Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder

Rating : 3 / 5

Goodreads : The first novel in Snyder's series set in a Renaissance-like world. About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace--and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.

My review : This review is going to be a little weird. I don't know what I think about this book I have mixed feelings. At the beginning I was a disappointed. I wasn't expecting this king of story. For half of the book I was bored. And there was some things that were unsettling and awkward and I couldn't get past them. For exemple what I found really weird was that we don't have the physical description of the characters so I couldn't get a picture of them in my mind and it really bothered me. Especially Valek he is an interesting character and we don't know anything of his age except nearly at 200 pages in the book and nothing of his physical appearance except his blue eyes (and curly black hair but it's said in the very end). I'm a maybe too picky and you can think that it's only details but characters are an important part of a book for me and I like to see them develop in my mind and know how they look to get into a story.
Another thing that was weird was this whole magic thing. I love fantasy but here again it wasn't really explained or described. I didn't really understood this magic part of this world. I know that the heroine didn't understand herself what's in her and that we'll probably know more in the second book but it just felt awkward in this one. It was all very symbolic and full of metaphors (she talks about blankets of power, building a wall with bricks in her mind ect...).
But I did liked some things and that's why I have mixed feeling about this book. The author manages to create such an atmosphere of tension it's unbelievable. I was really impressed by that. Death is upon the heroine it's everywhere she is literaly doomed and throught the book we can't see any happy end for her. This mood settled upon me and it was nicely done.
Another good point is that even if I was bored during half of the book the plot is quite amazing and when you learn everything at the end and see all the connections between the different characters and actions and mysteries throught the book I was impressed once again.
And one last positive thing about this book was its characters. Well not all of them. I liked Ari and Janco frienship it was beautiful they are really loyal. I also liked our main character Yelena. She is such a brave girl ! Learning about her past was heartbreaking. But I loved one character and it was Valek !!! He is such a complex and deep character. His loyalty to the Commander is incredible. And it was amazing to see how his relationship with Yelena evolved.
The last 50 pages or so of the book are action packed. But then I was disappointed by some little things at the end. I was disappointed because this end was so rushed it was even a little ridiculous to see everything fall into pieces so perfectly at the end. It wasn't buyint it. I was also disappointed by how Valek and Yelena finally revealed their feeling for each other. Once again this was so rushed and it was really cliché and even chessy because it was delivered in so few lines and it's something that we're waiting for the whole book ! I expected more especially for such a complex character as Valek.
So yes I have mixed feeling toward this book. I'm glad I read it but I don't think i'm going to read the two other books in the series.