Review Bundle ||sapphic morally grey girls

IT’S TIME TO REVIEW SOME SAPPHIC RETELLINGS!

these two books have languished on my ‘review to come’ shelf for long enough! it’s high time i reviewed them… and untangled my mess of a thoughts. Misrule is the sequel to Malice but its review won’t contain any spoilers, don’t worry ❤

Title: Malice
Date Published: April ’21
Author: Heather Walters
Genre: fantasy romance; loose retelling of sleeping beauty
Age Rating: YA
CW/TW: blood & gore, anxiety depiction, loss of a loved one, sexual assault, torture recounted, drug use, murder, death, misogyny and lesbophobia [in a negative light]

my pinterest board! i’ll add more pins as time goes on ❤

My Rating: 3.5/5
Review: ooh, this was a darkly magical tale that my sapphic heart loved! told from the villain’s perspective, malice is a relatively slow paced book that gives a fresh twist to an age old fairytale, while also retaining its aesthetic.

✨i loved the world building//while this is a retelling of sleeping beauty, heather walter has built her own lush, imaginative world, filled with the envied ‘graces’ -etherian blessed humans who make elixirs to beautify their patrons- and the despised ‘vila’ -dark monsters, rumoured to steal infants from their cribs. i loved the fairytale-esque storyline and the layered histories which surprisingly played an important role! it takes a while to understand the world and magic system but it’s quite interesting. i just wish it had been a bit more spaced out in the first half.

✨the character growth was phenomenal!//so this starts out with alyce being shunned for being part-vila. she’s shy, quiet and is more viewed as evil rather than being evil. her *actual* villain origin story starts in the last third and it was such a delight to read about! and the slow development and incorporation of her moral greyness was so well done! it was natural, and i love how the author slowly transformed her burning hurt into a seething rage. there’s something so deeply satisfying and cathartic in reading about furious women.

✨the romance//it’s rare to read about f/f romances in fantasy -in particular, retellings- so this one was a lovely surprise. i loved the emotional drama and angst! i do feel that it was a bit too insta-love though. i would’ve liked more chemistry and buildup between the two characters

✨the plot twists//i literally gasped at some of the twists. THEY WERE PURE TWISTED PERFECTION. every single character had an ulterior motive and i loved the grey characterisation so much!! it enforced the fact that alyce was truly alone.
and if you view it in hindsight, it really is all a bit tragic because alyce was set up to be a villain. it’s very clear that she did this out of love for aurora* and if that love had not been there- there wouldn’t have been any reason for her to intervene and there wouldn’t have been any agony and i just-
tHESE GIRLS I TELL YOU

so why 3.5 stars?

wellll, the pacing was agonisingly slow in the first half. and so. many. info-dumps. i could literally feel my eyeballs drying up of boredom in my sockets**
and the romance was a bit too fast imo. it’s essentially [insert trope] so a little more sapphic longing and angst would’ve been nice.
i was expecting so much more from this morally grey lesbian retelling and while it did deliver, i can’t help but feel that something was missing.


_{*i’m just living my life casually dead until i find a love as deep and all-encompassing as theirs. WHY DO FICTIONAL CHARACTERS SET MY STANDARDS IMPOSSIBLY HIGH?!
**…i’m so sorry you had to read that with your own two eyeballs}

Title: Misrule
Date Published: May ’22
Author: Heather Walters
Genre: fantasy romance; loose retelling of sleeping beauty
Age Rating: YA
CW/TW: blood & gore, loss of a loved one, torture, drug use, murder, death, war and war themes, misogyny and lesbophobia [in a negative light]

My Rating: 2.75/5 maybe?
My Review: onto the sequel! misrule is set a 100 years after malice and while it doesn’t *directly* deal with the aftermath of its prequel, you can definitely see its effects, on alyce and in the entire kingdom. the sequel delves deeper into the histories and stories and also answers the questions that malice left us with… the stakes are higher and alyce has everything too loose.
the first half is fast paced and does a great job of introducing us to all the changes in the world.

after the high of the ending that book #1 had left us on, i was excited to jump into this book, however i was sorely let down. my main quibble with this was the romance. i simply do not understand why alyce angsted so much over aurora! it got tiring and repetitive after a while, especially once it was clear that aurora didn’t reciprocate her feelings. the yearning & pining wasn’t handled very well in this sequel and i found myself craving for more dark!alyce.
i wanted to see the villain inside her and instead all i got was more pining over aurora 🙄 wE GET IT YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH HER. also, aurora’s character could’ve been so much better?!?! i would’ve loved to see her internal conflicts and anguish and self doubt. after a certain point, i found no reason to root for alyce and aurora other than ‘true love’
i’m sorry to say, but their relationship had 0 development -except until the very end-

i’m a bit salty over the ending too, i’d have liked it to be more concrete. it was such a letdown, especially after all the tension and angst that walter had built up…

as a whole however, i did enjoy this duology and in particular, its discussions on ‘villainy’. alyce is branded as a ‘villain’ but is she really one? everyone in briar donns themself in pretty gowns and drinks elixirs to ‘fix’ themself. they don’t give a damn about the future of their country, or of their princess -aurora- as long as they get to wear their pretty, deceptive clothes…

BOOKS SIMILAR TO MALICE
(all covers linked to goodreads)

check them out if you enjoy:
>reckless sapphics
>rivals to lovers with lots of yearning
>gorgeous writing
>intricate worldbuilding
>girls with swords

thanks for reading!
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-ash ❤