Reviews with content warning for Blood - This Vicious Grace

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This Vicious Grace by Emily Thiede

24 reviews

witcheep's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This Vicious Grace is a book that explores the themes of duty, belonging, and connection through FMC Alessa's character and offers different points of view with different characters. Even if the themes are heavy and the subjects often near traumatic, the tone of the book is quite lighthearted and makes it an easy and fast read.

"I'm tired of being a title rather than a person, I guess."

The main character Alessa is the Finestra, a goddess-chosen magical person who holds the highest rank of the country, but in return is required to give up everything from her previous life, including her name, family, and even the ability to touch people. The Finestra is also expexted to fight an army of foes of the enemy god together with another magical person, a Fonte. She hasn't found that other compatible Fonte yet, and time is running out. Because of this, Alessa has become a secluded young woman who has been touch-deprived for years – a husk of a person, really. This seclusion and touch-deprivation echo the struggles familiar to so many from the pandemic, and makes Thiede's writing more powerful because of it: so many of us can relate to the extreme situation that Alessa is in.

When Alessa gets the chance to touch again by trying to connect with a Fonte, she takes it ravenously – and it ends in the death of the Fonte too many times because her magic is too strong for the touch. This grants the secondary foes in the book, a religious group of men, a somewhat justified claim to want to murder her as a false Finestra. After multiple attempts on her life, Alessa doesn't trust anyone, and seeks for protecion from a disinterested party by hiring a lone street fighter Dante as her body guard.

Dante says he is not kind, but Alessa decides his actions show otherwise: Dante builds Alessa's confidence up by gentle bullying, and Alessa begins to regard them as friends with the potentiality for more.

Dante squinted, and she smiled brighter. If he was going to tease her about reading smutty novels, she'd fight back by working innuendo into every conversation.

They both are lonely teenagers with recent years in their lives holding such dark times for them that they both have had to grow up fast and become as adult-like as they can to fill in the roles that keep them alive. They open up to each other about their secrets and offer each other support.

Slowly, Alessa begins to grasp how she can touch other Fonti, by practicing with Dante. With each other, they find moments of respite and become more juvenile at times. And, of course, a romance blossoms between the two of them.

Quote in spoiler:

" Sorry you're stuck with me, then. I'm new to this whole... cuddling... thing."
She patted his arm with a perky, "You're doing fine."
"You're desperate, and I'm here, eh?"
"Exactly." She paused. "Thank you."

In the plot, slowly, the concrete truths and rules of ancient sacred texts are questioned by finding alternative translations and interpretations, and Alessa pieces together that the core of the sacred text is community: "Together, we protect. Divided, we unravel." This has traditionally been interpreted to mean the connection between the Finestra and their one Fonte. Gradual spoilers of plot progression: 1.

Alessa embraces a new interpretation of a larger togetherness

where she surrounds herself with a group of Fontes, and goes even further than that by encouraging the whole population to unite against their common enemy god's army, leaving behind their differences in class and virtue.

This is a raging success, and perhaps a too easily found one, but one that can be expected from a YA book.

Hope is what must be found in a YA book, and that is what is drizzled throughtout This Vicious Grace to finally be bathed in at the end. The ending of the book sets up the premise for the sequel, and I'm interested to see where Thiede takes the main characters from here.

Review written 17.3.2024

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qatkatcat's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was a breath of fresh air in the YA genre. The mediterranean influence was a wonderful change from the typical high-fantasy/ northern European plot. The use of the Italian language throughout was brilliant, and the evil-shiny-beetles were too cool!! The romance was a perfectly-timed slow-burn with a charming couple dynamic. If you’re looking for something unique, fairy-free and romantic, this is it! Highly, highly recommend!

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zarhara's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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one_more_chapter96's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Phenomenal story. I absolutely adored Alessa & Dante’s story & seeing them slowly (and reluctantly) fall for each other. The world building, the language elements, the magic system, the religion system was all fascinating and so well introduced. The side characters were so funny & well enough developed, and it was beautiful to see Alessa grow in confidence. Wonderfully written book which made me laugh & cry out loud. One of my favourite reads of 2023 so far!

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xtsukix's review against another edition

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hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I loved every moment of this. The ending ripped my heart out, sewed it back together and then stomped on it for good measure. This is one of the best fantasy romances I have read in a long time and I will cherish it. It really has a bit of everything I love in it, so it kind of feels like I was meant to read this. I absolutely cannot wait to continue this series and hope that my bleeding heart can mend itself. I really want to see Alessa blossom as a character and I really believe we will see that progression.

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wrensreadingroom's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

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joygarcialim's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

The writing wasn’t particular bad, but extremely monotonous and mediocre. A lot of things happened without a lot of things happening. It was just small little things that didn’t contribute to the plot or made a difference to writing. There were bits that were poorly executed and I had to re-read multiple times to try and perceive what the author was trying to convey. There’s the endless stream of proverbs that did nothing and had absolutely nothing to do with the writing as well.

The main characters were kind of bland and replaceable. They didn’t really stand out individually and the writer didn’t give them enough personality to show what their characters were supposed to be. Other than Alessa and Dante of course. Alessa is kind of a woe-is-me character and I get that her life is difficult in many regards but that’s most of her personality. Dante is a tortured devil archetype and kept saying he was evil with no proof. I get that they lived in a world where that mentality is enforced on him but it wasn’t really explained well. Dante was the most interesting character imo.

The chemistry between Alessa and Dante seemed kind of awkward too.

There didn’t seem to be a reason they were in love with each other

, other than their deep-rooted insecurities.

The world-building wasn’t great either. It was there but it wasn’t at the same time. It was just kind of vague but written about enough to let readers know it was there. The author emphasised a lot more on the romance part than the fantasy part.

Overall, very underdeveloped and poorly executed.

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