protect her kingdom, but her heart was breaking as a result. If I didn't see her friendship with Ari, I never would have been as emotionally invested in Kyra's plight as I was and I don't know that I would have liked her as much as I did. 
 Also, on the topic of friendships, who knew a pig could be so cute? I practically broke out into out-loud-awwws every time Rosie was mentioned. 
 Plot and all that 
 Everything moves pretty quickly with a little bit travel/questing, a little bit of mystery, and a little bit of back story. So, basically, most of my favorite plot elements. Everything reads very, very easy. 
 As in, take the time you would normally need to read a 288 page book and cut that time in half. Really. The chapters are short, the font is big, and it's super light reading. 
 The plot isn't entirely linear, taking a few trips down flashback lane. It was a little jarring and definitely hindered the momentum of the story, but it did help avoid info-dumps. Added bonus was how it fleshed out Kyra and the princess's friendship by showing instead of telling. This was VERY effective. 
 Most scenes ended up holding more significance than they at first appeared to and looped back around to tie in together at the end. Most of this was fantastic, though one connection seemed to come out of nowhere and I don't think it was really necessary. 
 Still, it was kind of neat, so I think I'd rather Bridget Zinn had spent more time fleshing this part out so it was less random and could have contributed even more to Kyra's character development (though I do recognize why this probably didn't happen). 
 It was all fun and kept me guessing throughout, but everything was almost a little *too* fast for me. I know, I know, I love fast-paced plots, but in this case the briskness felt rushed and under-developed. I wanted everything to be expanded just a little bit more. As it was, everything had a very sketched, outliney feel (though it's an outline for a fantastic book). 
 Where the star went 
 That would be because of the writing. Wait, don't panic. The writing is fine. There aren't any grammatical errors or annoying similes or anything like that. 
 It's more that Poison felt like a draft that hadn't been fully fleshed out and finished yet. It made me think of Buffy's cookie dough analogy where she explains that she hasn't finished baking yet. 
 Let's forget for a minute that not-entirely-cooked-cookies are actually superior to the fully-cooked alternative and just go with it. 
 Poison is like Buffy's analogy. It's something really wonderful with the potential to be fantastic like warm, delicious cookies...when it's finally done baking. All the right elements are there: intricate plot, unique developments, crazy cool potions, intriguing mystery, and likable characters. It could have SO been a Special Shelf book. 
 But it's not done baking. 
 Bottom line 
 I had pined over Poison ever since I read the blurb and got those "This could be *THAT* book!" vibes. My hopes were SKY HIGH and I ended up having a lot of trouble reading Poison because of all my mixed emotions (I never want this to end! This is amazing! This is everything I've been looking for! No, no, I don't want to admit that this ISN'T *quite* everything I'd hoped it would be). 
 I was so torn that I actually put the book down at the halfway point and read a few books in between. Poison ended up being a book like To Catch a Pirate where I love it and will for sure own a copy and re-read it in that Special Shelf way, but it falls short of actually being a Special Shelf book. 
 When I re-read, I'll always have that little nagging feeling where my brain is trying to push the book into being what I feel it almost is, but isn't quite. 
 Still, I WILL re-read it and I wish the author were still alive to write more books because I would immediately add her to my Authors to Watch list. 
 Originally posted on Small Review