Lies Like Poison

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So you could recommend psychiatric help for me, too? Ship me off to a mental hospital on the other side of the country? This book was dark, and gritty, and had me hooked from the beginning. Between the lies and the secrets and the shady characters, I wasn’t sure who to believe or where to look. It was captivating and revealing in so many ways. This is one of those books where all the characters are in love with each other, some platonically, some romantically, some were platonic and now they’re romantic, some were romantic and now they’re platonic... which ya know, I’m sure that’s representative of plenty of friend groups, but it doesn’t always connect with me. Then let’s hope you have an alibi,” he said, gesturing to the gaggle of officers standing by the door. They were going to wake her father, but he couldn’t account for her. He’d been snoring in his bedroom for hours. There was only one person in the world who could account for Belle’s whereabouts that night, and that person was long gone by now. If the police had done what any basic crime investigator would've done from the first murder, none of this would have happened.

I think what I loved most about this book was how guilty each character seemed. Each of them did have secrets they were holding onto, things they had done wrong in their lives, but finding the big secret, who killed Evelyn, was the hard part. Pitcher masked the true story of the murder so well that it took the whole book to unveil all the facts and lies. I loved that it kept me guessing the whole book.

Here’s the striking cover for ‘Lies Like Poison’ by Chelsea Pitcher (and its gripping synopsis)

Killing her would’ve been easy. That spring we made flower garlands. That spring petals were strewn across her kitchen table, where she drank her tea. If we dropped a petal of belladonna, a petal of poppy, and a petal of lily into that cup, we’d never really know which one of us killed her. This book took the absent parent trope to a new level. If any of the parents in this book were just the tiniest bit responsible or even, I dunno, mature, so many things would never have taken place. This would have worked if the characters had a reason to be lying to each other and hiding facts from each other. Unfortunately, they did not. The first two thirds of Lies Like Poison, were a little messy. The pacing and reveals were kind of disjointed, and I wasn’t fully enjoying it. But the last third really saved the book, where it got so exhilarating and full of reveals I didn’t expect!! This was where we really saw the soft queer found family content I had been craving, and more of my favourite characters. I really wish the whole book had been more like the last third.

Poppy, Lily and Belladonna are our focus for this story and everything hinges on their relationship to Raven, their best friend. It isn’t immediately clear how this group formed or the reason for the dynamics between them - but we know they have a shared history, and would do anything to protect each other. I was expecting this story to be much like the many other murder mystery books I've read, with contemporary characters and high school secrets. So I was pleasantly surprised to find this this is actually a dark, gothic story about two boys, two girls, obsession and family secrets. How can a book have such wonderfully atmospheric narration and rate so low with me.??? Good question. I wanted to like this and I really tried to do so but it missed the mark for me, story-wise. I really found most of the story to be rather unbelievable and very reminiscent of the show Riverdale...basically a hot mess.

Lies Like Poison

There's a lot of red herrings towards the end of the book, and I didn't quite guess who the killer was. I think every character in the book was a suspect at some point, and it was interesting to see scenes replayed over again from a new POV as the mystery unraveled itself. The pacing was a little slower than I was anticipating and the plot was confusing for the first half of the book. I think this is what I struggled with the most and why I rated it a 3.5 star. I’m not sure if it had to do with the multiple POV’s or the writing style. The story followed four friends as one of them had just been arrested after being accused of killing the parent of another one of the group. From there we got a glimpse into the lives of the four main characters and learned how they all had motives of their own for wanting the murder victim dead!