There has been a lot of hype about Beautiful Malice and how gripping this book is. A friend of Mrs F (my friend,) reviewed it on radio and I was excited that an Australian YA book was causing a stir. I decided to see just how much it grabbed me, shook me and shocked me to the core. Read on….
Beautiful Malice’s oxymoron title instantly grabs your attention. It alludes to something alluring but conniving, deceptive and cruel. It is a perfect way to describe this psychological thriller by Melbourne author, Rebecca James.
The main character, Katherine, narrates the story and it is evident from the first page that she has a dark family secret she is trying to hide.
Leading a new life, Katherine befriends Alice, who is beautiful with “corn-blonde hair” a “model-like body” and “”eye-catching clothes”. She is carefree, bordering on reckless and as the story unfurls she is exposed for who she really is, but is it too late for Katherine who has trusted Alice with her dark past?
This is James’ debut novel and it draws in its young adult target with the “don’t flirt with my boyfriend” storyline style. The story flits from present to past and deals sensitively with guilt, isolation and grief. I could feel the realistic awkwardness between Katherine and her family: “It’s my father’s fears that keep me from pushing down on the accelerator as hard as I can.”
James is touted as the next J.K Rowling, making over a million with her first signing, but I think she still has a lot of work to do and at times her story was predictable and typical of a revenge-based novel.
I admit that I couldn’t wait to solve the secret that implicated her and her family, but was disappointed when a death was mentioned on the first page and hinted halfway through the novel. It is unnecessary to know this much detail at this point.
In short, I was sucked in but I wasn’t shocked and there were definitely no goose pimples. On a scale of 0-10 I give Beautiful Malice a 6.5.
It's an easy beach or ‘by the fire’ read that you should knock off in less than a week. You remember the name and the crime – just not the detail.
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