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The Poison Eaters And Other Stories Holly Black Books

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The Poison Eaters And Other Stories Holly Black Books

I am a fan of Holly Black's dark creepy writing, where characters find themselves in very sad dark places. So, imagine my happiness when I found this audiobook and that Holly herself narrates this compilation! I took great small pleasures with this book, listening in short walks, errands, and taking little moments, making it almost a year to finish.

During the course of this year I have a handful of memories of these stories: some where just forgotten, some lingered and others I am already re-visiting.

There are 12 stories in this book:

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
A Reversal of Fortune
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
The Night Market
The Dog King
Virgin
In Vodka Veritas
The Coat of Stars
Paper Cuts Scissors
Going Ironside
The Land of Heart’s Desire
The Poison Eaters

From these, I loved the first one, which also became a full length standalone novel, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, The Night Market, The Coat of Stars and Paper Cuts Scissors. These are all dark, gritty, sad, happy and hopeful.

I personally believe that the beauty of this collection is how each character must challenge or face a obstacle that forces them to make choices and learn something about themselves. It also has superb descriptions, events and surroundings, so different from one another.

Matilda, from The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, is scared about her infection and wants to keep away from everything and everyone she knows so she wont pass her vampiric disease. But then, she restores to highlight how horrible and un-human is this disease once it hits you, in an attempt to shatter any romanticized notion of vampirism. This tidbit is a wonderful place to start with Holly's stories.

Tomasa from The Night Market, is a true heroine. Her sister is sick because and enkanto's spell. Her determination and resourcefulness are a true beauty to enjoy. I loved the ending of the story!

Rafael Santiago from The Coat of Stars, is also a tale of bargaining with supernatural characters, but a tale of love. I found it smart and crafty! I really really liked that we have queer characters in here.

Justin from Paper Cuts Scissors, wants to understand why his girlfriend left, as she disappeared inside a book. He is a library student, who is scared of books and is hired to classify a massive underground library. I found this particular story fascinating. The notion to change books, endings and events sounds fun! It reminded me at some point of Woody Allen's movie Midnight in Paris. I was mesmerized by the classification of books in sections according to the ten broad categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification System, used in this story.

My favourite quote from this story comes from Justin's musings when describing who he was going to library school with and how he avoided the hipster kind of girls: "Those girls seemed as dangerous as books that unexpectedly killed their protagonists". It made me chuckle.

In my experience, this book shouldn't be read in one sitting. It is perfect for keeping you company in odd life moments when you really can't devote many hours. I will miss having this unfinished title in my audiobook library.


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The Poison Eaters And Other Stories Holly Black Books Reviews

I had a lot of hope for this one when I picked it up out of the bargain bin at my LBS. Shame it didn't turn out.

The cover is compelling and haunting. A tad creepy, which I appreciate as well. I despise horror movies, but I like a good horror story so I turn to books for this aspect and I was suspecting that maybe there would be a little bit of that represented in the stories. Not so much.

A few things

Well, more than a few things really, but I'll stick to the most obvious for me.

It was a hit-miss with each of the short stories but mostly misses. Some of them simply made very little sense to me. "Virgin" especially was a story in the book that I just couldn't fathom. Maybe that's just me but I had no idea how in the world a street girl suddenly wants to devirginify a young man that claims he can see Unicorns. Her main motivation seems to be getting the boy laid will somehow renew his lost sense of reality. Okay, fine, that makes sense in a twisted teenage sort of way... but we never know anything more about the boy, the Unicorn, why he can see it, or why he HAS to be with it.

At the beginning on this particular story I saw SO MANY WAYS that it could go well but nothing was ever explained or expounded upon. In general it just ended up seeming to me another way for the Author to introduce another sexy situation.

Holly Black is gritty, but to me it's not the good kind of "Tackling hard subjects" gritty or even the "I don't give a crap, I'm writing this" gritty. It's more just... dirty to be dirty.

The first story really had me, though. It was short, quick, and to the point but it actually had a decent plot. A meaning. A purpose. I could see the first story being turned into a full novel... but none of the others. There just wasn't enough there in any of the others to justify wishing for a full book.

In particular I found the story centered around Bacchus both impressive and groanworthy. Again. SO MANY WAYS that story could have been awesome...but then it just wasn't. It was centered around a bunch of prom people groping and kissing and writhing around with each other. Maenads, which were referenced in this story, were wild. They ripped their victims LIMB FROM LIMB. They existed in an exact opposite sphere of life than they were supposed to as women (and sometimes as men), and that could have really been used. But again... just the sexual aspects were utilized. I think she did mention that maybe someone was fighting... but that was it. Just a little drop in the bucket.

I believe that this particular story was just an instance to use Latin knowledge to impress readers (and I was impressed. Not going to lie.) but that was all. Just smoke and mirrors to cover up the general lack of any sort of real plot or meaning.

Her writing style isn't hard to read at all. That's what kept me going, actually, despite the lack of substance to the experience. I don't suspect that she's a bad author and she probably appeals to many many readers. Just not me.

I wasn't able to throw out a 1/5 on this one mostly because the book reads well and I have books like "Iron Witch" to compare it to for perspective. But I can't give it any more than a 2 because I just didn't enjoy it. However... I recognize that it would be enjoyable to other readers so that's why I think I'll recommend it to you all.

It's a quick read. Amusing if nothing else. Not a total waste of time. So go for it.
I am a fan of Holly Black's dark creepy writing, where characters find themselves in very sad dark places. So, imagine my happiness when I found this audiobook and that Holly herself narrates this compilation! I took great small pleasures with this book, listening in short walks, errands, and taking little moments, making it almost a year to finish.

During the course of this year I have a handful of memories of these stories some where just forgotten, some lingered and others I am already re-visiting.

There are 12 stories in this book

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
A Reversal of Fortune
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
The Night Market
The Dog King
Virgin
In Vodka Veritas
The Coat of Stars
Paper Cuts Scissors
Going Ironside
The Land of Heart’s Desire
The Poison Eaters

From these, I loved the first one, which also became a full length standalone novel, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, The Night Market, The Coat of Stars and Paper Cuts Scissors. These are all dark, gritty, sad, happy and hopeful.

I personally believe that the beauty of this collection is how each character must challenge or face a obstacle that forces them to make choices and learn something about themselves. It also has superb descriptions, events and surroundings, so different from one another.

Matilda, from The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, is scared about her infection and wants to keep away from everything and everyone she knows so she wont pass her vampiric disease. But then, she restores to highlight how horrible and un-human is this disease once it hits you, in an attempt to shatter any romanticized notion of vampirism. This tidbit is a wonderful place to start with Holly's stories.

Tomasa from The Night Market, is a true heroine. Her sister is sick because and enkanto's spell. Her determination and resourcefulness are a true beauty to enjoy. I loved the ending of the story!

Rafael Santiago from The Coat of Stars, is also a tale of bargaining with supernatural characters, but a tale of love. I found it smart and crafty! I really really liked that we have queer characters in here.

Justin from Paper Cuts Scissors, wants to understand why his girlfriend left, as she disappeared inside a book. He is a library student, who is scared of books and is hired to classify a massive underground library. I found this particular story fascinating. The notion to change books, endings and events sounds fun! It reminded me at some point of Woody Allen's movie Midnight in Paris. I was mesmerized by the classification of books in sections according to the ten broad categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification System, used in this story.

My favourite quote from this story comes from Justin's musings when describing who he was going to library school with and how he avoided the hipster kind of girls "Those girls seemed as dangerous as books that unexpectedly killed their protagonists". It made me chuckle.

In my experience, this book shouldn't be read in one sitting. It is perfect for keeping you company in odd life moments when you really can't devote many hours. I will miss having this unfinished title in my audiobook library.