Welcome to my stop on the FFBC Blog Tour for Malice by Pintip Dunn! I am so excited to share with you my thoughts on this freaking amazing book and give you a chance to win your own copy (which trust, you want).
Malice by Pintip Dunn Published by Entangled: Teen on February 4, 2020
Pages: 400
Format:eARC, Hardcover
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley
What I know: a boy in my school will one day wipe out two-thirds of the population with a virus.
What I don’t know: who he is.
In a race against the clock, I not only have to figure out his identity, but I’ll have to outwit a voice from the future telling me to kill him. Because I’m starting to realize no one is telling the truth. But how can I play chess with someone who already knows the outcome of my every move? Someone so filled with malice they’ve lost all hope in humanity? Well, I’ll just have to find a way—because now they’ve drawn a target on the only boy I’ve ever loved...
This book was so freaking good. Like, unputdownable, full of twists and turns and characters and feels. When I started, I didn’t know that it would take as much of a sci-fi turn as it did, but I was really excited that it did! So let us delve into all the phenomenal stuff I loved in this book!
What I Loved:
- So much gray morality! I mean, the grayest of gray, The 100-level gray. I love me some morally ambiguous decision making, and Malice has it in droves! The choices these characters will have to make are loaded. Do they trust the voices telling them what they must do? Can they trust anyone? And how exactly can Alice make these decisions between the people she loves, and people in general? Love it. In the same vein, it’s incredibly thought provoking and asks all sorts of questions that if you’re like me, you have no idea how you’d answer!
- The characters were awesome all around. Alice was a great main character, for sure. She reacts to the information she gets and the decisions she must make in really authentic ways. And feeling invested in the side characters was equally important, because the stakes all felt super high as a result- I obviously cared what happened to all of them!
- It 100% kept me guessing. And oh, did I have guesses! My Kindle notes are filled with “ooooh I bet it’s X!” and “oh nope, nope it’s gotta be Y!” and of course I was wrong most of the time but guessed often enough that I ended up being right 😉
- Positively engrossing. Like I mentioned before, it was unputdownable. I stayed up too long reading, and paid for it the next day, and didn’t even care. I read it every spare minute I had, tbh. Even when maybe I wasn’t supposed to read ?
- The entire plot felt so unique and fresh, and I just devoured it. I extra liked that it was a bit more sci-fi than I’d expected. I think I expected mostly contemporary, and it was to an extent, but I also got this extra dose of sci-fi awesomeness!
Bottom Line: An absolute page-turner with phenomenal characters, thought-provoking choices, and a plot that captured me from the start.
Win (1) of (2) copies of MALICE by Pintip Dunn (US Only)
I’ve been looking forward to your review of this one! I’ve seen you raving about it but was excited to see why. I think I mentioned on your January wrap up post that I received an advance copy of this one (the how and why remains a mystery LOL) and even though it’s way outside my wheelhouse (it’s YA, it’s no contemporary romance), I’m definitely intrigued. The fact that it’s so unique and imaginative, and kept you guessing, has me itching to pick it up sooner rather than later.
i have seen this around and it has caught my interest. glad it was unputdownable for you
sherry @ fundinmental
Well, you’ve done it now. How can I NOT add this book to my (already overloaded) TBR?! I LOVE gray characters. The more, the better. And to see you speak so highly of it. Ugh, now I want to read it. xD Thanks for the review!
Wow this sounds awesome. I’m getting some 12 Monkeys vibes too with the virus thing. Gonna have to get this one clearly!
Definitely worth to read! great review!
The more I hear about this book, the more I want to read it. I’ve already added it to my reading shelf.
Its time to read fiction books so that I can relax and imagine things that is in-imaginable.
I will include this in my bucketlist.
thanks
Very interesting book to read ,this book is intriguing something that is worth for. Wasting time with this book is relevant because you are not entertain but also you can learn something <3 .
I’m so glad this one is as good as it sounds! I already had it on my TBR list, so YAY!
As for your question…..nope. I’m not the hero. I can’t equate my heart to nameless, faceless masses. I know that if I *did* sacrifice someone I loved to save others, I would have VERY HIGH expectations of the others I had saved….and of course they would disappoint me..and then I’d resent hurting myself to save them….and probably wind up bitter and possibly a villain. I MAY HAVE THOUGHT TOO MUCH ABOUT THIS. 😀
Obviously, you know that I agree with you on this book! I loved your comment about guessing enough that you were “right.” I often think that with books too—I mean, if you guess that ALL the characters could be the bad guy, you must’ve been right at some point, right? LOL! I actually did have the villain pinned from the start in this one (with relative certainty), but there were lots of other things that happened that I was completely surprised by, especially when it came to the future version of Alice. This book flew by because I wanted to find out what would happen!
This book is on my TBR list. I love that this book keeps you guessing and that it features morally ambiguous decision making. The characters sound great as well.
This sounds so good! And I love books that involve a mystery of sorts so I will definitely have to read it just to see how many times it takes me to be correct.
It always takes me forever.
I’m actually not that great at mysteries, ha.
The grey characters sound lovely as well, especially since I like the greyness of The 100 cast.