Lies Like Poison

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Well-written unreliable narrators are at least consistent in their unreliability. They make you question scenes, other characters, or question their own perception of things. And that is exactly the cherry on top. It's one thing to have unreliable narrators because one of them is the secret killer and you're trying to conceal which one it is. It's quite another to have unreliable narrators but none of them is actually responsible for Evelyn's death. I have never been more gaslit in my life. Wait, what? Belle’s vision blurred and the officer’s mouth stopped making noise, even though it was moving. Raven’s stepmother is dead? I thought you were here for— Everybody knows that in the death of a spouse, the first place to look is at the current husband/wife, any existing lovers, and previous exes. The fact that the police did neither in both cases and went for the immediate arrest of a teenage girl based on a conveniently placed "murder recipe" left at the scene of the crime . . . I mean, you don't get more gullible than that.

How did Mrs. Holloway die?” she asked softly. Every word that came out of her mouth, she analyzed. Did she sound innocent just then? Did she sound guilty? She wasn’t guilty, she swore to herself over and over again, but it was hard to believe that with cuffs around her wrists. It was harder to believe when the police station came into view.

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

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. Who you gonna call?” the man asked, in this jovial tone that made her think he was going to start humming the Ghostbusters theme song. Everything about this was absurd. Belle wanted to tell herself it was a dream, because none of this could be happening, except . . . the rest of the night had been incredibly vivid. Those lips, trailing across her skin. Those hands, warm and familiar. Bright eyes. Mischievous smile. They’d hardly touched over the past few years, and yet, everything was exactly the way it had been the first time they’d held hands.

Ye-yes,” she said, managing to stumble over one word. Great. That didn’t bode well for the rest of the conversation. But she could lie about who’d been tangled in her arms that night. She’d gotten very good at keeping secrets. Just… not from the cops. The neighbors might’ve noticed me sneaking out around two thirty. She flashed a taunting smile. If you’re good at what you do, I’m sure you can drum up some evidence.Desperate to prove her innocence, Belle reaches out to her estranged friends, but who can she trust? Can you look someone up for me?” she asked when the officer finally let her make a call. “I don’t remember the number.”

I didn’t. I swear. But Edwin was passed out in his bedroom all night, and no one can account for me.”

Listen, you don’t know how much this means to me,” Belle began as the officer stepped toward her. He wanted her to hang up the phone. But she needed to say this before she ended the call. “I thought I understood what happened three years ago, but I never asked you—” Hello?” That familiar voice came on the line and Belle’s hands started to shake. Tears filled her eyes. The story . . . was dark and full of conflict and passion and so many twists. No one is who they seem and everything was captivating' NetGalley user The only believable explanation as to why they didn't sit together and chat is because they suspect each other as being the killer and trying to frame one another.

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. Unreliable narrators still need to be reliable in how or why they are unreliable. Are they delusional and have a penchant for exaggeration? Are they extremely naive and have a limited way of understanding events that unfold around them? Are they psychologically impaired in some way--psychopaths who are detached from reality? Are they simply just liars by character? But the night before the murder, one of us got cold feet and ruined everything. We all had to poison her together. That’s what I thought, the spring we made flower garlands. The spring we spread them out on the table, where she drank her tea. Like Like Poison was a twisted contemporary fairytale with exciting twists and centring around the friendship between four kids who would do anything for each other.Who you gonna call?” the man asked, in this jovial tone that made her think he was going to start humming the Ghostbusters theme song. Everything about this was absurd. Belle wanted to tell herself it was a dream, because none of this could be happening, except… the rest of the night had been incredibly vivid. Those lips, trailing across her skin. Those hands, warm and familiar. Bright eyes. Mischievous smile. They’d hardly touched over the past few years, and yet everything was exactly the way it had been the first time they’d held hands. Listen, you don’t know how much this means to me, Belle began as the officer stepped toward her. He wanted her to hang up the phone. But she needed to say this before she ended the call. I thought I understood what happened three years ago, but I never asked you— 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. 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. She sat at the police station, stuffed into a plastic chair, waiting for Detective Frank Medina to return from the field. She’d been there since eight in the morning. When he finally strode through the doors, well after noon, he took one look at her and sighed. Miss McClain.