Emily Thiede

This Vicious Grace

Izzy

another slog of a read I'm actually tired

Aadi Rao

Thank you Emily Thiede, Hodder & Stoughton, and NetGalley for providing me with this arc.

I read the words. "Three weddings, Three funerals," and that was all it took for me to be hooked onto this.

I could try to come up with something to dislike, but it's not possible. The characters, their development, the way the love and betrayal and trust and loyalty is written, just about EVERYTHING, makes me happy.

This is one of the books I would want to read for the first time again.

The cliffhanger tho, can we get rid of that suspense asap?

Aishling

(Please excuse any spelling errors with names/details since I listened to this and have no idea how anything was spelt.)

3.5/5 stars

This Vicious Grace is a fantasy YA set in an Italian inspired island. The story follows Alessa, a girl who is a finestra, someone who can amplify the magic gifts that belong to people known as fonte. Alessa must find herself a fonte to pair with and prepare to battle a hoard of demon like creatures who attack the island every few years. But unfortunately Alessa keeps killing her fonte as soon as she touches them, which is something required for her to be able to amplify their power. The story begins when Alessa is at the funeral of her third fonte, and she is beginning to realise that people are losing their faith in her ability and believe that maybe she’s better off dead. This leads Alessa to search for a bodyguard she can trust, which is where our love interest Dante comes in.

I really liked Alessa and Dante as main characters. Alessa was bit timid at the start but learned to grow into herself and became more confident as time went on. It was also refreshing to see a female character who didn’t shy away from her romantic feelings, which I feel is something we see a lot in YA romances. Dante starts off as a grumpy bodyguard, and even thought he keeps the grumpy composure up most of the time, we see his caring side start to show as the book goes on. Alessa and Dante complicated each other really well, and watching their friendship grow was really heartwarming.

The fantasy aspect of the book felt unique, but I had a hard time remembering names of things but I put that down to the fact that I was listening to the book and that the narrator was using Italian pronunciations for words. I wasn’t as interested in the overall plot as I was with Dante and Alessa’s relationship development, until some of the fonte side characters became more fleshed out and made me care more about what happened to them.

The one negative thing I would say on the book is that it had a big “forgiveness” theme going on which is something I’ve never been a fan of. Some characters in this book were forgiven way too easily for things they did and it really bothered me that there was no repercussions for them. I understand that forgiveness is something that people think should be shown in YA books to teach young adults a good example, but I think it sets a worse example to forgive people so easily for the awful things they do. 

Since I listened to this as an audiobook I should mention that I thought the narrator did a very good job. She had a really good Italian accent for all the Italian words and did a good job with distinct voices for each character.

Overall I would say this was a good book, but it wasn’t amazing. My favourite part was Alessa and Dante’s friendship (and subsequent relationship) and I’d read the next book for their sake.

This Vicious Grace

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