REVIEW: Beautiful Malice by Rebecca James

Title: Beautiful Malice
Author: Rebecca James
Genre: Young Adult, Thriller, Mystery.
Publication Date: May 1st 2010
Publisher: Allen and Unwin
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
Rating: 4/5

'Truth or dare?' She asks.
I hesitate. 'Truth,' I say finally. 'I can imagine one of your dares, and I don't fancy running down Oxford Street naked tonight.'
'Truth,' Alice says slowly, drawing out the vowel sound as if she's savouring the word. 'Are you sure? Are you sure you can be completely honest?'
'I think so. Try me.'
'Okay.' And then she looks at me curiously. 'So. Were you glad, deep down? Were you glad to be rid of her? Your perfect sister? Were you secretly glad when she was killed?'

Katherine has moved away from her shattered family to start afresh in Sydney. There she keeps her head down until she is befriended by the charismatic, party-loving Alice, who brings her out of her shell. But there is a dark side to Alice, something seductive yet threatening. And as Katherine learns the truth about Alice, their tangled destinies spiral to an explosive and devastating finale.

An intense and addictive psychological thriller.

I don’t even know what to say about this book.

The thing is- I’ve owned Beautiful Malice since it came out in 2010, and it was one of those books that my mum bought for me that I never really paid much attention to. It’s times like these that I want to travel back in time just so I can slap past Ely for being an idiot.

This was beautiful. (See what I did there?) I don’t know if I’m even going to be able to explain this, but the writing was just so easy. You know how there are those books that are just so tedious that you don’t even want to pick them up? This was not one of those books. In fact, it was the complete opposite- I couldn’t believe how quickly I flew through this book and how involved in the story I was.

I admit, Katherine could be a bit of an annoying character but I understand why she was written the way she was. I don’t know if that makes sense, but what I mean is I don’t think the story would have had quite the same effect if Katherine had acted differently. I also really, really want to talk about Alice but I feel like everything I’m going to say about her will just spoil the entire book. Also, Robbie. I really love Robbie. (Someone who’s read the book should help me flail about Robbie and rant about other stuff.)

I just want to talk about the plot for a moment. It’s not really something I can go into detail about without ruining the entire book, so I’ll just keep it brief. HOW? WHY? WHAT? AHHHHH. I think that pretty much sums it up. If that didn’t convince you to read this book then I don’t know what will. (And Ebony if you’re reading this, I totally should have picked up Cooper Bartholomew is Dead the other day. Why didn’t I do that?)

Also, this isn’t technically related to the book but has anyone else noticed how I always end up ranting about the books that Allen and Unwin publish?