With Malice

by Eileen Cook

Wish you weren't here . . .

When Jill wakes up in a hospital bed with her leg in a cast, the last six weeks of her life are a complete blank. All she has been told is that she was involved in a fatal accident while on a school trip in Italy and had to be jetted home to receive intensive care. Care that involves a lawyer. And a press team. Because maybe the accident . . . wasn't just an accident.

With no memory of what happened or what she did, can Jill prove her innocence? And can she really be sure that she isn't the one to blame?

• ISBN10: 1471405850
• ISBN13: 9781471405853
• Publish Date: 9 June 2016 (first published 7 June 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Hot Key Books
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

It feels like the author wanted to give her biased, negative opinion about foreigners by using stereotypes and making all the foreigners in this book do something bad or dumb. The main character who knows so much about history and cultural things, seems to be oblivious to anything outside of the USA or art in Europe.
I would not be surprised to find out that the author used Amanda Knox her story to come up with an idea for her book. There are just too many similarities to be a coincidence. Which makes it unoriginal, repetitive, and the mystery disappears.

The book is an easy read, but the main character is annoying, her thoughts are repetitive and start really childish, only to end very mature. Throughout the whole book, we are reminded of this amazing friendship that Simone had with the main character, every single page. The police transcripts are a nice addition, the texting however seems to have happened in 2005.

[Nessa Luna]

Actual Rating: 3,5 stars. The ending felt a bit... meh? Will try to write a review soon.

[Kait ✨]

This book was not amazing or radical in any way—as thrillers rarely are these days—but it was really enjoyable. Probably because I never had a best friend growing up, I love thrillers about close friendships that have gone awry, and this story about two BFFs who go on a school trip to Italy fit the bill nicely. It does give you something to think about in terms of memory and truth, how these two things function in our society and in our brains, both together and separately. I enjoyed how Cook incorporated multiple perspectives through alternative media such as police interviews, blog posts, etc. At times, the plot of [book:With Malice|26153925] reminded me of [book:Reconstructing Amelia|15776309] and [book:Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir|15833693], but not necessarily in a bad way. There are echoes of these books here, though, and if you liked them, I think you’d like [book:With Malice|26153925]. This was a lot of fun and while I’d characterize it as a “light” read, I’d still say it’s worth your time if you’re looking for something compelling and plot-driven.

[whisperingchapters]

This review was originally posted on Latte Nights Reviews.


Jill wakes up in a hospital, covered in bruises and wounds, without any idea of how she got them. The police are investigating her for the murder of her best friend. Unfortunately, the last few months of her life have been wiped clean.

“It doesn’t matter what’s true — what matters is what people believe.”

I considered Jill to be an unreliable character. She has no recollection of what happened and her doctor tells her that some memories she could recover are possibly not real—I doubted everything she thought about. I was so confused about everyone's motives. It was so hard trying to piece everything together. At one point, I did suspect the ending, but it was for a fleeting second.

You can't tell anything about a person when things are great. If you want to really know someone, be there when everything goes to hell.

I honestly enjoyed the whole story. It kept me on my toes, it had the right amount of suspense and I really liked that the main character was unreliable. I had problems with the ending. Everything is revealed and suddenly, the end. I felt like it was cut off short. On one hand, I understand the abrupt ending because it's actually fitting to how everything was unraveled; on the other, the abruptness didn't give way to a completion or justice, I would say. I can't really say more without spoiling the ending.

With Malice is a good YA thriller with a good dose of unreliable-ness to keep the story very intriguing.

Thanks to Tonya from Lilybloombooks for gifting me this copy!

This review was originally posted on Latte Nights Reviews.

[girlinthepages]

Thrillers are perhaps the hardest genre to read and write, because readers are going in with a very specific set of expectations: plot twists, unreliable narrators, dangerous secrets, edge of your seat pacing, and a satisfying conclusion. I'm not sure if this complicated recipe for a good thriller is why they don't seem to be super common in the YA market, but I've noticed a lack of them, which is why With Malice caught my eye. The stunning cover made it impossible for it to escape my notice, and the premise had me clicking "buy" without a second thought, curbing my usual hesitancy to buy books on a whim.

Unfortunately, this book reminded me WHY I shouldn't impulse buy books.

I was so, so let down by everything that I believed With Malice would deliver. It has so many great reviews that I know I'm a bit of a black sheep on this one, but I was not very "thrilled" while reading it. I chose it as my poolside read over the 4th of July long weekend, and I was pretty dissatisfied that I spent my vacation reading it. A harsh statement, but when it's compared to Dangerous Girls I couldn't help but go into it with the expectation of a 5 star read.

The first element of this novel that let me down was the misleading setting. I was expecting a dark European adventure, but instead a great majority of the book takes place in the US with Jill in rehab after the accident. She has the occasional flashback of her time in Italy before the death of her friend Sloane, but most of the references to the events that led to the plot of the book are gleaned from police transcripts, blog posts, etc. Now while I did like the inclusion of the different types of correspondence and police records, I felt like the events in Europe were "told" much more than they were "shown."

While I didn't dislike Jill, I just didn't find her compelling as an (unreliable) narrator. Her loss of memory seemed like a bit of a crutch (rather than being a devious, manipulative, or crazy, she just couldn't remember anything, which made her much less interesting than Anna from Dangerous Girls or Mara from The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer). I like that she clearly had flaws, but I just couldn't make myself be invested in her future (she was a bit detached, to be honest). I'm also a bit tired of the best-friend-teen-girl-murder-suspect trope. I think it's overdone, and perpetuates a lot of negative stereotypes about teenage girls (such as that they are jealous, emotional, ruthless, and manipulative enough to be considered killers in the face of any sort of conflict, especially with other young women). I mean, what happened to the good old Agatha Christie/Nancy Drew who-dunnit mysteries with a large cast of characters for suspects and friends trying to solve crimes together? Is that too much to ask?

I also saw 90% of the plot of this book coming. Considering that I found it hard to empathize with any of the characters (Sloane was a real piece of work) The only character I found compelling to read about was Jill's Latina roommate in rehab who provided some much needed real talk in this novel, but her presence was eclipsed by the larger (and less compelling) plot of the story.

Overall: Slow pacing and a lack of compelling characters make With Malice fall short of the promises that it's premise claims to deliver. While the formatting of the book with different transcripts, interviews, and articles intermixed with the narrative was refreshing and worked well with the genre, it doesn't live up to some of the other big name thrillers in the genres that it is compared too. With Malice is not redeemed at the end of the book either, as the plot "twist" felt extremely anticlimactic (at least to me) and not very exciting or plausible. With Malice, while well intentioned in joining the notable players in the YA thriller genre, read too similar to other well known stories to be able to stand on its own. This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages

[clairelm]

A gripping and tumultuous read, I found myself dragged along and caught up in the world of Jill. Accused of the murder of her best friend in an incident she can't remember, Jill has to fight to discover what is real and what is falsehood. Vilified by the media with an overbearing father making decisions for her, she relies on this around her to make sense of what is going on.
I really liked Jill and enjoyed getting to know her as she rediscovered herself. Anna and Dr Weeks were two other great characters but I find myself irritated by her father and his attitude throughout the book.

[Joséphine]

April 30, 2016

Just saw the cover of the UK edition from Hot Key Books. Aesthetically, I prefer to the cover of the US edition but after reading the book and knowing what happens, I think the UK cover better embodies the expectations one might derive from it. The primary setting isn't Italy, as one might anticipate based on the US cover.
____________

April 2, 2016

Actual rating: 4.5 stars

Initial thoughts: Any book that keeps me up at night deserves a high rating. With Malice did exactly that. I couldn't sleep until I was done. On one hand, that's just the nature of the genre. You want to know what really happened and uncover the truth because in a psychological thriller amnesia often is a plot device. Here too, the main character, Jill, suffered memory loss and tried to piece her life together again. I was completely sucked into this journey of hers, reading her story, witness accounts, social media posts and comments, etc. While I had an inkling of what might've gone down fairly early on, I was still constantly on the edge of my seat.