I wasn't sure what to expect when I started Lies Like Poison. Overall, it was a well written book that in the end just wasn't for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Children’s for this ARC. All opinions are my own.
Actual rating: 3.5/5
I love a good thriller, and this one was decent. I loved the idea of this story. In parts, it was just confusing. There were a lot of characters thrown out at one time. While I really enjoyed the four main characters of Belle, Lily, Jack and Raven, when their parents entered the mix it was a little hard to keep them all straight. The evolution of the characters was beautifully done though. I truly enjoyed watching them grow into themselves, their true selves. The representation of the LGBTQIA+ community was awesome.

When the mother of one of the core friends is murdered three years after they’d plotted to kill her, it a race to figure out if one of them is responsible. This was a relatively quick and easy read, just a little confusing at times. But I did enjoy it!

This is a fast paced thriller with fairytales interwoven into a contemporary setting. It was a really hard book to put down. In fact, I read it on one day. It was dark, with unreliable narrators who were all trapped in their own stories and histories.

There are four narrators, three of them have been friends for a very long time, and then Raven’s stepsister, who is caught up in the mystery. All of them are well rounded characters who have tragic pasts, but they always make it through to be supportive and caring individuals. Their pasts is where we really see the fairytale aspects of the story.

Jack is the giant killer and will do anything to protect her younger brothers.
Belle is living with the Beast, who is overprotective to the point of keeping her caged
Raven is a mixture of many tragic princesses, but can save himself when it comes to it
Lily is perhaps Snow White with a mother who doesn’t want her beauty to shine through.
I enjoyed all of the characters, even when I knew they were lying to themselves and to their friends. They were determined to find the truth even when that might mean something bad would happen to one of them or their families. There is romance in this story, but there is also an emphasis on friendship and protecting those you love.

I will admit that I figured out pretty easily who was guilty of the crimes committed. But the writing and the plot were done well enough that I was still suspecting at times that maybe I was wrong. Even though this is a short and somewhat easy read, there is a lot there. The characters are complex, the story is twisty and did at times kept me wondering what would happen next.

A great read for this time of year. Be sure to give yourself ample time to read it though, because once you start you will not want to stop.

Lies Like Poison had a premise that hooked me and felt like a cross between Pretty Little Liars and a twisted fairy tale. Throughout my consumption of this book, I kept trying to theorize who was responsible for the death of Lily’s mother and Raven’s stepmother. It was hard to believe or trust any of the characters. It was dark and depressing reading about everything they endured during their lives. Everything kept on getting more and more tangled up in a web that I had no idea what direction this was going in by the end. I eventually guessed the culprit simply based on who from the cast of characters was not yet suspected. I'm glad everything wrapped up at the end in an understandable way, but it took awhile to get there amid the romantic and love triangle subplots.

Lies Like Poison was a pleasant surprise of a mystery with strong writing and a solid premise. Belladonna, Poppy, and Lily had a perfect plan to protect Raven and defeat his wicked stepmother who was abusing him. They would put petals of lily, poppy, and belladonna in her evening tea to poison and murder her with the alibi of having made flower crowns with those very flowers that same day in the kitchen. No one would be any wiser. But one of the girls got cold feet, so the plan fell apart. And slowly, the group separated once Raven was sent away to boarding school. Now, three years later, someone poisoned and killed Raven’s stepmother with only belladonna leading the police straight to Belle. Who is framing Belle and only Belle for the murder the three girls planned years ago? And why go through with the plan now? Every single person in the group has secrets to hide. Can Belle get to the bottom of who killed Raven’s stepmother after all? Something I really loved was the fairytale theme throughout. Poppy - the knight, Raven - the prince who needs to be saved, Belle - the witch and, of course, Raven’s wicked stepmother. The story is told from the POV of all four main characters. I enjoyed each of their perspectives. The characters are all equally intriguing. Plus, there is some nice LGBTQ+ representation. If you typically enjoy YA mystery/thrillers with a bit of fairy tale laced in, this is a perfect book for you to check out. Also, if you’ve enjoyed The Cheerleaders, Pretty Little Liars, Riverdale, or One of Us is Lying, you’ll enjoy Lies Like Poison.

Lies Like Poison is a contemporary dark fairy tale that deals with many complex themes such as transgender / LGBTQ+ representation, murder, grief and abuse and handles them beautifully with intriguing characters and stunning writing. Honestly Chelsea Pitcher's writing in this book reminds me of Francesca Lia Block and Alice Hoffman and I am 100% for it. Pitcher's writing is lyrical and haunting yet also packs a punch.

Having four main characters and being able to give them such distinct personalities and stories can be tricky and often times one of the characters will fall by the wayside, yet that doesn't happen here. All characters are given ample time to tell their individual stories and still come together to finish the mystery. It's rare when I can't figure out who the murderer is in a story pretty quickly but Lies Like Poison did manage to keep me guessing until right before the reveal.

I won't say Lies Like Poison is a perfect read. I did have a little trouble following who was narrating at times but could quickly figure it out after a moment. Unreliable narrators can be pretty tricky to follow in general and there's more than one here. There are also moments that are definitely hard to read, especially during flashbacks to abusive moments and situations, but they are vital to the story. But I will say that I loved this book. I absolutely devoured it. I'm pretty sure I read it within 3 hours and definitely lost sleep before work the next day so that I could finish it. I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who loves a good mystery and enjoys Young Adult reads or to anyone who is a fan of fairy tales, especially twisted ones.

I went into this really hoping I'd love this book. The synopsis sounded absolutely fascinating and I was hoping I would be sucked in; sadly, however, this book didn't do that for me. I should say I DNFed this book, so the end might have been better, but I couldn't make myself push through it.

What I will say this author did very well was having queer representation. There's a transgender character, m/m and f/m relationships, and a bisexual character. I did love that this representation allowed queer readers to see themselves in a story. One of the best parts of reading is seeing ourselves in characters, and I'm glad this author could do so for an underrepresented group.

There were two things that ruined this story for me. First, I struggled with the author's prose. It fell flat, and almost felt like this was a first draft. The writing was choppy and confusing, leaving me, the reader, confused about what was going on. The prose was a large part of the reason I DNFed this book. In addition, the characters were the second reason I couldn't bring myself to finish this book. The characters were not as fleshed out as they could've been. As a result, they just fell flat and left me not caring for them. They had all elements about themselves that I think could've made them really interested, but those elements were not explored enough to make me care about them. If I had cared about the characters, I might've been able to make myself push through the writing, but because I didn't care about them I didn't need to find out what happened to everyone.

If you enjoy romance, you might enjoy this book. There's plenty of romance to go around in this friend group. I was not a fan of that, because I hate it when characters cannot be friends with one another without falling in love- to me, that's unrealistic. However, some people really enjoy this type of romance, and I can respect that.

I truly wish I could've given this book more stars because the plot summary sounded fascinating. I wanted to love this book, but I just couldn't. I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this ahead of the book's release.

"Poppy, Lily, and Belladonna would do anything to protect their best friend, Raven. So when they discovered he was suffering abuse at the hands of his stepmother, they came up with a lethal plan: petals of poppy, belladonna, and lily in her evening tea so she’d never be able to hurt Raven again. But someone got cold feet, the plot faded to a secret of the past, and the group fell apart."

Don't make plans if you plan to read Lies Like Poison by Chelsea Pitcher. When I sat down to read this book, I did not know the whole afternoon would be gone before I looked up again. I find that YA mysteries can be predictable, but this one was anything but. Often when you have a cast of characters it can be difficult to remember who is who, but with this vibrant group, nothing gets lost in translation.

What makes this book stand out so much is how dimensional the characters are. A lot of times in stories that involve a mystery to solve, the characters are very simple. You either think someone is guilty or innocent. But with Poppy, Lily, Belladonna, and Raven, we are given this fantastic insight into why they are the way they are. They don’t feel like characters, they feel like real people who have faced hardships and are self-aware about their barriers. They are thoroughly fleshed-out and it makes the book such a joy to read.

Without giving away too much, I really enjoyed the mystery that the plot centers around. It felt a more sophisticated version of Pretty Little Liars, where someone always knows something that you don’t. In a story where you always feel like you are holding all the cards, it’s a pleasant surprise to find out you need the whole deck to solve the case.

Lies Like Poison is the perfect book to cozy up with just as the weather turns a little crisper, and the darkness comes a little earlier. If you like apple-orchards, a mystery that needs solving, and complex characters, this is the book for you!

A complex and twisted thriller with well-developed characters. Sometimes hard to follow, but the four POV's were still distinct.

A childhood plot to poison an evil stepmother with flower petals thought forgotten long ago suddenly becomes a murder mystery that must be solved. As children, three friends plot to end the abuse against their friend Raven but three years later the murder really happens and the evidence ends up with one friend in jail. Who really did it? The friends reunite to solve this mystery and find out what being "family" truly means. Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Lies Like Poison is an atmospheric, high drama mystery romance. Told from multiple perspectives, the highschoolers try to solve a murder, discovering truths and uncovering the lies they've told each other.

Raven's stepmother Evelyn abuses him. His friends Belladonna and Poppy want to rescue him. As the witchy one, Bella concocts a plan to poison Evelyn by putting belladonna and poppy petals in her tea. Lily, Raven's stepsister, discovers their plan and wants to help since she has reasons of her own for wanting her mother dead. The friends don't do it and lose touch with each other when Raven is sent to boarding school.

Now Evelyn's been murdered with belladonna in her tea and the police have found Bella's handwritten recipe for death. Sure of her guilt, they arrest her.

As the others try to clear Bella and solve the murder, they unravel more layers of deception and betrayal.

Throughout the story, their relationships, friendship and romantic, shift and change along with their loyalties to one another.

I loved the lyricism and spareness of the writing. The plot was satisfyingly intricate and fast-paced. I was amazed at how many plot twists happened in such a short book. Inclusive about race, gender, and sexuality.

CW: Abuse, murder, addiction, suicidal thoughts.

Thank you Netgalley and Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing for the ARC.

Set to be released on November 10th, Chelsea Pitcher’s newest YA thriller follows a shocking murder and four friends as they navigate the secrets surrounding one another. Her novel, Lies Like Poison, takes a look at what darkness lurks beneath the surface and what it takes to find your way out of it.
This book was a fairly quick read, but was very dark. There’s mentions very heavy themes including child abuse, child neglect, murder, death, sexual identity, deception, and loss. So massive trigger warnings before reading this book! But I liked the parallels that were drawn between fairytales and the events in the novel. It gave the book a very ethereal tone reminiscent of the Grimm Brothers or a dark version of A Midsummer’s Night Dream.
The actual mystery and figuring out who the killer is isn’t overtly obvious, but some parts of the story were confusing. There are a few flashbacks and a lot of alternating viewpoints so keeping everything straight is a bit of a challenge with this book. But eventually all of the pieces start falling into place and the true villains start to become clear.
Admittedly, I’m not a big fan of thrillers, but I did find this one enjoyable in some aspects. If you’re looking for a book with messed up characters and twists after every chapter, then this is the read for you. However, it might not be the best book for first-time thriller readers due to its dark themes.

*I received an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This read like something from 2012 but with queer rep.
Which I mean, queer rep, but...

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.

Also for a lot of the book everyone is kind of plotting against each other anyway? I will say that I can guarantee you that you will not solve the mystery, at the very least not in the first half. Unexpected is nice in a mystery/thriller but it doesn’t always equal smart.

There’s some weird stuff with gendering a trans character in this story - it’s a FTM trans boy and up until the second he physically says out loud that he’s a boy, he’s gendered as “she” in the story. It’s definitely not my place to say, since I’m not a part of that community, but it didn’t necessarily sit right with me. I will say everyone is completely respectful of him after and there’s nothing bad that comes to him for being trans but still that’s something I’d check ownvoices reviews about to make sure.

There’s great consent in this story as well as a gentle male love interest and discussion about girls being willing to kill each other for boys (both romantically and like, brothers and male friends, etc) but not willing to fight for themselves in the same fiery way. I really appreciate those elements of the story. It’s just not enough to make the story meaningful to me, to make the ending any less rushed, or make me care about the characters any more.

okay, when i first heard about this book it was literally everything that i could want in a young adult mystery thriller book. and i really love friend groups in books, but I prefer smaller friend groups. in this book obviously features a bigger friend group with like four kids. and I was like pretty scared to go into and whatever, and it was actually pretty good. it definitely did deal with harder topic like abuse in a family. and I honestly really really enjoyed it. it was such a hard read, but it worked out so well.

This was so good. I loved the entire premise of the flowers, the mysterious death that points to one of the floral girls. It was so sweet plotted and well written. I can't wait for this one to be published.

Book wise here this was a FANTASTIC read! Everything was easy to understand and I really had no idea where it was going to end up most of the time. I kind of figured out Poppy but the others, nope.

I don’t think I will recommend this to the 5th graders. I think it would be better suited for high schoolers, maybe advanced middle schoolers.

Full review on my blog later.

I want to thank NetGalley, the publisher, and author Chelsea Pitcher for providing me with an ARC of this novel.

I loved this modern fairy tale! With a gorgeous cast of LGBTQIA+ characters, this was a fast paced read from beginning to end. These characters were so interesting and really are what propelled the novel forward. As a fan of the usual teen dramas like PLL, Riverdale, etc., this was truly right up my alley. I’m so glad I looked into this pretty cover and found an awesome read!

It never ceases to amaze me how catty some females can be over (what I feel) is the dumbest reason... book was well written and I would recommend to anyone who is an avid reader across genres #LiesLikePoison #NetGalley #chicanery #comingofagestory

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review. Thank you, Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing and Margaret K. McElderry Books, for the chance to read Lies like Poison.

TW; abusive relationships, beating, anorexia, suicidal thoughts


POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD


Poppy, Lily and Belladonna are ready to do anything to protect their friend, (in Lily's case, stepbrother= from Evelyn, his stepmother, who is abusing and torturing him. So they came up with a plan: petals of lily, poppy, belladonna in her tea, so she will die poisoned and will stop hurting him. But someone refused to go through with the plan, Raven was sent to boarding school and the group feel apart.
Three years later, though, Evelyn is found dead, with belladonna found in her tea and Belladonna is arrested. Desperate to prove her innocence, Belladonna reaches out to her estranged friends. But when they start to uncover the truth, they won't be ready to face what will they discover.

Told by four POVs, Lies like Poison is a brilliant and twisted thriller, where, until the very end the reader doesn't know the whole truth. Full of plot twists, confessions, lies, flashbacks and POVs swinging back and forth, Chelsea Pitcher created an intense story, with wonderful and complex character, each of them with their problems, secrets and lies, after being separated for three years. Rage, resentment, revenge, love, friendship, fear, everything is mixed in this story.

Being caged and trapped is one of the main theme in Lies like poison and each character feels that in his/her own way.

Lily is Evelyn's daughter, abused and sent away by her own mother, full of rage and desire to be free and herself, afraid of herself and in her body because of her mother's manipulations and abuses, abandoned by her stepfather and craving her own father's presence, trying to find out who and where he is.

After years in foster care, Belladonna was adopted by a rich man, Edwin, whose obsession in keeping her safe and away from the dangers of the world resulted in bolting her windows closes and keeping her away from everything, transforming her castle into a gilded cage

Jack has always took care of her own family, her brothers, while her mother was busy with drugs, alcohol and boyfriends, constantly abusing her psycologically, wanting her to be in a certain way, dress in a certain way and Jack was scared to be fully the boy she knows to be, because she was afraid to lose the brothers and family.

(FYI, I've used the pronouns she/her because I didn't want to spoiler anyone and because the author used, almost until the end these pronouns, until Jack is ready to be true to HIMself)

Raven was struck down with grief, after losing his mother and seeing her being killed and, abused by his own stepmother, was only able to escape in his games of knights, princes and witches, while battling dark thoughts and depression.

Evelyn's death is the cornerstone of the book, bringing Jack, Raven, Lily and Belladonna again together, forcing them to investigate her murder, in order to clear's one other's name, and to confront their feelings for each other.

Lies like poison deals with trans and LGBT rep and interesting and complex themes, like murder, poisoning, abuse, abusive parents, with well written and structured characters. Lily, Jack, Belladonna and Raven are fierce, stubborn and loyal, ready to do anything to defend their own family and each other. Wonderful is the theme of family, found in friends and the fierceness of characters into Lies like poison.

I recommend this book to those who crave for a complex and twisted thriller, where the reader is so involved into the investigation he/she/they can't stop reading until the end. I devoured this book!

The story of who killed Evelyn, seventeen-year-old Raven’s evil stepmother, is told through the alternating voices and memories of Raven, his stepsister Lily, and his best friends Poppy and Bella. Three years earlier Poppy and Bella hated how Evelyn was mentally and emotionally torturing Raven. Bella, Poppy and Raven had role played fairy tales, with Bella taking the part of a witch so she wrote down a deadly brew for killing Evelyn that would involve poisoning her tea with petals from deadly belladonna and poppy plants. Lily insisted on being part of the plan, having her own reasons for wanting her mother dead. She suggested they also include lily petals and took Bella’s original recipe for safekeeping. However nothing happened because they backed out of the plan at the last minute.

Three years later, Evelyn is dead. The police find belladonna petals in her tea and Bella’s handwritten recipe. She is arrested and it’s up to the others to clear her name – if they can get through their suspicions of each other. Is Bella lying about her innocence? Do Poppy and Lily have something to gain by leaving her in prison? Who killed Evelyn?

This whodunit had many layers, which were cleverly unpeeled one at a time. When the truth is finally revealed readers will be in shock.

Recommended for ages 14 and older.

I received a digital advance reading copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.