Hex

by Rebecca Dinerstein Knight

Nell Barber, an expelled PhD candidate in biological science, is exploring the fine line between poison and antidote, working alone to set a speed record for the detoxification of poisonous plants. Her mentor, Dr. Joan Kallas, is the hero of Nell's heart. Nell frequently finds herself standing in the doorway to Joan's office despite herself, mesmerized by Joan's elegance, success, and spiritual force.

Surrounded by Nell's ex, her best friend, her best friend's boyfriend, and Joan's buffoonish husband, the two scientists are tangled together at the center of a web of illicit relationships, grudges, and obsessions. All six are burdened by desire and ambition, and as they collide on the university campus, their attractions set in motion a domino effect of affairs and heartbreak.

Meanwhile, Nell slowly fills her empty apartment with poisonous plants to study, and she begins to keep a series of notebooks, all dedicated to Joan. She logs her research and how she spends her days, but the notebooks ultimately become a painstaking map of love. In a dazzling and unforgettable voice, Rebecca Dinerstein Knight has written a spellbinding novel of emotional and intellectual intensity.

Genres: Fiction, Dark Academia, Contemporary, Queer, LGBT, Fantasy, Audiobook

224 pages, Hardcover

First published March 31, 2020

Reviews

[Adam Dalva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prose on another level: turbulent, bold, stylish, unique. I was hooked to the voice from the start.

[frankie · Rating 2 out of 5]

absolutely insufferable mfa writing ruined what could have been a great premise

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a bit insane but I loved the narrator and her way of seeing the world. The writing is surprising and funny. In the same year of reading Real Life, it was strange to read another novel featuring a science grad student fumbling through the world in the small circle surrounding their existence, only here the narrator is speaking most of the time to her dissertation advisor, and all of this takes place after a labmate has died of a plant poison absorbed in the lab. The circle is a group of six that are all connected in various ways, but it is subtle (but hexagon may have informed the title.) The author has mentioned in interviews that she wanted to explore the idea of devotion, and she definitely does. This might be a campus novel but it feels singular in its approach.

I didn't realize until near the end that I have this author's previous novel sitting unread on my shelf. Well that just got bumped up the list.

I had a copy from the publisher through NetGalley and it came out March 31.

[Britany · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars
Nell Barber is a scientist studying the relationship between poison levels and oak trees (totally separate projects). The reader comes in fast and furious knowing the lab blew up and Nell is suffering from the backlash. The writing is a stream of consciousness style that goes on and on and on.

It started off extremely strong- was thinking a 5 star read, Nell is snarky, observant and downright bold in her analogies. I loved reading about how broken she became and how obsessed with her professor, Joan Kallas she becomes. Joan is 10 years older and married to a campus counselor, Barry - a dull man who starts asking for attention from anyone that walks by. We meet a strange cast of characters and they kept me interested. My favorite being that the dog was named Amanda. I blew through this novel, but the back half was dull and was missing the boldness and witty snark that the first half had. I lost interest in the characters and in the end it felt like the author did too.

Really interesting book and if you're looking for something different, give this one a try.

Thank you to Netgalley and Viking for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Courtney Maum · Rating 5 out of 5]

A total astonishment-- one of the best and most original books I have read this year, in years. The humor, the intelligence, the weirdness, the loneliness, the sensuality, it's all there. I loved it. Pre-order this book now!

[Lucy Goodfellow · Rating 1 out of 5]

⭐1 Star ⭐
I'm so disappointed by this book, it doesn't deliver on its promise of poison or obsession and instead invites its reader into the scattered mind of a botanist incapable of growth. The second person writing could create a spellbinding effect if it were executed more thoroughly as in You by Caroline Kepnes, but here it feels like a lacklustre attempt at uniqueness.

In the beginning, I thought Nell would be a modern Victor Frankenstein, broiled in her obsession, but her writings betray the characters uninterest in anything other than herself. Nell is unfortunately stagnant, which is a general complaint about the entire novel. We meet caricature after caricature of stagnant set pieces who often don't behave like people. And with the voice of the protagonist so muddled, the childish prose makes for some confusing descriptions.

I think this book could have been so much stronger if it had begun with the death of Rachel, the repercussions of this and then Nell's spiral. Overall, I think Hex just lacked the depth it needed to explore the intricacies of its plot.

This is not Secret History despite the homoeroticism.
This is not a botanists guide to poison.
This book needed more poison.

Trigger Warnings: death, poison, obsessive characters.

I received an advance review copy for free via NetGalley. I am leaving this review voluntarily 📚.

[Abbie | ab_reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

(#gifted @bloomsburypublishing) It's always a tragedy when a cover is THIS pretty but the story inside doesn't really live up to its potential 😭 I had high expectations for Hex, with its dark academia vibe mixed with poison and botany. 'A beautiful, spooky spell,' says one reviewer; 'Hex is some dark and joyous witchery', says another. I only wish I could have read what they read.
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The story (such as it is) is narrated by Nell, a PhD student specialising in Botany, or more specifically toxic plants, who has recently been expelled following the accidental death of a fellow student. Nell is obsessed with her mentor, Dr Joan Kallas, and dictates her story in diary form to Joan. Dinerstein Knight utilises the same second person form used to great effect in Caroline Kepnes' book YOU (the only thing about that book I liked), but I don't think it's as well executed. I wasn't totally convinced by Nell's obsession for Joan.
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In fact, I wasn't really convinced by anyone's relationship to anyone in this book. There are six principal characters, all involved in various incestuous relationships within their academic circle. They're all not very nice people, but sadly not the kind of not very nice people I enjoy reading about and hating. I didn't feel anything, except for Mishti, who felt the most alive to me.
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Nell is going through a lot of shit though, and while I wasn't convinced of her infatuation Joan, Dinerstein Knight portrays her declining mental state following her expulsion very well. I enjoyed reading about her disastrous attempts to grow poisonous plants in her apartment, her struggles with money, and her rocky relationship with her parents.
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I wouldn't rule this one out if you like reading books where you're locked in the head of a fucked up narrator, or are particularly fond of books with an academic setting, but I can't deny that it fell a bit flat for me given the potential of the book.

[Tess · Rating 4 out of 5]

HEX is puzzling, dangerous, and compulsively readable. Set at Columbia University, Nell is a botany PhD student obsessed with poisoned plants and her advisor, Joan. The book is written as a sort of love letter to Joan as their personal lives become complicated and intertwined. It is shocking and humorous, and as sharp as teeth.

You will want to give Nell a big hug - she is a lost character and as the reader, you can see where she is being led astray and it will break your heart. Unrequited love can do that to a person, but Nell is especially helpless. It is a perfect takedown of academia though, something I always enjoy (especially when the school is the one I work at!). Dinerstein Knight nails the language, and vibe, of higher education and my only complaint of the book is that I wanted more actual poison! The book begins with a shock, and ends with a whimper, and the in between is an interesting ride of love and obsession.

[Kathi · Rating 2 out of 5]

???????? Uhhh?????? What an useless read

2.5 stars. I have no patience for bad books that masquerade as and hide between "weirdness" anymore. Weirdness is enjoyable, weirdness is an art, weirdness is amazing! And this book absolutely wasn't. It's like the author tried to fit her personal poetry collection into the book (and of course she's a poet; the writing basically screams "I have deep intellectual thoughts destined for misunderstood greatness)
Such a pretentious, pseudo-absurd book that ultimately just feels devoid of heart, substance and meaning.

Also, a real pain to get through. At least the chapters were short (as short as this book fell in failing to meet the most basic expectations)

[Maia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, how to describe this book? Written as journal entries by Nell, an expelled PhD student from a biology program, it unwinds the threads of her two obsessions: poisonous plants and her academic mentor, Dr Joan Kallas. Nell is maybe in love with Joan, or else wants to be her, or at the very least wants her constant attention-- something hard to get since an accidental death in Nell's lab closed the whole department. Nell attempts to carry on the research of her diseased colleague from an unfurnished New York apartment. Meanwhile, Nell's best friend and ex both continue to take Joan's Columbia graduate classes, and a web of tangled relationships, jealousy, and unrequired love unfold between them all. Many of the entries are written in the second person, addressed to Joan, who we only get to see through Nell's eyes. She is a powerful, intelligent, icy, magnetic woman and Nell's fixation on her seems doomed; but who this doom will fall on is an open question. I listened to this as an audiobook and deeply enjoyed the story and the writing style, woven through with herbal and medieval imagery.

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely loved the narrative voice and the unique, quirky, insightful writing. Excellent narration by Jenny Slate in the audiobook. The protagonist Nell's obsession with her older professor Joan felt very real and very queer. I wanted a bit more story wise about the poisonous botanicals and less about the romantic entanglements, especially the two men who were unworthy of all the women.

[Fanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

August 07, 2020: Hex can (h)excellently sorry I had to do it grow on readers who appreciate something so perplexing that it's undeniably difficult to put down. An unusual second-person narration through an obsessive botanist who easily channels a dark witchery vibe and a prose laden with scientific musings, this literary fiction surprises with the complexity of many desires, unrequited love, and a mind that breaks along with the heart. Poisonous plants, taxonomic facts, and romantic entanglements make up the backdrop of a slightly sardonic voice that showers unfiltered truth and sprinkle bizarre humour throughout the story. The undelivered possibility of more dangerous concoctions might disappoint for a bit and the style might be unfamiliar to some but overall, the book is definitely worth recommending.

July 29, 2020: Oh, this was so surprising. I don't know what I had expected but definitely not this and of course, the surprise was on most parts a pleasant one. Full review to come. Received a physical review copy via the publisher.

[Addie BookCrazyBlogger · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hex follows Nell, a recently expelled student from Columbia University, whose project of finding cures for botanical poisons, headed by Joan Kaller, has just been shut down due to the death of another graduate student. Nell appears to be lost, having just broken up with her boyfriend Tom and begins to try to re-create the experiment on her own, in her new apartment. Everyone around her knows that she’s having a breakdown and yet, no one seems to care about their friend. Eventually side character and their relationships start taking on more significance, especially with Nell finally realizing she’s obsessed/in love with Joan. The entire novel takes place in second POV, which was super confusing and I feel like I never got a full background on any of the characters. The novel felt more novella to me, as it starts at the end of one story (the student dying) and then ends with no clear, satisfactory ending. I went into this novel thinking it was about witches and got a book that just confuses the ever living hell out of me instead. I truly can’t tell if this book was a new experiment in writing or just pretentious.

[Chelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was odd... not sure how I feel about it but I would’ve liked less incestuous academia and more botany and poison.

[Lancakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know 100% about plot and character. But Rebecca Dinerstein Knight wrote THE SHIT OUT OF this book.

I went into this knowing nothing - the cover had flowers and the name was witchy. Those are in my wheelhouse and so it was enough for this book to make it onto my tbr.
Within a few pages, maybe even a few lines, I was just big heart eyes emoji.

This might be my most highlighted book, and it's only 224 pages long. Which means a HIGH density of QUALITY sentences and beautiful imagery, clever turns of phrase, relatable truth telling.

I want at least two of my book posse to read this, badly.

[Aneets · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hated this and hate myself for bothering to finish it when it was just not my thing. I blame the fact it was so short- still didn't make reading it easy. 1.5 stars.

[Jacquelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an odd little book.

[Carike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who amongst us hasn’t developed an obsession with a cool female authority figure in an academic or corporate setting? The vibes are exceptionally relatable, if not the details of the story.

The writing style and fresh narrative voice scratched my brain in just the right way, I found the characters amazingly real, and there are multiple quotes in here that I absolutely need to go back and highlight. I loved this.

[charlotte, · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rep: Jewish sapphic mc, Indian American side character, gay side character

[Saimon (ZanyAnomaly) · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I'm building a new aconite that accepts it's own opposite. Think of it as me and you alone together. A poison that undoes itself."

Hex by Rebecca Dinerstein Knight started with poison. It started with a death. It started with promise. But I am not quite sure it withheld its promise. It just tapered off towards the end for me. But we're getting ahead, lets start from the top:

Hex is about Nell (a rather Eleanor Oliphant-ish character), who has just been fired from her university along with her teammates just because one of her teammates happened to fuck up and ingest a poisonous plant and ended up dying (an accurate representation of how all group projects I've been part of have gone, tbh - without the death part).

And we just see what Nell is up to after that (which is a lot of moping around and unrequited pining for her mesmerizing mentor, Joan). And the complexities of love triangles in her group of friends - which include
- her Indian best friend Mishti
- Joan's husband Barry (who is having an affair with Mishti)
- Nell's ex Tom (who is having an affair with Joan)
- Mishiti's handsome boyfriend Carlo (who just...exists in the background) and
- Nell, of course - who has given up on life and become a bartender(?)

The book started off like a fever dream - Nell was obsessed with continuing her dead colleague's poison project and was trying to figure out how to do that without a lab or the lab money. The book eased into the story after 40 pages and I was very engrossed to learn how it was all going to turn out.

I have to mention here that I went into this book with a lot of expectations. It sounded very Dark Academia-ish. Poison, Passion and Death. And it did give all of them, albiet not enough. The text was swamped with plant names that I started glazing over them. Nell's passion for Joan was very one-note and nothing much happened. And the death was done with in the first chapter. And the ending never really led anywhere.

Hex was a short, quick, interesting read and might be worth checking out if you're into botany. It was sadly only a 3 star read for me.

Thanks to @bloomsburyindia for the ARC

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[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an odd little book about a woman graduate student who specializes in poisonous plants and she gets expelled when another student working for her dies from ingesting some of them. I was taken in by the blurbs that described this as The Secret History meets Department of Speculation. I couldn't agree less.

The book is low on plant information and high on exploring the toxic relationships of Nell and the people in her orbit. Nell seems a bit of a nihilist except when it comes to passion for her mentor, Joan. The book is written in the second person as if Nell is speaking to Joan.

I can’t really say I thought much of this book…there doesn’t seem to be any wisdom here unless it’s that people are never satisfied no matter what or who they have in their life. Great book cover though!

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

All things plants & relationships, I devoured this in two days. Sometimes a banana with coffee is really nice.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5

[rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted a witchy take on becoming too preoccupied with a mentor, a subject on which I unfortunately can relate more than not. Instead, I got a booger collection and middle-aged, married professors sleeping with their graduate students, and it all existed in this sort of unreal world because of the lofty, "poetic" and comma-less style of writing. Very little about the relationship between the main character, Nell, and her professor obsession rang true for me, but I'm giving this an additional star because very occasionally there was an amazing group of lines that gave me a flash of what I had hoped to find.

[Emma]

I love books where everyone is just so mean to each other

[Régine · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 I guess?

This book said so much, and yet did very little.

I only survived because the narrator’s internal ramblings were half delusion half poetry. I don’t know what was really gained by all that happened (didn’t happen?) She found a job at the very least.

Despite the drag of the last half, I managed a decent amount of annotations that are so strange and yet sensible.

I never want to love someone so much I let my brain speak unfiltered lol. This feels like that and she’s not even wrong, just sad 😅

Notable Mentions:

“You are my night milk”

“The portion of your life I estimate I take up on any given day has been the size of my pride.”

“She doesn’t wear necklaces because she’s making an effort, she wears necklaces because her neck deserves them.”

“I just haven’t been seasoned.”

“Whose shell would you boil off and what’s the flavor of their inner nut?”

[Hannah Lehnert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unhinged woman in dark academia? Hell yeah. It’s homoerotic. The relationships are buckwild. Everyone’s so insane that our main character is sometimes the most grounded person in the room. We love that vibe. We also love tortellini 🫶. Oh also Jenny Slate was the perfect choice for the audiobook. No notes.

[ida.Liseth ⭐️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Didnt actually understand what i was reading but i was still hooked and finished it😅

[Rachel Watts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just phenomenally good. Funny, punchy, warm, angry and casually witchy. And that narrative voice!

[Cat Rector]

Gave up. This one isn't for me. My expectation was not what it delivered.