Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

Malice by Heather Walter

7 reviews

sav_22's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Xenophobia, Ableism, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Blood, Drug use, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Murder, Racism, Slavery, Bullying, Drug abuse, Death, Forced institutionalization, Hate crime, Toxic friendship, Violence, and War

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Medical trauma, Police brutality, Colonisation, Torture, Medical content, and Outing

creativelifeofliz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

What a rollercoaster. I enjoyed the interweaving of fairytale retellings into this book and I'm very curious to see where the second half of the duology goes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Bullying, Blood, Child abuse, and Gaslighting

Minor: Confinement, Death, Drug use, Drug abuse, Toxic friendship, Physical abuse, Classism, Kidnapping, and Self harm

charley34's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Body horror, Death, Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, Confinement, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

Minor: Murder, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Toxic friendship, and War

gattolinos_nerdy_nook's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional slow-paced

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

4.0

Through out this book I was thinking it was enjoyable but nothing adventurous. I couldn't understand the hype and love around this book. It felt like another misunderstood character trope which, don't get me wrong, is good but I couldn't see it being beloved worthy. Then the ending happened and now I understand. It may not be a 5 star read but I can see where the love is coming from.

The second half of the book really let's the villains slowly shine. There are some great moments where it puts there "I'm the villain" scenes front and centre, and honestly I was kind of there for it. Sometimes villains just need to be villains as not to take away from the other characters.

I recommend reading this if you are a fairytale retelling fan. It doesn't follow it all the plot beats, but there are some good easter eggs.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, and Torture

Moderate: Violence, Bullying, Gaslighting, and Emotional abuse

Minor: War, Death, Death of parent, and Child abuse

juliamb's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Death of parent, Gore, Toxic friendship, and Violence

catmac15's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

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

5.0

One of the best sapphic books I've ever read! The world-building and magic systems were so well done. This book was also 500+ pages and I finished it in less than 3 days (that's pretty quick for me, especially with school) and I couldn't put it down, especially the last 100 or so pages really were the selling point of the book for me. The author did such a good job of taking a story we all know so well (Sleeping Beauty) and giving a whole new spin to it. One thing about retellings is that there's a chance that they would be too predictable because we know the original story and we might end up with a copy-and-paste situation but Malice is the complete opposite. I look forward to the release of the 2nd book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood

Moderate: Violence, Toxic friendship, Sexual content, Grief, Gore, Forced institutionalization, Bullying, Blood, and Abandonment

Minor: Genocide, War, and Misogyny

amabel_xo's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Murder

Minor: Abandonment, Cursing, Toxic friendship, and Violence