This is a quick read that ticks a lot of my boxes - YA, tick; time travel, tick; the end of the world being nigh, tick. Unfortunately I found this book difficult to get into and can only rate it 3 stars for that reason. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC egalley.

“Sometimes, even soul mates won’t fit together if they meet at the wrong age.”

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for this ARC of Malice. And a HUGE thank you to Pintip Dunn for writing it!

I was not sure what to expect from this book going in. It is not a book I would normally go for, but this year is all about branching out of my comfort zone, much like the characters in this book. I can’t express enough how happy I am that I requested this book and was approved!

I completely lost myself in this book. I’m talking, staying up until almost 4am because I didn’t want to put it down! I laughed out loud, I cried, I cheered my fave characters on and hoped beyond hope that the villain wouldn’t ruin it all.

I honestly don’t think I could say one bad thing about this book. I was written to perfection imo.

The time travel was so fun and unique. It reminded me a lot of the 90’s movie Contact with Jodi Foster ( which happens to be one of my fave movies of its time).

I honestly loved every character. They all played their part perfectly and there was a reason for every one of them. Every person and interaction had a purpose in telling the story.

The romance, for me, was right on point. I cried happy tears and sad ones, and enjoyed every darn minute! It was not insta-lovey at all which made it all the more exciting. I will adore this story beyond time, in any timeline.

I want to just go on ranting about this absolutely enthralling story, but I don’t want to ruin any part of it for anyone. Just know, I flippin loved this book! It held my attention all the way though and I was happy with the ending.

I received this ebook from Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion and review. I LOVED this book. The plot was so good and I didn’t want to put it down! I have wanted to read this book since it came out and I was NOT disappointed! Recently, I haven’t been interested in sci-fi novels, but after reading this, I think i’ll have to check some of them out again! I love the idea of a future self being able to communicate with a past self. Such a cool idea!

“Once upon a time stream, *BLANK* invents a virus that will wipe out two-thirds of humanity.”

Malice by Pintip Dunn is a story about one girls’ love for her family, her friends and doing what’s right, no matter the cost to herself. It is an engaging story with page-turning twists, turns, and just enough red-herrings to keep me turning pages. It has a captivating storyline and a strong science fiction element that I found fascinating.

Alice is a wonderful main character; she is extremely likeable and has a strong moral code. She’s taken care of her genius yet absent minded older brother, Archie, since their mother left, leaving them with an emotionally unavailable father. When a voice from the future claiming to be Alice 10 years from now hijacks her brain with the news that someone she loves will create a virus that will wipe out most of the population, it’s up to Alice to discover who stop them. Future Alice asks her to do certain things, the requests are at first benign, embarrassing but harmless but then the requests become increasingly more alarming and Alice must find out who the creator of the virus is.

I would recommend this to anyone who is a fond of the genre and this includes thrillers, suspense, and science fiction with a dash of romance on the side.

Thank you Entangled Teen for the ARC of “Malice.” Although I did receive a free ARC, all opinions are my own.

I loved "Malice" so much. This is probably my favorite read of 2020 so far. Alice is a high school student, minding her own business when all of a sudden she receives a painful ZAP and a voice starts talking to her in her head. As the book goes on, Alice discovers this voice is herself 10 years in the future. Future Alice's name is Malice. Malice is traveling back in time through young Alice's consciousness to try and stop a deadly virus which makes people allergic to the sun. Throughout the book we are taken back and forth between current times and 10 years in the future. Imagine knowing what things would be like for yourself 10 years in the future! There are finally hover-boards!

Even though this book is YA fiction, I really think any adult could enjoy this book. It was a quick read for me because I just wanted to keep reading to find out what happens in the end. I do think there were some plots of the book that just kind of fizzled out without going anywhere. For example, Alice and Archie's mother, Alice dating Zeke, Charlie, etc. It's possible these will be followed up in further books.

One thing I thought was so creative was how Bandit's name kept changing in Alice's phone. IT started out as something negative but by the end of the book it was obvious Alice had strong, positive feelings regarding Bandit.

This is my first Pintip Dunn book and I now consider myself a superfan! This isn't your typical angst-ridden teen book. The plot is fascinating and had me frantically reading as fast as possible to get to the dramatic conclusion. I don't want to give too much away but the underlying social issues of bullying, the emotional scars of childhood and their consequences could generate productive conversations with young adults. This book has it all an epic romance, science fiction, and a whodunit rolled into one perfect package. I highly recommend Malice for teens and their parents!

I was given an ARC of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A quick and fun read. More enjoyable than expected. I'm not a big fan of science based reads or sci-fi in general, but this was fun. The characters are diverse and interesting. It addresses a serious issue faced by many teenagers and young people. The example is drastic, but effective to get the meaning across. From an educator standpoint, this book can lead to deep analysis and discussions between peers and self reflection.

Pintip Dunn’s MALICE is a young adult time travel book that completely enthralled this reader with the many twists and turns and an eventual ending that left this reader positively spinning in her seat.

A voice who claims to be, and sounds like it could be, Alice, but a future Alice. She is so shocked that she does what the voice tells her do, humiliate herself by proclaiming her love to a boy she has secretly crushed on forever in front of the entire school. Then it wants her to kill him in order to save the world? If it wasn’t happening to her, Alice would have thought she lost her ever loving mind.

Boy oh boy was this book good. It starts out a touch slow and a little confusing. Yet, the characters are multidimensional and well fleshed out. Then after a five or six chapters, this reader thought she had it all figured out and the disappointment of a book failing to meet expectations started to set in. But this reader never puts a book down until it is finished, so I persevered. And that perseverance paid off in spades. When MALICE picks up the pace, the storyline absolutely takes off. It takes readers down one path only to switch to another and then another and then your mind simply reels. By the time the book ends, all readers can do is simply lean back with a very surprised WOW. This book was nothing like I thought it would be. And it teaches a lesson to boot.

This reader doesn’t have any idea where Pintip Dunn plans to take readers with the next book this author writes, but one thing this readers knows for certain, I will be there eagerly awaiting it. This was one really good book.

#Malice #NetGalley

Malice is an extremely different and refreshing read. I really like how Dunn uses the character development in a way that come to a tipping point, everything that happens after they choose good or bad will happen at a landslide. There is no coming back once you make a decision like that. You can try to change your ways, but if you make the wrong decision, it will haunt you forever. Wonderfully written and executed, Dunn weaves a web that will make you wonder how it will play out until almost the very end of the book.

Thank you to Entangled Publishing and NetGalley for an advance reader copy. All opinions are my own.

Malice by Pintip Dunn follows a girl named Alice who has to stop a deadly virus from being created. It's best to not know anything else but this going into the book.

I found this book very compelling and readable. The plot moved along without being boring, but the mystery and "twists" didn't captivate me.

The writing style is very reminiscent of what writing was ten years ago. I chose to take this as a choice the author made based on the contents of the book.

Overall, the book wasn't groundbreaking but it was a fun and entertaining book that I would recommend to young readers who want to get into light sci-fi.

3.5/5

Really enjoyable book with interesting concept on time travel. I enjoyed the slow progression of finding out the main plot of "who done it" as well as the other fun twists and turns along the way. Fingers crossed for a sequel!

Absolutely enthralled by this book from start to finish. I could not put it down. I don't say that often about a read, especially a young adult book, but this one hit the heart strings with a nonstop, exciting adventure. Is the premise of the novel (a race to find the bad guy based on information from the future) a unique idea? No. It's been done in countless Sci Fi stories and movies, but this author has woven a masterful, suspenseful tale with her rich, troubled characters. Layered upon this is the delight of adolescence and all its awkwardness and insecurity when slamming into new love.
Absolutely recommend. Read it.

A fun read! I didn't know what to expect when I started this one, but I liked the cover, and the blurb sounded fun. I really enjoyed it, though, and am glad I got the chance to read it! I enjoyed the characters, and the story was well written!

Here's the thing: I wanted so much to like this. I tried so hard to like the wildly unrealistic, sometimes downright outlandish plot. I hoped and I waited for the "timey wimey wibbly wobbly" of it all to ground itself in something more scientifically plausible, or at least in something with sensical rules that made it seem like time travel could exist in Alice's world. After all, it was buzz words like "voice from the future" and "stop a deadly virus" that attracted me to this book in the first place. It was the sci-fi impetus behind my initial interest.

I mean...I am all about traveling through fiction wormholes! Just shove me into one and color it with modulations that make it seem real.

Unfortunately for me, however, I found this story disintegrated into too much dramatic unbelievability for me to be able to buy into the whole Save the World emotion and conflict it attempted to elicit. It veered too much into close-your-eyes-snap-your-fingers-and-think magic instead of science.

"Malice" was just... too far-fetched for my liking. (Absolutely absurd in places.) Mind you, I did appreciate the Thai diversity shown here as well as Bandit and Alice's progression from strangers to friends to blue-stylin' lovers but I couldn't get past the hollow execution of the time/future element. The Maker reveal was anticlimatic, too, considering the culprit was easily deducible within the first couple of chapters.

All in all, it was a lackluster "okay" for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for the ARC!

I would like to thank Pintip Dunn & Entangled Publishing for my copy of the ARC. Due to this kind gesture, I have decided to leave an honest review.

What if mankind was at stake? Could you sit back and wait for future doom to drop on you or would you fight to prevent this? Alice never thought her life would come to this. Attending a high school for the extremely gifted (that she only attends due to her genius of a brother), dreaming of when she will be finished and hopefully off on her travels to photograph the world. One day Alice is reached too from the future, explaining that a deadly virus will wipe out most the population and her help is needed to prevent this. She finally thinks she is losing the plot, going insane! Or is she? What will our little Malice do...

The book is so intriguing and extremely funny at points. The plot gripped me from the start but I did find myself getting a tad bored at parts, where there wasn't really any dialogue just wordy parts that could have been left out. Overall it was ejoyable and I read it in one sitting, extremely quickly!

I didn't expect it to turn out a YA sci-fi thriller kinda book but it had a good edge to it. I feel the romance was paced very well and you liked the characters, watching them stumble over into it. I do think it was clear from the start who created the virus but I didn't actually expect the ending which was good.

I did really like our leading lady Alice. She was witty and funny which completely matched our lovely male Bandit. His little jokes and one liners were funny and I can just remember guys at school like him. I love how we get to see this vulnerable part to him, it made him even more relatable to and I was really rooting for him.

Our other characters were atually likeable themselves. Archie, Alice's older brother. Zeke (I still don't understand his relationship if its friendly or purely using Archie for help with work). Lalana, Alice's amazing best friend. Cristela, who slips into a BFF role. They all had their little places and didn't find myself disliking any of them.

The book touches on family break-ups, struggles with identification, depression, teenage agnst, and I must admit it was done pretty well. So for that I give it 3 stars!

All in all, it was not a bad read. I would recommend it if you are looking for something quick and edgy.

"Because when I talk to you, sometimes you forget to blink. And so help me, that makes me feel like the most important person on the planet."

Malice by Pintip Dunn, published by Entangled Publishing is a stand alone, YA sci-fi thriller.
Maat Alice. She's a junior at highschool, 17 years old. Her one year older brother is a prodigy, often lost in his own head. Lets just say he dances to his own song.
When a voice shows up in her head and warns and tasks her with resuing the future mankind, she has her work laid out.
Alice just wants to be a normal teenager with normal tennageer problems, but she has to shoulder a big rock.
Malice is a fst paced, highly entertaining, unputdownable read that had me captivated from start til the end. The story is well written with unexpected twists and turns that had me on the edge of my seat. The storyline is great with just the right amount of drama, suspense and danger to keep me reading. 5 Stars.

Malice follows Alice who is just living her life of holding her family together. She makes sure her prodigy smart brother, Archie, eats his meals and is still dealing with the grief of her mother walking out on their family under suspicious circumstances. Her father hasn't talked to her or even looked at her in years so it's up to Alice to take care of everything in her and Archie's lives. An ordinary girl who has a food instagram even though she can't cook and an inspiring photographer that wants to travel the world. Then one day it all goes to hell in a handbasket basket when a voice suddenly arrives in her head, bringing a crap ton of pain and threatening her life unless she tells popular boy Bandit that she loves him. There's something more going on though and the voice, which turns out to be a future version of herself, refuses to tell her anything beyond someone in her class will create a disease that wipes out a significant portion of the world population unless Alice steps up and does exactly what future her tells present her to. Easy right? Plus in a school full of geniuses how hard could it be to figure out who is behind such malice?

Alice was such a bada**. She strode up to Bandit, told him that she loved him and then peaced out. That first task would have done me in. She was a brave girl who started out doing what she was told, but then started questioning everything. There are a few betrayals along the way but she stays strong and sticks to her guns. Alice starts out as this quiet and under appreciated sister of her smart brother, but really grows up and takes control of this bizarre position she's been put in.

Romance. Bandit was so sweet, cute and extremely frustrating. There was a bit of insta-love on Alices' part but who doesn't want a bad boy that's good only for you? I'm willing to slightly overlook it. I was constantly questioning if he was a different kind of bad though. Just like Alice though I tried really hard to overlook my doubts, no matter how guilty he seemed.

Solving the mystery behind the creator of the virus was full of twists, turns, and time travel that I was just not expecting. We get to dive into time travel, but in a way that wasn't overtly simplistic or complicated. We really never get to know how exactly it all works and I liked that. I wanted to focus on the story more than the science behind it all. The story of Alice, her family, friends, and Bandit was a good one and I think trying to explain the science behind every little thing would have ruined it. What we do get though is the effects of time travel on past and future scenarios which was interesting.

It took me about halfway through the book to start making guesses on who could be behind the virus and even then I was still second guessing myself until the very end. I don't think I would have had this book on my radar if it weren't for The FFBC introducing it to me. It was a quick and fun read that kept my attention. It has everything you could want in a story; a mad scientist, a cute and maybe bad boy, time travel and friendship. If you are looking for a sci-fi that doesn't dive too far into the science behind everything and gives you a mystery, I highly suggest picking up Malice when it hits shelves on February 4th!

I want to preface this review by naming that sci-fi is a hard genre for me to enjoy. The blurb for this book seemed really interesting so I was eager to pick it up and get into this sci-fi mystery read. But the plot just really didn't seem to make sense. There didn't seem to be clear rules for the time travel (If you can call it that when they're just communicating via their brains?) and the interactions between the characters felt really awkward to read. I feel like people that can suspend belief easier may enjoy this book more than I did.

**Disclaimer: I was given a free e-book in exchange for an honest review.**

Title Malice

Author Pintip Dunn

Release Date February 4, 2020

Description from Amazon

What I know: a boy in my class will one day wipe out two-thirds of the population with a virus.

What I don’t know: who he is.

In a race against the clock, I not only have to figure out his identity, but I’ll have to outwit a voice from the future telling me to kill him. Because I’m starting to realize no one is telling the truth. But how can I play chess with someone who already knows the outcome of my every move? Someone so filled with malice they’ve lost all hope in humanity? Well, I’ll just have to find a way—because now they’ve drawn a target on the only boy I’ve ever loved…

Initial Thoughts

I don’t read a ton of sci-fi but one of my resolutions for 2020 was to read more of the genres that I previously designated as “out of my comfort zone”. The concept of this book sounded interesting so I thought I’d give it a shot.

Some Things I Liked

Magic without including a fantasy element. I loved (pun intended) the role that love played in this story. There was something pseudo-magical about Alice’s relationships with her family and with Bandit. For a story centered around science, I really appreciated the elements of human emotion factored into the story.
Mystery/Thriller vibes. I really enjoyed being on the edge of my seat while reading this story. It’s not often that a book can keep me guessing for as long as Malice did, so major props to Pintip Dunn on that front.
One Thing I Didn’t Like

Sci-fi is always a tough genre for me. I spend way too much time thinking about the plausibility of the story and I find it difficult to suspend my disbelief. There were some moments in this book where I struggled to believe in the time travel elements. But, they were few and far between. My one, tiny, complaint about this book is that there were some small moments where the magic of the story fizzled for me and I got bogged down by my own overly-critical mind.

Series Value

While I did enjoy getting to know these characters, this story feels complete. If Pintip Dunn decides to revisit this world for more about Alice and company, I’d enjoy reading it, but, I am happy with the conclusion of Malice.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed this book. I read it all in one shot because I couldn’t put it down. I had some small issues with the continuity of the time travel elements (but this is the main reason I avoid sci-fi as a genre). Overall, this was an interesting read with enjoyable and emotionally gripping characters.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Recommendations for Further Reading

Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte – if you liked the race against the clock to prevent a terrible action element of Malice, try this standalone by Astrid Scholte.
Scythe by Neal Shusterman – if you enjoyed the more science fiction-y elements of this story, try the Arc of a Scythe series by Neal Shusterman.
Caraval by Stephane Garber – ok, this seems like a weird rec, but hear me out. If you liked the idea of someone attempting to prevent something in the future because they have knowledge of said future, try this series. Also, if you liked that concept but wanted a more fantasy setting, you will enjoy this series.

3.5 stars

MALICE is a highly engaging YA sci-fi read. Alice lives with her father, who spends all his time working, and brother, whom she takes care of. Her brother is a genious, who can't seem to remember the basic stuff like eating. She loves her family fiercely.

One day, she is confronted by a voice claiming to be herself from 10 years in the future, who tells her to approach a popular guy and tell him she loves him. Alice does, but the requests get worse from there, including that there is someone at her school will create a virus that wipes out most of humanity and forces the rest underground. Alice must kill this person, but first, she must find out who will do this terrible thing.

The book is paced well, but I am left with so many questions about time travel (which does not seem to have clear rules, so this raises a lot of questions about why they didn't go certain ways vs. the ones they chose). I felt like some of these create some sizable plot holes that I would have selected to go without. For instance, people are approached at different times, and the future selves can come in any order, their time linear is not their past's time linear, so why not go before this person was born and prevent that? That's one of many questions I have. On the flip side, I was interested enough to buy into it as-is.

The person who creates the virus is incredibly clear right from the start. I felt like Alice was intentionally obtuse, and it was made to be a big reveal (which felt a little disappointing, because I was hoping to be surprised).

The romance in this book was really well done though, and I loved the couple, the way they connected, and their chemistry. From that point-of-view, this was a really excellent book. Thus, I would recommend for people who like YA romance with a sci-fi element.

Overall, this was an engaging read with a great couple and an intriguing premise. I would recommend for fans of YA romance with some sci-fi.

Please note that I received an ARC. All opinions are my own.