“Why is it they say you always hurt the ones you love? Because you know exactly how to do it.”
I really wanted to give this four stars. Because, oh boy, was this ever good . . . right up until the last ten pages.
With Malice is a hyped up YA thriller, and for good reason. It was extremely well written and didn’t suffer from the cheesiness I usually find in this genre. The pacing was unbelievably fast and I flew through the pages. I was totally in love with it . . . right up until the end, when I couldn’t help but lower my rating.
Considering what I’ve come to accept as YA thrillers, this book really impressed me. I’ve read too many weakly plotted, cliché, and lacking in suspense “thrillers.” The Creeping, The Darkest Corners, and Confessions of a Murder Suspect are just a few off the top of my head.
With Malice checked all the boxes for a good thriller: an intriguing narrator, suspense, an edge of your seat plot, and a mind racing ability. The beginning was wonderfully eerie; Jill wakes up in a hospital and can’t remember the last six months. She can’t remember her trip to Italy with her best friend, Simone . . . or the fact that Simone died in a mysterious “accident.”
The media is putting the blame on Jill, saying she murdered Simone, but Jill knows she would never do something like that. At least that’s what she keeps telling herself. I had no problems with the plot; I think even without the mystery, it would have held strong. There were interesting subplots about relationships falling apart, the fact that Jill was a feminist and not everyone agreed with her, and the author pointed out how the law isn’t always black and white.
My fault with this book lay in the ending, which wasn’t nearly resolved enough. Let me give you an example: When I finished And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, I was furious. I couldn’t believe it would end just like that, leaving me hanging. Then I turned the page and discovered there was an epilogue that tied up the mystery perfectly.
In my opinion, With Malice was missing that final epilogue to clear things up. While the mystery was a real page turner, it just ended right in the middle of things. It almost felt like Cook didn’t know the ending to her own mystery and thought “oh well, I’ll just let the readers decide how they want it to end.”
Like I said, I think this book would have been strong even without the mystery, so I can’t be too mad at it. Full of excitement, it pulled me along on a heart pounding journey.
No comments:
Post a Comment