Book Review: With Malice by Eileen Cook

With Malice 

by Eileen Cook

 

Finished reading: 21/12/2020

 

1/5 stars.

 

With Malice follows 18-year-old Jill who wakes up in a hospital bed with many injuries and no recollection of the previous 6 weeks. She discovers she was involved in a fatal car accident while on a school trip in Italy which resulted in the death of her best friend. As the accident makes national headlines, Jill finds herself at the centre of a murder investigation. It doesn’t help that the media is portraying her as a sociopath who killed her bubbly best friend, Simone, in a jealous rage. With the evidence mounting against her, Jill desperately tries to piece together the events of the past six weeks before she loses her thin hold on her once-perfect life.

I don’t generally enjoy writing negative reviews, but I wanted to use this as an opportunity to reflect on my thoughts about why I didn’t enjoy this book in hope of changing how I select which books to read in future. I initially decided to read this book as it had been a while since I last read a crime thriller and I had never specifically read a young adult crime thriller. I had read many reviews describing this book as a fast-paced and fun read and decided to give it a go. Sadly, I didn’t find it fast paced or enjoyable.

I’ll admit, the amnesia plot has become heavily overused in recent years and quite often as a plot cheat. However, from reading about the book, the amnesia seemed like the centre of this story which seemed hopeful. I think my mistake was expecting a really intricate and clever twist at the end which left me very much disappointed by the ending which is somehow too simple but also too ambiguous. I felt no kind of relief or excitement by the end of the novel. I’ll admit I was probably at fault for expecting too much, but even so, I think it could have been much better than it was. I think the amnesia device could have provided much more mystery and intrigue but instead did the opposite by preventing any kind of plot development and slowing the pace down too much.

The one thing that I did actually quite like was the excerpts of the police investigation and online forums. But again, I think this was a missed opportunity to explore conflicting accounts and an aspect of human psychology. Furthermore, I didn’t think these aspects particularly added to the actual plotline and they didn’t really work very well mixed into Jill’s account. The idea and concept was interesting but, in my opinion, the execution was poor.

Additionally, I found the characters very flat and underdeveloped. I couldn’t find anything interesting about any of them that made me want to keep reading. I accept that Jill and Simone are supposed to be somewhat morally grey, but the book didn’t even succeed in doing this. Jill wasn’t likeable, unlikeable or interesting enough to be morally ambiguous. I though that the attempts to make me sympathise with Jill were shallow and completely missed the mark. Even Jill’s friend Anna, who was started out as the most interesting character of the bunch, seemed inconsistent over the course of the novel which was a shame as I really wanted her to be a bigger part of the story.

I’m also usually a fan of stories that are told from one setting. Seeing as though this book takes place almost entirely from a hospital, I thought this was potentially an interesting way to tell a crime thriller in a really simple but effective way. But again, this really didn’t live up to my expectation. If anything, the setting restricted the story as opposed to the story filling the space.

Overall, I disliked this book purely due to the sheer amount of missed opportunities to create something interesting and nuanced. Perhaps this is a fault of my own for going into the book with a wrong impression about the style and subject matter. Unfortunately, it’s made me reluctant to read any other young adult thrillers because it’s caused me to realise that perhaps the thriller tropes I enjoy are ones found exclusively in adult psychological thrillers. Having said this though, if I find another young adult thriller that intrigues me, I think I’ll read it with more of an awareness of what to expect from this genre.