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A review by kassidyscatalogue
An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
I received a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to netgalley and Redhook Books.
I went into this book with very little knowledge of the plot or anything honestly. I didn't read the description and only picked it up for the author and the cover art. With that in mind, I did have a good time diving head first into Carmilla and Laura's stories.
I thought Laura took the whole "love at first sight" thing a little too seriously. Within a 5-minute conversation, she is instantly obsessed with Carmilla. I just didn't find it realistic or believable how fast this happened. I feel like the whole book follows this theme as well. All of the events throughout the book happened too fast to really instill any emotions from me. As soon as I understood what was going on, we were off onto the next adventure. Additionally, I felt like we didn't really get to know the main characters themselves too deeply. We barely learned De Lefontaine's history with her past lover, so I didn't really feel like her struggles throughout the end of the book held much weight.
The other thing that bothered me was that the book seemed to be trying too hard to sound smart. I'm thankful I read this on Kindle because I had to look up a word on almost every page. It may just be that I'm not studious enough to have learned a lot of these big words, but it did isolate me a little bit as the reader.
Other than those two things, I did have a good time with the book. About halfway through things picked up and I started to actually care about the characters. I enjoyed the few spicy scenes and the love between Laura and Carmilla grew on me.
I went into this book with very little knowledge of the plot or anything honestly. I didn't read the description and only picked it up for the author and the cover art. With that in mind, I did have a good time diving head first into Carmilla and Laura's stories.
I thought Laura took the whole "love at first sight" thing a little too seriously. Within a 5-minute conversation, she is instantly obsessed with Carmilla. I just didn't find it realistic or believable how fast this happened. I feel like the whole book follows this theme as well. All of the events throughout the book happened too fast to really instill any emotions from me. As soon as I understood what was going on, we were off onto the next adventure. Additionally, I felt like we didn't really get to know the main characters themselves too deeply. We barely learned De Lefontaine's history with her past lover, so I didn't really feel like her struggles throughout the end of the book held much weight.
The other thing that bothered me was that the book seemed to be trying too hard to sound smart. I'm thankful I read this on Kindle because I had to look up a word on almost every page. It may just be that I'm not studious enough to have learned a lot of these big words, but it did isolate me a little bit as the reader.
Other than those two things, I did have a good time with the book. About halfway through things picked up and I started to actually care about the characters. I enjoyed the few spicy scenes and the love between Laura and Carmilla grew on me.