Poisoned by Jennifer Donnelly

Lips as red as cherries, hair as dark as midnight and skin as white as snow.  But it is not Sophie's beauty that leads her to the forest- it is her kindness.  When her heart is taken she is saved by seven strangers and must confront a host of dangers to reclaim her heart and kingdom.

Poisoned is another fairytale retelling aimed at teens.  Instead of stepmother embittered by jealousy of her ward's beauty, she is instead threatened by the Queen that Sophie will become.  I enjoy these twisted fairytales because they give agency to the princess.  It's a refreshing take on old tropes- especially doing away with one dimensional female characters.

The plot is okay. There comes a point where the storyline becomes very predictable.  This is the part of the book where I began to lose interest and debate putting it down, but thankfully Donnelly was able to put just enough new and exciting material in there to keep me interested.  I think it was the addition of magical element and monsters that really helped.  It would have been easy to be overly reliant on magic and monsters, but she balances them expertly with the real world elements of the story.  

I think Poisoned has an important message: kindness is not weakness and is overall fun and entertaining.  I would recommend it to readers that have enjoyed other fractured fairytales such as Stepsister, Wicked, The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass, and The School for Good and Evil. I give this one 3/5 stars