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A review by luluwoohoo
An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
An Education In Malice by S.T. Gibson
☀️☀️🌤️
This seductive dark academia tale had all of the right elements to be a hit but unfortunately it lacked the ingenuity and heart I needed to connect with the work.
As a sapphic retelling of Carmilla that interweaves enemies-to-lovers, I should have been ALL OVER THIS but unfortunately I just couldn't find a way to submerge myself in the decadence. There were so many promising concepts but each piece of this literary puzzle felt, for lack of a better word, generic. It's precisely what I'd expect when brainstorming a vampire love story without any real creativity to mix it up or subvert common genre links.
The characters are all relatively unlikeable which doesn't help inspire commitment to reading their relationship progression. The first half was more interesting to me in regards to this, but the infatuation between Laura and Carmilla made little sense to me and wasn't developed far enough to believe the lengths they went to during play and sex.
The exploration of themes feels similar to Gibson's previous book which I adored, but this time the resolution of those themes felt muddied and unresolved. I enjoyed the writing itself but it didn't inspire the emotional connection required to carry this intense a story through to a fitting conclusion.
"Love turns some people into birds and beggars,
but you make me into architecture,
into a sanctuary of soft and holy spaces
shaped to catch the sound of your voice."
☀️☀️🌤️
This seductive dark academia tale had all of the right elements to be a hit but unfortunately it lacked the ingenuity and heart I needed to connect with the work.
As a sapphic retelling of Carmilla that interweaves enemies-to-lovers, I should have been ALL OVER THIS but unfortunately I just couldn't find a way to submerge myself in the decadence. There were so many promising concepts but each piece of this literary puzzle felt, for lack of a better word, generic. It's precisely what I'd expect when brainstorming a vampire love story without any real creativity to mix it up or subvert common genre links.
The characters are all relatively unlikeable which doesn't help inspire commitment to reading their relationship progression. The first half was more interesting to me in regards to this, but the infatuation between Laura and Carmilla made little sense to me and wasn't developed far enough to believe the lengths they went to during play and sex.
The exploration of themes feels similar to Gibson's previous book which I adored, but this time the resolution of those themes felt muddied and unresolved. I enjoyed the writing itself but it didn't inspire the emotional connection required to carry this intense a story through to a fitting conclusion.
"Love turns some people into birds and beggars,
but you make me into architecture,
into a sanctuary of soft and holy spaces
shaped to catch the sound of your voice."