S. T. Gibson

Sumptuous and addictive, An Education in Malice is a dark academia tale of blood, secrets and insatiable hungers from S.T. Gibson, author of the cult hit A Dowry of Blood. Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua's College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold. On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful and enigmatic Carmilla. Together, they are drawn into the confidence of their demanding poetry professor, De Lafontaine, who holds her own dark obsession with Carmilla. But as their rivalry blossoms into something far more delicious, Laura must confront her own strange hungers. Tangled in a sinister game of politics, bloodthirsty professors and magic, Laura and Carmilla must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice in their ruthless pursuit of knowledge. For more from S.T. Gibson, check out A Dowry of Blood.

An Education in Malice

soot

ARC provided in exchange for an honest review

3.5 ★

I have a lot of thoughts about this book, let’s start with what I loved. 

Not sure how I didn’t realize this when I got the ARC but this is a Carmilla retelling!!!! What a wonderful surprise!! The writing is gorgeous as well, it was so easy to connect with the characters and the story was truly focused on more about the characters developing rather than a plot, which is lovely when it’s done correctly like this story was done.

So, mentioning the connecting with the characters, I do need to point out the obvious topic that took 2 stars from this book.. the teacher, De Lafontaine. I understand wanting to make the character complex, she definitely is one, but wow. In the beginning I thought she had a full on inappropriate relationship with Carmilla, which I later understood that it was implied but not fully like that, more in the sense of emotional rather than physical but,, if I may speak frankly THATS WEIRDDDD. I didn’t like her at all and it was a surprise when I realized that I was supposed to somewhat have positive thoughts about her. Like the ending gave her a somewhat redemption,, and she mentioned how she saw Carmilla as her daughter but the jealousy she had between Carmilla and Laura was so extremely uncomfortable. Ever time she was mentioned in the story, my face immediately went into the “looking at the secret camera” action from The Office with a 😐 expression. I think it’s more upsetting that I can’t figure out if the readers were supposed to be,, happy with the ending relationship of Carmilla and De Lafontaine? Like they’re still very very negatively codependent on each other,,, other than that loved the sapphics, although the romance was surprisingly a bit rushed as it went from hate to love real quick but it wasn’t something that ruined the book for me.

God I loved this book so much. A Dowry Of Blood remains one of my favorite books ever and this gave me that same addictive feeling. I'm not usually a dark academia fan, but this was the perfect amount in a book for me.

Laura is a passionate writer who travels to Massachusetts to study writing and meets Carmilla, her new rival, as well as De Lafontaine, the enigmatic poetry professor with dark secrets. The three become very close as those secrets come to light. 

I related heavily to Laura and her rivals to lovers arc with Carmilla was everything I could've asked for in a sapphic romance. Even De Lafontaine grew on me despite how toxic she was in the beginning. I loved the choice she made at the end, Dracula could never.

The Dowry of Blood cameo was perfect, I was so happy to read about that character again, even if I would've loved to see the others as well. The book hangover for this is going to be brutal. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

i really loved the romance, the call back to a dowry of blood and the prose, but i wish that the horror aspects of the story had been brought out more and that there was more of a focus on the villain. i wish this book was longer, i could read at least a hundred more pages about carmilla and laura and the girls at perpetua's  

Alexis Manore 

I really liked this, it added a new perspective to a world we already got to explore in dowry of blood and also fell into the tradition of dark academia novels like secret history. I’m just not sure I’m convinced Carmella’s POV was necessary, I think it might’ve been more cohesive coming all from Laura, and also I wish we had gotten a bit more of the relationship between Carmella and Laura. I think the main character of the book was not either narrator, but instead De Lafontaine which makes some sense but also I think it almost sidelined the main relationship. I loved the running in the rain scene the most!! I also really loved the vibes, ST Gibson can create a vibe like nobody’s business. at the end of the day, what’s not to love about sapphic dark academia vampire poets in love?

An Education in Malice

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