This book is so weird and just wasn’t for me.
I felt that the characters were so underdeveloped and I wasn’t a fan of the writing style at all.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

What did I just read? I'm not sure if Hex is a work of genius or completely batshit crazy. Did I like it? I'm not sure. Maybe. Do I want to read more from Knight? I'm not sure. Probably not.

Nell Barber has her PhD in Biological Science terminated partway through (a constant breath-holding fear of any PhD student) through no fault of her own, which results in her removal from the university. But this hasn’t stopped her going ahead with the research that was started in the first place by Nell’s late compatriot, and the reason why Nell and her group were expelled from university.

Rebecca Dinerstein Knight nicely captures the despair of a young woman, who having invested so much of her time an effort into something which could be the making of her career, finds it unjustly taken away overnight. For anyone who has experienced a masters or PhD there is much to resonate with the experience, even though Nell’s world in this case is exaggerated to the extreme.

The sense of being cut off from the community of those who continue to glide through the system, and yet at the same time having exposure to them on a regular basis, nicely rubs salt in Nell’s emotional wounds.

The prose has a sense of a link to the heritage of The Ultimate Jest for its manic and well-chosen words of minute observation and In Grand Central Station… for the pathos and emotional heft of Nell’s obsession with her ex-supervisor Joan Kallas, as the author crafts her uncomfortable study of University relationships and politics.

The descent into madness as Nell tries to continue her lab mate’s work (which resulted in her unfortunate and untimely death) and the unravelling of Nell’s life, are both hilarious and excruciating at the same time. There are points where you don’t know whether to laugh or cringe.

Rebecca Dinerstein Knight’s writing never once seems to draw breath and rattles along at a such great pace you really have to hang on in there with your fingernails. But at the same time every paragraph is incredibly lucid and fluid.

There is a bit of a fall off towards the end of the energy evident in the earlier part of the book, but the author displays a great deal of poise and knowing in the way she deploys her words on the page. Indeed, it is no surprise she is also a poet.

I will certainly look forward to her next novel.

After the death of one of her labmates, PhD student Nell is thrown out of Columbia University. Encouraged to go back to a more conventional thesis subject, instead Nell turns to an obsession with poisons and their antidotes. Nell also becomes obsessed with her former supervisor Joan.
I am sure this book will appeal to some but I found the style and the plot annoyingly affected unfortunately.

This book has one of the most glorious dedications. It does a brilliant job of setting the tone and expectations.

"This book is yours, my witch;
read it and you will find your tormented soul changed and free"
- Vita Sackville-West.

Hex is a fusion of love letters to an unrequited work crush and a poisonous diary of nefarious deeds. Knight's writing is very swoon-worthy and lush, but ultimately the story was lacking in venom. It diverted into the sexcapades of a group of grad students instead of a dreamy foray into the world of deadly botany with a splash of Bollywood dancing.

Recommended for good reainy day read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the ARC.

Hex is a dark, uneasy novel about poison and desire. It follows the main character Nell, a PhD candidate in biological science, who’s expelled from Columbia after her labmate dies in an accident with plant toxins. Derailed, depressed and desperate, Nell steals the killer seeds to continue the work from a grim apartment in Red Hook. While she tries to engineer an antidote, she’s also writing a series of obsessive journals dedicated to ‘you’ – Dr. Joan Kallas, the lecturer she’s in love with.

Nell and Joan are caught up in not so much a love triangle as a love hexagon: there’s Nell’s medievalist ex-boyfriend Tom; her glamorous best friend Mishti; Mishti’s boyfriend Carlo; and Joan’s creepy husband Barry. Despite its botanical backdrop, the novel spends most of its time focusing on these tangled relationships, and the webs of desire between them are just about as toxic as the seeds germinating in Nell’s apartment.

If it sounds incestuous, claustrophobic and messy – it is. There’s a sense of ‘dark academia’ in Dinerstein Knight’s portrayal of campus politics. If you enjoy novels where everyone’s brainy and unpleasant (think The Secret History or Bunny) then this is one for you.

Nell herself is a compelling character to spend time with, not despite her unpleasantness but because of it. It’s always refreshing to read female characters who are allowed to be grotty. Not showering for days? Keeping a mushy banana in your pocket? Having toenail fungus? That’s feminism! Well, maybe not, but it makes for an interesting narrator. Nell’s world view is – for lack of a better word – weird. Her ‘journals’ are studded with surprising images, odd tangents, and strange yearnings: “I wished I could carve you a pumpkin”; “I wanted immediately, with my whole self, to be your cat”; “I thought it might be pleasant to be one layer of uncolored nail polish lying in rest over your fingernails”. I loved this depiction of desire – at once so unique and yet completely familiar.

The novel interrogates the idea of desire throughout. What do the characters want for themselves? For each other? From each other? Nell doesn’t always know what she wants, but she is always wanting, so that the act of wanting almost becomes an activity in its own right. After all, what’s more important to her: Joan, or the act of wanting Joan? As Nell wonders aloud to Mishti, “Which is fuller, the longing or the union?” Whatever the answer is for Nell personally, it’s certainly the longing that makes this novel a success.

This short story is a simply magical little number although I do wish I knew more about plants so I didn't have to google so much throughout 😂.
Rebecca Dinerstein Knight has created this almost diary style short story which I can imagine isn't to everyone's taste but personally I really enjoyed it.
I love the way each section is started with a name which some how links to what is happening in each section, Nell writing to Joan in sections which seem like trains of thought instead of full sentences just adds that rawness to how you may feel when you are infatuated with someone.
The selection of what is almost Mia matched characters interactions with each other really add an extra bit of magic to it. A selection of 6 people that you wouldn't normally place together really works. Mishti and Tom's relationship along side with Barry and Joan is done so well you really don't see the twist you expect at the end.

My thanks to Bloomsbury Circus for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Hex’ by Rebecca Dinerstein Knight in exchange for an honest review.

At the opening of this short campus based novel all six members of a Columbia University lab group, who had been working on the detoxification of poisonous plants, are expelled when one member dies after consciously ingesting poison. Nell Barber isn’t happy about losing her biology Ph.D. position and even wore a hazmat suit to the hearing as a promise of future caution. However, this act was considered disrespectful and didn’t help their case. Yet Nell refuses to give up.

She is desperate for the approval of her former advisor, Prof. Joan Kallas, who suggests that Nell should concentrate on her alternative work with oak trees and that over time she might well regain her academic position even if not at Columbia. Nell dismisses this suggestion declaring “Trees are boring”. I have to say I lost some sympathy for her at this statement as I consider trees fascinating, especially oak trees with their rich symbolic history.

Instead, Nell steals the project’s seeds and plants and continues the experiments into botanical toxins in her apartment. She records the experiments as well as her obsessive thoughts about Joan.

This was an unusual novel with very little plot and plenty of student/hipster angst. It came as no surprise to me that the author’s first book was a collection of poetry as ‘Hex’ is written in rich lyrical prose.

I imagine that it will work well as an audiobook given that format will allow a deeper appreciation of its rhythms and her use of language. The narrative takes the form of journals in which Nell addresses Joan and bounces about from thought to thought, feeling to feeling. It’s chaotic yet a controlled chaos.

Even if trees bore her, Nell’s love of plants Is very evident. Nell came across to me as a non comic book Poison Ivy, increasingly obsessed with her plants.

I admit that I was expecting something more focused on the science rather than romantic longing and stream of consciousness. Yet I did appreciate it.

Tom’s, Nell’s former boyfriend, love of unicorns resonated with me. There was a lovely scene where Nell and Tom visit The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park and he is transfixed by a series of famous tapestries depicting medieval unicorns, while Nell wanders into a reproduction of a medieval herb garden and is similarly effected. “I stood alone with my favourite creatures. Tom stood alone with his favourite creatures. There’s a version of the world in which there’s room for all of us. In which we all belong here, also anywhere, even everywhere.”

Being a work of literary fiction, I expect that ‘Hex’ is a novel that will appeal to readers who are comfortable with less conventional narratives. It is strange and beautiful.

I’m disappointed.

The premise of this book is so exciting! Poison, obsession and complex characters.
Nell is a recently expelled PHD student, whose research in cures for botanical poisons has just been cancelled because of the death of another student. At the start of the book Nell is moving into her own apartment after her break up with Tom and tries to recreate her research. The metaphor of poisons and toxic relationships is very heavy handed as the former narrative quickly takes a back seat to Nell’s obsession with her former professor Joan.

The novel is written from second person perspective which is odd. I understand it’s a stylistic choice that lends itself to the literary nature of the writing. Ultimately though that doesn’t make up for a plot that lacks with flat, uninteresting characters.

Thanks NetGalley for my copy to review.

Even if it's well written the story didn't keep my attention and fell flat.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Well, this is a super weird novel but the weird happened to sit well with me. This seems as true a rendering of obsession as I've ever read as it's so grounded in Nell's own point of view. I think how each person experienced obsession is different and I have to say that I thought Nell's representation of her own was quite funny, even if it was also slightly aimless. I don't think she even knew what she really wanted from Joan.

You'll know in the first few sections if this is for you or not.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I found Hex an interesting book about poison and obsession. It was a good plot to follow and an enjoyable read.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

Unfortunately I just didn't click with this one. I think it was a combination of the writing style, the characters, and the lack of plot. Nothing grabbed me and kept me wanting to read, so I DNFd at 15%.

I don’t think I really “got” this book and I’m sure it’s my fault and not that of the author. Having spent some time as a PhD candidate in biological sciences, it didn’t really resonate with my experiences. Perhaps US academia is completely different from the UK? There didn’t seem to be much science going on.

Many of my questions about what had happened and why were still unresolved at the end of the book. The book is certainly stronger on beautiful phrasing and unexpected simile than it is on plot or character motivation. Oh and the second person narration really bugged me as I really disliked the character to whom the narrator is talking.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

There's beauty in Hex, along with occasions of insightful prose. I think that I might have liked it more than I did if anyone ever DID anything. The characters are all brilliant minds at an impressive university but still somehow fall a little flat. Their relationships are comically entertwined but even those mostly fizzle out. By the ending I was still mostly confused, with no clear idea what Hex is about. There are so many directions that the book could have taken because who isn't interested in poisonous botany or obsession? Instead on the whole this is a forgettable book.

Hex is a novel about obsession, complicated relationships, and poison set around a university campus. Nell Barber was expelled from her PhD after the death of a fellow student, but is still desperate to keep trying to find answers for the detoxification of poisonous plants. She is obsessed with her advisor and mentor, Joan, who thinks she should try and pursue less controversial work, and they both find themselves in a web of relationships and grudges that may be more toxic than the plants Nell is now growing in her empty apartment.

Hex is a surprising novel, which seems like it is going to be about poison and death, and turns out to be about relationships and obsession. Written in the second person as Nell's notebooks, the book's unusual style and lack of real plot won't be for everyone, but it creates an atmosphere and draws you into Nell's obsession, which is less about the poisonous plants and more about Joan. The blend of details about plants and Nell's focus on the other characters works well in giving it the claustrophobic sense of a campus novel that centres around a small group of people whilst using the academic work as a way of exposing elements of the story and characters.

Going into Hex expecting a poison-focused version of The Secret History probably will leave you disappointed, as it lacks the threat of Tartt's novel, but it is an interesting look at obsessive love and the complexity of relationships, and one for anyone who likes slightly dark novels set at universities.

The writing is stylish, intricate and thought provoking. But the story itself lacks substance and depth. Its a story of obsession and work dynamics, as we follow Nell Barber and their work into poison and detoxification of deadly plants. We starts as an exploration into natural poisons and the chemistry behind the battle to make antidotes quickly devolves into messy relationships and volatile friendships and the changing tide of an intimate working environment.

Quite unlike anything I've read, but I'm not sure it lived up to what I was expecting. It was a lot more focused on the characters and their complicated lives than it was with the science of plants that I was promised in the blurb. I also found the writing style a little off putting, and when combined with a plot that doesn't really go anywhere, I found I wasn't that invested in the story.

Interesing ideas but this fell short in execution for me.

Hex is incredible.

If you want a book about obsession and poison (who doesn’t!?) than this is the one for you! It took a while for me to understand the multiple characters but Hex is enjoyable and the perfect book to curl up with!
4/5

⭐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 📚.