With Malice

HURRAY!! I have found the elusive YA Mystery of my dreams!! If you don't regularly read my blog, then you don't know this, but I've been on the HUNT for a great YA Mystery and have been having the hardest time finding THE ONE. Well, search over :) This book is everything I was looking for-- great writing, interesting characters, unputdownable, A plot, twisty ending... I loved the shit out of this book!

If you've read and loved [b:Dangerous Girls|16074758|Dangerous Girls|Abigail Haas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1356513050l/16074758._SY75_.jpg|21869436] by Abigail Haas, and have been looking for a book to make you feel like that-- READ THIS. This is the first mystery since I read Dangerous Girls 2 show more years ago, to make me feel like that ([b:The Walls Around Us|18044277|The Walls Around Us|Nova Ren Suma|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407168914l/18044277._SX50_.jpg|25322052] by Nova Ren Suma is a close 2nd I would say).

So the story-- Jill wakes up in a hospital and can't remember the last month or so of her life. She can't remember her school trip to Italy, she can't remember the car accident that put her in the hospital and killed a classmate. To the police, her memory (or lack there of) doesn't seem to matter. They don't believe that this is just a case of a simple accident. They believe there is more to it.... maybe even that this was completely intentional.

I know the whole "I have amnesia and can't remember this really important moment" thing is a little played out, but when it is done right, I love it. I could read 100 books about traumatic amnesia if the stories are told like this one. I loved that I wanted to like Jill and believe her, but since she didn't remember it was SO hard to trust!! I loved that what I thought was going to happen, happened, but it didn't spoil the ending for me. It actually made me really excited like-- holy shit, this is really happening, Eileen Cook rocks!!!

I can't tell you anything much else because it would take away from the Mystery/Thriller aspect of it. I will tell you it's a bit of a Amanda Knox retelling, but in a SUPER loose way. Also, Jill is WAY more likable and down-to-Earth than Amanda. I will now go sing this book from the mountain-tops because I have found the YA Mystery that I've been looking for.

OVERALL: A perfect YA Mystery/Thriller. If you liked/loved Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas, this is SO your book. If you like books that keep you on the edge of your seat and make you want to tell Real Life to go away so that you can keep reading a marvelous book, THIS is your book. I would rec this to everyone.

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When Jill Charron finally wakes up, she has no memory of the past six weeks of her life, including the accident that put her in the hospital. But with the suggestion that the car crash may not have been an accident, Jill is desperate to reclaim her memory of those missing days in order to know the truth.
But it may not be the truth she wants it to be, and knowing may be worse than forgetting.

This young adult tale of friendship twists and turns, taking readers in unanticipated directions as it spins teen angst and media ultra-frenzy into an enticing mystery. Blog comments, Facebook entries, police reports, and witness statements pepper Jill’s narrative; all serve to build the tension as they reveal tiny bits of information and provide show more tantalizing glimpses into her slowly-returning memory. Or are they false memories, created by suggestion and the onslaught of speculative news stories and comments flooding social media? Are gossip and innuendo distorting the truth . . . and can distorted truths affect Jill’s nascent memories? Just how truthful are memories, anyway . . . and will remembering answer all the questions?

With its riveting suspense and constantly-building tension, this is a fast, read-in-one-sitting story with an obvious nod to the Amanda Knox case. Characters are well-developed with authentic voices; Anna, with her no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is attitude is likely to become a reader favorite.
The fast pace, the coming together of the puzzle, the unexpected reveals, and an unforeseen ending will all keep readers engaged until they’ve turned the final page.

Highly recommended. show less

With Malice will keep you guessing - even after the end!

(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley.)

“Right now your brain knows there is missing information, and it’s desperately trying to fill in those blanks.” She opened a desk drawer and fished out a paper. “Ever see something like this?”

I looked down. At first the words looked like gibberish, and then they clicked into place.

I cnduo’t bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed show more it whoutit a pboerlm.

I passed the sheet back to her. “I’ve seen something like it online.”

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Dr. Weeks knocked on top of the model of the brain she kept on her credenza. “The darn things still fascinate me as much as they did when I started in this field. How they can fill in what’s missing — find patterns and create meaning where there was nothing. One of the most primal survival instincts the brain has is finding pattern and assigning meaning. When there is a breakdown, it will scramble to find those patterns again as quickly as possible.”

###

“I didn’t do this,” I said.

“Of course you didn’t,” Mom said. She patted my hand. “The police aren’t going to be able to prove a thing.”

That’s when I knew beyond any doubt she believed I’d done it.

###

Eighteen-year-old Jill Charron wakes up in a hospital bed with a broken leg, several broken ribs, an assortment of cuts and bruises - and no idea how she got there. Through bits and pieces - angry blog posts and reluctant drips of info from the 'rents - she comes to learn that she was on a class trip to Italy when the car she was driving barreled through a stone wall and off a cliff. Jill survived, but the passenger - her best friend of eight years, Simone McIvory - did not.

After the was-it-or-wasn't-it-an-accident, Jill's hoighty-toighty father whisked her out of the country on a private flight, ostensibly so she could receive top-notch medical care in the states. Then he hired her a lawyer and (wait for it!) a PR team. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to suspect that Keith used his wealth to shield his daughter - and, by extension, his family - from the fallout of an investigation and possible murder charge.

While Jill is convinced that there's no way she'd ever murder Simone, she has no memory of the event - or even the six or so weeks leading up to it. And her brain isn't exactly cooperating; in addition to retrograde amnesia, Jill's also dealing with aphasia, which makes it all the more difficult to defend herself. Yet as new facts and evidence come to light - in the form of police interviews, witness statements, cell phone videos, news articles, and Facebook and blog posts - Jill begins to doubt herself: what really happened that fateful day in Montepulciano?

Jill's present-day narration is interspersed with items pertaining to the investigation. However, the evidence proves as shaky as Jill's memory, as everyone involved - from Simone's parents to her friends and even strangers at a quaint Tuscan cafe - is privy to just one part of the overall puzzle. (The secret lives of teenagers ftw.) Conflicting accounts and personal agendas further muddy the waters.

In addition to a murder mystery/psychological thriller, With Malice is also a sly interrogation of internet culture - of how instant gratification and anonymity can bring out the worst in us. Reminiscent of the Amanda Knox case - complete with the reasonably attractive American femme fatale, an Italian Lothario, and a dead roommate, possibly murdered under titillating circumstances - the "Murder Abroad" makes Jill famous, in the worst way possible. Eager to cast Jill (and, later, Nico) as the villain, Internet commentators pile on with glee, twisting everything Jill ever posted online to fit their narrative. Anyone even tangentially related to the case is given an unquestioning platform. With Malice even has a sleazy, Nancy Grace-like true crime reporter, taking mainstream media (news as entertainment) to task as well.

With Malice is a really great beach read - assuming you like your beach reads a little dark and twisted. I've seen it compared to We Were Liars - which is the main reason I picked it up, tbh - and, while the both do feature a big plot twist thanks to a handy case of amnesia, the overall vibe is completely different. In We Were Liars, the twist came as a complete surprise to me (somehow I'd managed to avoid spoilers), including the mere fact that there was a twist. Here, they don't tiptoe around it at all; the twist is part of the appeal.

Also, We Were Liars had a much more likeable cast of characters - mostly privileged but well-intentioned young adults - which made the ending that much more tragic. I could appreciate what they were trying to do, even if they failed in the most epic way possible. In contrast, almost everyone (save maybe for Anna, Mom, and the rehab staff) is kind of awful and hard to stomach, even if you don't realize it until the end. It's not a bad thing - Gone Girl utilized horrible people to great effect - but it does sap a little of the emotional impact from the ending.

You should know that the conclusion is very open-ended; usually I hate that, but it works quite well here. The story keeps you guessing, and the ending guarantees you'll keep on doing so long after you've turned the last page. I don't usually re-read four-star books - my TBR pile is just too big for that luxury! - but I'm considering revisiting that rule for With Malice, just to see if I interpret anything differently in light of the "reveal."

http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/06/10/with-malice-by-eileen-cook/ show less

Received from Goodreads FirstReads and HMH Books for Young Readers in exchange for an completely unbiased review.
Also posted on Silk & Serif
With Malice was one of those books that catches your interest from the first page and takes you for a ride through a story about coming of age, self-identity and the tricky nature of memory. The narrative is written in the voice of Jill, a girl who cannot remember anything from the six weeks before her car accident that killed her best friend. We follow Jill as she remembers bits and pieces of that fateful summer abroad and follows a bread trail of legal evidence that paints Jill as her best friend’s killer. Did Jill kill Simone, or did her best friend try to kill Jill? Or was it just an show more accident?

On the one hand, the cover of With Malice is GORGEOUS. A tiny villa in Italy, with water colored words? I think this is easily one of my favourite covers thus far in 2016. The actual layout of the book is just as wonderful with narrative, witness interviews, e-mails and facebook posts interchanging one another. The interviews help break up the book and add a few extra plot revelations to the following chapter. The interspersed interviews also adds a little mystery to the story – is Jill capable of murder? Was their friendship really so rock solid? Was Simone really jealous of Jill? It was a masterfully written novel with some really genius methods to build paranoia and suspense in equal measures.

The biggest issue I had while reading With Malice was that the main character of Jill was relatively unlikable. I felt like Jill was selfish and spoiled. She was more interested in her own situation rather than mourning her best friend. We see from the start that she relies on others to take care of the situation for her with money and power. Jill’s reliance on her father’s money and her personality made me dislike Jill from the first few pages – and that dislike only intensified as I continued reading.

I have to applaud the author because the novel was beautiful and thought provoking without the need to like or relate to the main character. This is a skill so many modern authors possess.

I loved that With Malice was largely a plot and mystery novel with thought provoking questions about the correlation between memory and truth. We never remember situations exactly as they happened and as Jill’s doctor reminds her when her memories return – sometimes our memories are shaped by others. In the end, Jill an unreliable narrator who’s understanding of the events of that summer in Italy evolve over time as evidence is brought to life, old secrets are revealed and Jill’s memories become less and less reliable until we have no inkling of the truth.

The reason why I adored With Malice so much? I couldn’t stop reading to see what would happen next and what secret or evidence would be revealed. I loved that I was invested in the story (even if I hated the main character) and that after I’d finished With Malice I experienced a rare desire to think about the messages that were explored within the pages. The malleability of friendship, the unreliableness of memory, the darkness of power and wealth in the face of justice – these were all things I thought about after With Malice affected me deeply.

This novel with appeal to readers of young adult, mystery and suspense novels. I would recommend this book to people looking for a heavier read that explores deep issues while simultaneously telling a decent story. With Malice is written about issues rather than the experiences of the girl-who-may-have-killed – this is a novel about humanity, power, wealth, memory and friendship. show less

Jill wakes up in the hospital missing six weeks of her life-including the truth about the car crash that her best friend Simone died in.

This was a book I absolutely could not put down. I read it in less than a day. It's so suspenseful, you just have to keep reading.

I really liked the way Cook integrated other types of media, such as interview transcripts, blogs, and TV news shows. Alternating these chapters with chapters narrated by Jill just contributed to the suspense.

Jill is a complex character, who Cook has managed to make sympathetic, even as readers know Jill is suspected of murdering her best friend. The stakes feel real, and important, and the mystery immense.

I'm someone who likes my mysteries completely tied up in a nice bow at show more the end of a book. Without giving away any spoilers, it was hard for me when there was ambiguity in this story, even though it made sense in the context of the novel.

This was a great first read for 2017. I'd be wanting to read this since last year, and it did not disappoint. show less

UPDATE: Dec. 15: Coming back to this way later, but: I've settled on a 3 star rating. It was entertaining, well-written, and suspenseful at times, but my 2 points I wrote about earlier are still things I can't forget about. However, despite the middle rating, I WOULD recommend this book!

Oct. 7: Not going to rate this just yet...my thoughts are super conflicted. My initial impulse is 4 stars in one way and 3 another; however, there is a major aspect of this novel that is pissing me off and I need to mull it over.

UPDATE/ Oct. 9: My feelings are still a little mixed on this, so I'm going to attempt to sort out my thoughts in a bit of a review here. The following part will contain >>>MAJOR SPOILERS
The initial plot of was very interesting: a show more girl, Jill, wakes up in the hospital and finds she cannot remember the past six weeks of her life, including an overseas trip to Italy with her best friend Simone. But worse, Simone is dead. Apparently, Jill drove a car (by accident? She can't remember) over a ledge and Simone died. The US and Italian media are all over this story, and people seem quick to blame Jill for everything.

I think the strongest part of "With Malice" was its ability to keep me hooked; I read the entire book in less two days. Every chapters reveals or hints at a little something new without giving away too much information. Although some of the investigative parts felt a tad cheesy (the cliche Italian men, Anna having a VERY CONVENIENT hacker friend), I thought the pace was good and that the mystery revealed itself smoothly.

Alright, so here's where things get a bit rough. I'm going to divide this into 2 points:

1. Earlier on in the book, Jill reveals that she had a blog. This is how she describes her blog to Dr. Weeks:
"I'm into a bunch of social justice issues. I plan to go into law. I used to write about about that stuff, feminism and things from a teen perspective."
Later, Jill further describes more to Anna as they talk about the online troll:
"He would make fun of anything that I wrote about, the stuff that was important to me [...] At first I started the blog because I wanted to have something to put on my college applications, but the more I learned about that stuff, the more it mattered to me."

Jill uses to word "stuff" three time to describe the issues the cared so deeply about. We also don't get ANY more info about what specifically she wrote about, other than "a bunch of social justice issues" and "feminism". This felt SO lazy to me, especially considering the fact that the blog and the mean troll comments have such a bigger impact in the ending of the story.
I think if we had gotten to read a blog post or two (inserted into the chapters that have the interviews and transcripts) that Jill has written, they would have strengthened our understanding of Jill and what exactly she was interested in. Jill wasn't exactly a super memorable character, and I fully believe reading about what she was passionate about would have really helped establish her within the narrative.
Lastly, Cook really missed an opportunity to write about some of these "social justice issues" and feminism. This book revolves mainly around two girls (one white and wealthy, one black and poor), plus their friendship, online bullies, media portrayal, and some other issues which could have been expanded upon (more on this at the end of 2.)

2. This is the part that really gets me. Again, Jill and Simone's friendship is key in this book. They have been friends for years, always together and having fun and sharing everything with each other. Jill says that even though they have had little fights (like in all friendships) the two of them have made it through. They are Batman and Robin, PB & J, etc.
At the climax of the book, it is revealed that Simone was the one who had posted so many mean and awful comments on Jill's blog. Simone tells Jill that Jill doesn't get it and shouldn't be writing about feminist things because Jill is armed with her daddy's credit card and plans to go to Yale. Jill retorts that Simone is insecure, and their friendship only worked because Jill was always there to clap for everything Simone did. Within this argument, I think both girl revealed things that annoyed them about the other, and they both have a couple right and wrong points.

So then the accident with the knife happens, and Jill loads Simone into the car to rush her to the hospital, and THIS is what I can't get: on the way there, Simone starts saying things like, "Let's see what everyone thinks of you now." and "You better believe your family is going to pay for me to be better than fine." Simone makes it clear that she is not going to let this ever go away.
Jill realizes that, and sees a faint smile on Simone's face.
Jill thinks: "I had no doubt that it was going to cost me, and not just money. Simone would bring it up over and over. She'd act like it was just a joke, but it would have that undercurrent, that bad taste in the background. She would mention it when she wanted something. She wouldn't have to ask; she would just hint around until I gave her what she wanted."

I just couldn't understand this. From the very beginning, their friendship is built up as this really solid and real relationship, with the only major problem being the Nico situation that happens in Italy. How does Simone suddenly turn into this awful, blackmailing person against her best friend?
I also didn't WANT to understand this, because it just seemed such counterproductive move to the narrative.
"With Malice" has recurring themes about feminism and the relationships between women. There is Jill and Simone; Jill and her mother (and step-mother); Jill and Anna; and Jill and her psychiatrist. I can't figure out if Eileen Cook was trying to show the difference between healthy relationships (Jill & Dr. Weeks & Anna) and unhealthy ones (Jill & Simone). If she was, then there was not enough done to illustrate the poor parts of the Jill/Simone one. Literally from the first couple pages up until the revelation about who the blog troll was, Jill and Simone are made out to be the very best of friends, with only Nico being a major bump in the road.

Again, I think "With Malice" just really missed a great chance to have a really solid narrative on feminism and women's relationships. This book DOES pass the Bechdel Test, which is always nice to see.

So. To wrap things up, I thought the story was very engaging, and finding out what happened was fun to read about. I just feel conflicted about the themes of "With Malice" and I don't know entirely what I've taken away from it. I would love to hear some other's thoughts about this book! show less

What a lame ending!!!

OK. Things to like about this book:
1. It sucks you in.
2. It moves quickly.
3. It has a delightfully unreliable narrator.
4. I'm partial to the multiple perspective style of telling a story (police reports, interviews, etc.).

DEALBREAKER FOR ME:
I realize that the unreliable narrator means that we don't really know what happens. But the primary message that I came away with at the end of the story is that if you are a rich, well-connected white girl, you can (possibly) get away with murdering your less wealthy friend by (truly or falsely) claiming amnesia. I could not get past the idea of Jill being a spoiled rich girl and using that advantage to her favor with no apparent consequences. I am not fond of the promotion of show more this idea.

Also: the administrators of the study abroad program should ABSOLUTELY KNOW that having a young attractive male Italian university student to accompany teenage girls is a TERRIBLE IDEA. I have probably spent too much time listening to my partner rant about high schoolers and their poor decision-making abilities.

I just can't. Sorry.

I received this ARC through Shelf Awareness. show less