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A review by emilyeehaw
Malice by Heather Walter
adventurous
4.0
OKAY……the last 40 pages of that book completely made up for some of the issues i had while reading. when i say the girls were EATING during that last chunk…babes it was a feast. VILLAIN ORIGIN STORY RISE ! this probably would have been closer to a 3 but OOF the way alyce went full on drama mode at the end…it bumped it up, it did. loved the messiness and the gag of it all. i think it set up for the next book WONDERFULLY and really elevated the story. it delivered.
that being said, i did think this book could have been a tad bit shorter. some of the middle section felt meandering and like it was taking too long to get to the meat of the story. i also felt like sometimes i could simply not force myself to care about the fae, human, grace, etc. lore of it all.
i somehow managed to guess a couple of the plotlines that were going on with some of our characters and even though they were pretty obvious usage of tropes in retrospect…i still feel like a genius.
i really liked that the characters in the book were 20….not 16/17 and weirdly characterized to make them seem older. but they were 20 and the tone of the book matched this age very well, it FELT like a YA book on the older end of the spectrum, not like it was trying to be something it wasn’t. seeing as it’s hard to find decent books that focus on people aged 19-24….loved that this one didn’t get aged down in the process.
i quite enjoyed alyce overall as a character. even when she was a bit of a fool (HELLOOO GIRLIE, NOT YOU NOT REALIZING WHAT THE KING WAS UP TO) i thought she was generally clever and i liked seeing how her powers developed. truly loved her little revenge moment on the people who treated her poorly for her entire life. definitely a “good for her” element. (ignoring the way that if she was a man character i’d be saying he’s a weird little incel with delusions of revenge and grandeur…anyways)
that being said, i did think this book could have been a tad bit shorter. some of the middle section felt meandering and like it was taking too long to get to the meat of the story. i also felt like sometimes i could simply not force myself to care about the fae, human, grace, etc. lore of it all.
i somehow managed to guess a couple of the plotlines that were going on with some of our characters and even though they were pretty obvious usage of tropes in retrospect…i still feel like a genius.
i really liked that the characters in the book were 20….not 16/17 and weirdly characterized to make them seem older. but they were 20 and the tone of the book matched this age very well, it FELT like a YA book on the older end of the spectrum, not like it was trying to be something it wasn’t. seeing as it’s hard to find decent books that focus on people aged 19-24….loved that this one didn’t get aged down in the process.
i quite enjoyed alyce overall as a character. even when she was a bit of a fool (HELLOOO GIRLIE, NOT YOU NOT REALIZING WHAT THE KING WAS UP TO) i thought she was generally clever and i liked seeing how her powers developed. truly loved her little revenge moment on the people who treated her poorly for her entire life. definitely a “good for her” element. (ignoring the way that if she was a man character i’d be saying he’s a weird little incel with delusions of revenge and grandeur…anyways)
Content Warnings
Minor: Torture and Homophobia