Synopsis from Goodreads
Disclaimer: While clean from a language and content point of view (and designed to be read by a young audience), this book is very scary, quite gruesome in parts and deals with big questions about free will. Parents may want to vet it first. (And older readers with a fear of spiders, beware)Poison has always been a willful, contrary girl, prone to being argumentative and stubborn. So when her sister is snatched by the mean-spirited faeries, she seeks out the Phaerie Lord to get her back.
But finding him isn't easy, and the quest leads Poison into a murderous world of intrigue, danger, and deadly storytelling. With only her wits and her friends to aid her, Poison must survive the attentions of the Phaerie Lord, rescue her sister, and thwart a plot that's beyond anything she (or the reader) can imagine. . . .
Here are some discussion prompts to help you frame your response. Feel free to totally ignore them – we’d like to hear what you think!
- Do you think the idea of a journey through a world (encompassing lots of different places) works or does it give the author too little chance to flesh out the places the characters pass through? Would you have rather spent more time in any of the places Poison visited rather than being hurried through them?
- Do you think Wooding spends long enough on the history of Poisons land for you to understand the tensions between the characters? Or does the story still lean towards the antagonists being evil for evil’s sake?
- Do you enjoy it when authors direct your attention to the process of storytelling in the actual plot or do you find it unsettling or frustrating?
