Malice

This is one of those retellings that promises a bold twist on a familiar fairy tale, and then plays things a little safer than you expect. Malice reimagines Sleeping Beauty through the eyes of Alyce, who is the so-called Dark Grace, a girl whose magic is feared, exploited, and misunderstood. When Princess Aurora enters her life, they begin an unlikely friendship which starts to blur into something more. The setup is delicious. A cursed princess. A villain origin story. A romance that is supposed to challenge everything we think we know about true love. I wanted to eat this up. The early half leans heavily into young adult territory. There is a lot of internal back-and-forth between Alyce and Aurora with lots of, “did I say too much” and “did I overstep” dynamis. It starts to feel repetitive and instead of building tension, it slows things down. The romance itself had potential, but it never quite reached the emotional depth I needed to believe in it fully. A couple of kisses, a lot of longing, and suddenly we are supposed to be all in. Plot-wise, the story follows a pretty predictable path. You can see most of the major beats coming, especially if you are familiar with the original fairy tale. The final act does shift things into a darker direction with Alyce stepping into her role as something closer to a villain. It clearly sets up book two, but I personally wasn’t invested enough to continue. Let’s talk audiobook for a second. Ann Marie Gideon does a solid job overall, but the character voices tend to blend together. The British accent adds atmosphere, but there were moments where clarity took a hit. Especially during dialogue-heavy scenes. What did work for me was the concept. A sapphic Sleeping Beauty retelling centered on the villain is such a strong idea. There are glimpses of something sharper and more subversive beneath the surface. I just wish the execution had pushed further into that space instead of staying in a more traditional young adult lane. This felt very middle-of-the-road. Not bad, not groundbreaking, just fine. Sometimes fine is the most frustrating place a book can land.

I absolutely loved reading Malice, which is a dark twisty retelling of Sleeping Beauty. I really liked Alyce the Dark Grace, she might have been a little naive but she was a great character and even though she was the villain, was she really? I think she was misunderstood and took on that role because that was expected of her, there were many villains, worse than her in this story, ones that I really didn’t expect so maybe I was a little naive while reading it but they did shock me.
The Royal family women have a curse upon them; they will die on their twenty-first birthday if they have not found true love. How hard can it be to find true love? Princess Aurora is the last heir, if she doesn’t find her true love that’s the end of the line as everyone knew it.
Alyce and Princess Aurora bump into each other and their friendship grows from that moment on, a forbidden friendship that blooms into more. But there was so much more to this story than just their relationship.
Now I would say the story was loosely based on the fairytale, there were similarities, Briar being the kingdom and the spinning wheel being mentioned but it was so much better in every way that the fairytale.
Heather Walter wrote something remarkable here, it was fast-paced and written beautifully, and capturing so much detail I felt I was in Briar too, standing alongside Alyce. I cannot praise it enough, it was fantastic.

I’ve never read a book that made me want to root for the MC but also want to fight them along with the entire cast. I really enjoyed this but I’m nervous about how the sequel will play out

This was the start of my reading journey and will hold a special place. I'm my heart due to that. If I went back and read it now, I probably would think differently, but I loved the twist and new look on the so-called "villain."