Title: With Malice
Author: Eileen Cook
Rating: ★★★★

With Malice was a page turner that gripped me from the first chapter. Finding a good YA mystery/thriller is not an easy feat, but this definitely hit its mark. The plot was well-paced and kept me guessing until the very end. Up until the last 25% of the book I was unsure of which direction the author was going to take. I had a few theories and was glad to be proven wrong, something I like when I’m reading thrillers. 

The writing was done wonderfully. I enjoyed having Jill as the sole narrator, especially given her amnesia. Since she couldn’t remember the events of the accident or those leading up to it, and the small pieces of memory she was recalling could have been fabricated by her brain from things she read or was told by her parents, she becomes a bit of an unreliable narrator. The friendship between Jill and Simone was fun to navigate and as hints of truth are revealed, I became even more invested in figuring it out. I also liked the bits of media articles, blog comments, Facebook posts, police interviews, and witness statements that were strategically placed between chapters. The only problem I had was the ending seemed a bit rushed and anti-climatic. I liked the ambiguity of it but I wish it hadn’t ended so abruptly. 

It was a captivating read full of suspense that I enjoyed immensely. A rare find in the YA thriller genre that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a good mystery!