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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Would’ve been 5 but the ending kinda ruined it for me
She takes my hand, interlacing our fingers, and I can’t tell which wildfire pulse is hers and which is mine.
3.5 stars. I finished this a day before actually writing this review, so I'm having a hard time collecting my thoughts about it. Basically, I thought it was okay in the beginning, reeeeeally started liking it in the middle, and then the end kind of lost me once again. This is a duology, and even though I don't feel super motivated to read the second book soon, part of me still wants to push myself into doing it, because I think the more I sit with it the more I might dislike the ending, so I want to hurry up and get to the fallout. And I mean, it was obvious where the book was heading. I just really don't like the methods used to get there? Hmmm, idk.
This is a Sleeping Beauty retelling, told from a young evil queen's point of view, where Aurora and Alyce fall in love. The entire story is told from Alyce's point of view, in a queendom created by (and heavily influenced by) the fae and a kind of dark fae called the Vila. That part of the world-building was neat, with the Graces and their powers, Alyce's position as the Dark Grace, and how society formed around their gifts/powers. Alyce is hated and vilified even though so many people make use of her powers, and she has a kind of rivalry with the other Graces that she didn't even have a hand in creating. I end up really liking how that progressed, some of the conversations we had, her relationship with Rose. It just didn't go in exactly the way I expected, and I appreciated that.
As a romance lover, I do think that this would have been better if the romance had played an even bigger part in the story, haha. I know, I always say that! But I did really like the romance; it's my favourite part of the book. These kinds of opposites, attracting in this particular way? Yesssss. I really liked the Princess and the way Alyce was instantly kind of drawn to her, no matter how much she tried to pull away. I also appreciated that, idk, there were no caveats to Alyce's ugliness. She remained in her sallow-skinned, green-tinged, greasy-haired glory for the entire book, and Aurora fell in love with her whole-heartedly. The scene where they get together (and the scenes right after) stole my whole heart.
As for what didn't work for me... I don't know. Something about the writing was just a little... bland? I don't know. If I'd read this book when I was 18 years old, and had never read a book about lesbians, or a book where women stood up and demanded to be treated like people, I'd have probably eaten this up. But as it was, a lot of the conversations... hmm. It's not that they were basic, because basic foundational stuff about sexism etc still has and always will have a place in books, imo. It just felt super formulaic and textbook. I don't know any other way to put it.
But I think what bugged me most of all was, again, how we got to the end.
Spoiler
Obviously, this is Alyce's villain origin story, so I knew that something huge and traumatic was going to happen for her to actually turn evil (or an approximation of evil, or someone else's definition of evil) by the end of the book. The fact that the catalyst is Mortania's soul/magic being inserted into her body? I hate that. Because now that Mortania is influencing, directly or indirectly, Alyce's thoughts and actions, it takes all responsibility for her actions away from her, and I hate that. It's not like I want Alyce to indiscriminately murder people, but it feels so unsatisfying that a big part of her evil queen origin story is "a bunch of bad stuff happened and then she got possessed so she HAD to turn evil." I don't know! It feels like a cop out! Again, I really don't think I'd have been all that happy if Alyce got to this point without Mortania, but I just don't like how things played out. And the ending, with her killing all those random people, sowing chaos just so she can, like, buy herself time to think of a plan? Ehhhh. I was gonna round up on this 3.5, but the ending really kinda soured me. I also didn't really love the plot with Aurora's father and the fae ambassador. Boing, basic. The Kal plot was also ???? The book tried to convince me that he and Alyce had this super close relationship, so his betrayal would cut deep, but by the end they just felt kinda like acquaintances. That reveal meant nothing to me. If his betrayal was supposed to have such a huge impact, the book needed to have done a much better job at convincing me that they were close.Listened to the audiobook as read by Ann-Marie Gideon; not a favourite, but pretty good! Which is what I can say for the book as a whole. Lots of aspects of the worldbuilding, and how the author shaped it to fit in with the fairy tail and the Disney movie were really fun and creative (I didn't expect the shape-shifting to play such a huge part, but I'm glad it did). And I really did like the relationship, and I'm really hoping they can get an HEA, so I'll definitely pick up the second book some time. Hopefully I'll have more success with it.
“Or am I the wolf, and they’re the sheep?”
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Malice is an inventive and entertaining fairytale remix, using elements from Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella as well as older folktales to craft a unique story all its own. Heather Walter creates a rich and beautiful fantasy kingdom that anyone would want to visit - anyone who isn't the protagonist, Alyce, that is. Alyce, an orphan from a much-maligned species of Fae creatures, is raised without knowing anything about her people, or herself for that matter. As she struggles to figure out who she is and what she can do, she also struggles to help her only true friend, the lovely but cursed Crown Princess. The book was an engaging read from beginning to end, but I found the ending disappointing as Alyce grows immensely in power but very little in understanding. While the ending left plenty of plot to be resolved in the sequel, it unfortunately left something to be desired as to why we should continue to care about the ambivalent Alyce or the deeply flawed kingdom of Briar. Ultimately, I enjoyed Malice, but I can't help but wish for a stronger ending to entice me to pick up the next book.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Fun world and love Alyce and Aurora. The book was great and then at the height of the plot, it was definitely 5 stars. And the ending. Chefs kiss.
I do not have much experience with retellings and the little I have did not go so well so this was an interesting read for me.
Retelling: it’s basically the story told from malificients pov it’s pretty similar to the Angelina jolie movie in the aspect that Alyce (the malificient in this story) grows to love aurora…except the movie maintained the mother daughter relationship. The princess and witch be fucking over here.
World building: okay I’m sorry but this was done awfully. Within the first few chapters there’s just a shit ton of info dumping and long long stories told in between dialogues I feel like a lot of it could have been more spaced out throughout the story instead of being thrusted upon me like that.
The world: okay the world building was awful but that does not mean I found the world terrible. The authors take on graces and changing the curse to: the princess will die if she’s not kissed her one true love by twenty one was interesting to read about. Also I love how the author has taken several elements of the magical ans fae world and get creative with it at certain aspects. The part about dozens of suitors kissing aurora all the time to figure out if they’re the true love made me cringe at first but then I realised oh wait…that’s literally exactly what would happen though.
The dialogue: it was nothing special I think it could’ve been better it was just terribly executed.
Plot (spoilers): up till the very end the plot was predictable. Like with kal as soon as he came in the picture it was easy to guess he’d be evil. Same with laurel. And the whole reveal of “hahaha Ive been bad all along” made me groan.
Villain: I feel like good books fantasy especially need good complex villains. We don’t get that here all too much. Tarkin is your standard moustache twirling villain.
He tortures good guys shit to his wife wanted his daughters dead all along. At one point there is,
“That’s what you want. To live forever?”
“To rule forever,” Tarkin says.
Here is where my rating began to drop. I made an annotation here;
Here a book idea for the sequel
He wins.
He gets to rule forever.
But I wanna see him getting bored of ruling forever.
Like endless endless endless and eternity of non stop never ending ruling.
I want to see what happens after a hundred years of it, then a thousand, then ten thousand, million and a billion years of ruling. I want to see what this man does after one billion years of ruling because even then he’s still not achieved a fraction of forever.
Don’t blame me, I was done at this point with the shallow villains.
I suppose however one can say that he is not the sole villain. As a whole the entirety of briar save for aurora is cruel to Alyce. It’s the whole society, the little jabs she receives and the general discrimination that she faces that forces her to ultimately snap. And looking at it from that aspect…it still feels like the whole burning down of kings Landin— sorry I mean burning down of Briar was super rushed. Like within a matter of hours she goes from “no I won’t let you do burn it all, you villain” to “light em up! Up! Up!”
Villain origin story/Alyce: Now what is more curious is the whole turning into a villain of Alyce. She’s berated. Auroras cursed. There’s voices in her head. So she snaps. But it still feels so inconsistent with the character. I HATED Alyce. She is so annoying throughout the story. She is capricious, whiny, delusional and takes so so many leaps of logic all in the name of plot. Her opinions of people shift jarringly easily. Quite frankly the only person she seems really committed to it her bird because she immediately believes aurora has betrayed her at a slight mishap while claiming to be in love with her at the same time.
But at the same time, I am a sucker for the burn it all to the ground trope so I ate the entire ending up. The aforementioned point I’ve completely overlooked in giving my rating.
Characters: help there isn’t a single good male character in this book help
Retelling: it’s basically the story told from malificients pov it’s pretty similar to the Angelina jolie movie in the aspect that Alyce (the malificient in this story) grows to love aurora…except the movie maintained the mother daughter relationship. The princess and witch be fucking over here.
World building: okay I’m sorry but this was done awfully. Within the first few chapters there’s just a shit ton of info dumping and long long stories told in between dialogues I feel like a lot of it could have been more spaced out throughout the story instead of being thrusted upon me like that.
The world: okay the world building was awful but that does not mean I found the world terrible. The authors take on graces and changing the curse to: the princess will die if she’s not kissed her one true love by twenty one was interesting to read about. Also I love how the author has taken several elements of the magical ans fae world and get creative with it at certain aspects. The part about dozens of suitors kissing aurora all the time to figure out if they’re the true love made me cringe at first but then I realised oh wait…that’s literally exactly what would happen though.
The dialogue: it was nothing special I think it could’ve been better it was just terribly executed.
Plot (spoilers): up till the very end the plot was predictable. Like with kal as soon as he came in the picture it was easy to guess he’d be evil. Same with laurel. And the whole reveal of “hahaha Ive been bad all along” made me groan.
Villain: I feel like good books fantasy especially need good complex villains. We don’t get that here all too much. Tarkin is your standard moustache twirling villain.
He tortures good guys shit to his wife wanted his daughters dead all along. At one point there is,
“That’s what you want. To live forever?”
“To rule forever,” Tarkin says.
Here is where my rating began to drop. I made an annotation here;
Here a book idea for the sequel
He wins.
He gets to rule forever.
But I wanna see him getting bored of ruling forever.
Like endless endless endless and eternity of non stop never ending ruling.
I want to see what happens after a hundred years of it, then a thousand, then ten thousand, million and a billion years of ruling. I want to see what this man does after one billion years of ruling because even then he’s still not achieved a fraction of forever.
Don’t blame me, I was done at this point with the shallow villains.
I suppose however one can say that he is not the sole villain. As a whole the entirety of briar save for aurora is cruel to Alyce. It’s the whole society, the little jabs she receives and the general discrimination that she faces that forces her to ultimately snap. And looking at it from that aspect…it still feels like the whole burning down of kings Landin— sorry I mean burning down of Briar was super rushed. Like within a matter of hours she goes from “no I won’t let you do burn it all, you villain” to “light em up! Up! Up!”
Villain origin story/Alyce: Now what is more curious is the whole turning into a villain of Alyce. She’s berated. Auroras cursed. There’s voices in her head. So she snaps. But it still feels so inconsistent with the character. I HATED Alyce. She is so annoying throughout the story. She is capricious, whiny, delusional and takes so so many leaps of logic all in the name of plot. Her opinions of people shift jarringly easily. Quite frankly the only person she seems really committed to it her bird because she immediately believes aurora has betrayed her at a slight mishap while claiming to be in love with her at the same time.
But at the same time, I am a sucker for the burn it all to the ground trope so I ate the entire ending up. The aforementioned point I’ve completely overlooked in giving my rating.
Characters: help there isn’t a single good male character in this book help
This books was amazing, I loved how well-built the world was. The characters were loveable and they had a lot of development, I also adored the main couple.
It started a little too slow for me but I pushed through and it was definitely worth it!