Book Review: Potions, Poisons, and Policies by Courtney Thorne

Rating: ★★☆☆☆(2/5)

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Introduction:

Released October 2024. Read January 2025.

This was 100% a BookTok recommendation from my FYP. When I looked it up on Kindle Unlimited and saw it was free I dove straight in. The author seems so sweet and genuine on her page. I REALLY wanted to like this book… but I didn’t.

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Summary: A Brief Overview (Without Major Spoilers)

Henri is the opposite of a Pick Me girl. She literally does not want to be picked. Everyone around her seems to be pairing up thanks to an illegal love potion. Her entire school seems to be affected, except her. This forces her to try and find a solution, the anti love potion.

Insert Enemies to Lovers Trope. We have Henri’s long term academic rival Noah Lawrence. They both want to be Potions masters and this might just be the next step to getting there. That is, if they can avoid getting cast under the love potion’s spell.

Henri faces a dilemma: Saving her classmates or Romance? A full on mystery unravels as Henri has to try and guard her heart. This read tries to prove that love might just be the most dangerous spell of them all.

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What Worked for Me:

There is chemistry. The two MCs do have it. I will give Thorne credit there. The FMC is also intelligent and not boycrazy which is nice to see. The premise is fairly unique and piqued my interest.

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What Didn’t Work for Me: Trigger Warnings and Criticisms

The writing. I did not like it. There were references that made it seem British but not quite successfully. The FMC came off very frigid and hard to relate to. All of the teenagers or young adults (I couldn’t quite tell what age they were supposed to be) were just making out everywhere. I found myself starting to skim half way through and then I had to slow it back down and finish it out. I don’t like to skim read but it was the only way that I was going to make it through sections of this. It was less than 300 pages and the plot development felt somehow both rushed and yet the story felt like it was rambling in parts.

There were parts of this that seemed like it was almost fan fiction. The cover even reminded me of Draco and Hermione from Harry Potter. It felt like it was all bark and no bite. The characters were too fluffy to be snarky and they didn’t come off the way Dramione would together.

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Final Thoughts:

I read a Good Reads review that said “this book wanted to reap all the benefits of a Dramione-esque romance with none of the elements that make Dramione work. Please, for the love of God, don’t make this a thing. I can’t take pathetic ACOTAR knock-offs wearing a new, platinum blonde wig.” And I felt that in my spirit. If you want a quick novella as a palette cleanser between reads, this works. If you want an actual novel with an Enemies to Lovers trope, just go read ACOTAR.