Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

Malice by Heather Walter

8 reviews

mirandyli's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Great sapphic fantasy with an underdog main character. Predictable at times.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Lesbophobia, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment

sav_22's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Torture, Police brutality, Medical content, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, and Colonisation

creativelifeofliz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

What a rollercoaster. I enjoyed the interweaving of fairytale retellings into this book and I'm very curious to see where the second half of the duology goes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Blood, and Gaslighting

Minor: Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Physical abuse, Self harm, Kidnapping, Toxic friendship, and Classism

charley34's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Abandonment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Kidnapping, Murder, Toxic friendship, and War

gattolinos_nerdy_nook's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Through out this book I was thinking it was enjoyable but nothing adventurous. I couldn't understand the hype and love around this book. It felt like another misunderstood character trope which, don't get me wrong, is good but I couldn't see it being beloved worthy. Then the ending happened and now I understand. It may not be a 5 star read but I can see where the love is coming from.

The second half of the book really let's the villains slowly shine. There are some great moments where it puts there "I'm the villain" scenes front and centre, and honestly I was kind of there for it. Sometimes villains just need to be villains as not to take away from the other characters.

I recommend reading this if you are a fairytale retelling fan. It doesn't follow it all the plot beats, but there are some good easter eggs.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Violence, and Gaslighting

Minor: Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, and War

juliamb's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship

catmac15's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

One of the best sapphic books I've ever read! The world-building and magic systems were so well done. This book was also 500+ pages and I finished it in less than 3 days (that's pretty quick for me, especially with school) and I couldn't put it down, especially the last 100 or so pages really were the selling point of the book for me. The author did such a good job of taking a story we all know so well (Sleeping Beauty) and giving a whole new spin to it. One thing about retellings is that there's a chance that they would be too predictable because we know the original story and we might end up with a copy-and-paste situation but Malice is the complete opposite. I look forward to the release of the 2nd book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood

Moderate: Bullying, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment

Minor: Genocide, Misogyny, and War

amabel_xo's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Murder

Minor: Cursing, Violence, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment