An Education in Malice Book Review (and a bit of a rant about Dark Academia- sorry!)

Description: 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 dark magic, Laura and Carmilla must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice in their ruthless pursuit of knowledge.

So, it’s probably not much of a surprise that I love a bit of Dark Academia. I wrote a whole Masters thesis on Donna Tartt because of my love for The Secret History and some of the other “core” texts of Dark Academia, such as If We Were Villains, The Raven Boys and Babel rank as some of my all-time favourite books. Dark Academia has been my low-key obsession since I was in high school and first read about Bunny Corcoran’s untimely demise, I just never quite knew what to call that particular genre of literature, so I’ve been pining for it ever since. And now we do have a name for the genre, there’s a bit of a problem I’ve encountered with it… so many DA books feel like they’ve got to make some kind of link to those staple texts. From The Secret History being used as a comp title for every vaguely dark book with a college or even high school setting to clear poignant lines being ripped from one text and awkwardly paper mache’d into a new one (as if we wouldn’t recognise it!) it feels like Dark Academia is sometimes more of an ouroboros, a snake devouring its own tail, than something new. It’s why I was so excited when Babel hit the spot, because it felt new and fresh and like it told a different story rather than the one I heard before.

And with that rant over, let me introduce you to An Education in Malice.

I will say, the vibes were immaculate with this one. I loved the feeling of the setting and that slightly dark edge that is present from the very first line of the book. It does read very clearly like a Dark Academia book. And pairing it with vampires, leaning in to the Gothic genre that could arguably be considered a predecessor of DA, is a stroke of genius. The characters were fun too, and I liked that Carmilla is intriguing and alluring to the reader as well as the main character, although in some ways I wish we’d only gotten the story through the MC’s eyes. Laura is naive and ambitious, and I think that lends itself really well to another popular trope running through DA- the unreliable narrator. My favourite part of the novel is early on, when Laura is suspicious of De Lafontaine and she’s got that academic rivalry/chemistry with Carmilla, and I wish that had been drawn out for a bit longer, because that was really interesting. Once the curtain is pulled back, it sort of feels like a very different book, almost more like Thelma and Louise or something. The romance is sizzling and I liked how it transitioned from an academic rivarly, but again I think I prefer it when the characters are just angsty and can’t tell if they want to destroy the other person’s academic career or make out with them. When they get together, it’s still good, but there’s a lot of mentions of BDSM that never really truly get explored beyond one scene at a party. Not that I wanted more of it in the book necessarily, but it felt like we were told a loooot about Laura’s darker desires, and while I get that the time the novel is set in also means this is alluding to an LGBTQ romance in general, there’s also clear moments where we’re told Laura likes being in control and dominating people. And then nothing really comes of this? We’re told this so much, that I really thought we were going to go down a dark Angela Carter-esque route, and then nothing. The romance, once it went beyond the academic rivalry, also felt a little rushed. I get that heady obsession with a crush, I really do, but it so quickly went from “god I hate your guts but also you’re hot” to “sure, let me bury a body with you love of my life”.

So yeah, for the most part, the atmosphere of this one is good, and I think the early portion of the book is strong. The characters are intriguing, and I like them for the most part, I think they fit the book very well. My main issue with An Education in Malice is more the thing I ranted about at the start of this review… the need to shoehorn itself into a genre in a way that’s kind of obnoxious, if I’m being brutally honest. It feels like it is trying too hard to sound intellectual and academic or brooding and morose, to the point where there were some kinda cringy lines: “I drew the smoke deeply into my lungs, muttering a few lines of Paradise Lost to calm myself down. Poetry was the only antidote to my temper” was one that really made me wince. The characters sit around in the library, brooding while smoking clove cigarettes and reading Hesiod, too. Laura’s vocabulary in particular came across as unnatural, almost try-hard. It just felt a bit like a Pinterest board of Dark Academia, or like at atmospheric Instagram snapshot of the genre, rather than a real attempt to delve into the themes and tropes and pull out something deeper. As someone who has gone to university for a long time, and has longed for the picturesque atmosphere, I recognise the veneer of it rather than the real thing.

There’s also the more egregious direct links to some of those well-known DA books. The last word in the book is “Excelsior”, which is strongly linked to Gansey from Maggie Steifvater’s The Raven Boys since that’s almost like his catchphrase throughout the series (although the author says it’s actually a Stan Lee reference, which feels even more jarring). There’s also a line cribbed almost verbatim from The Secret History which I wish I’d highlighted at the time, because now I’m looking for it, I can’t for the life of me find it again, but it was one of the more famous lines from Tartt’s novel. I have seen a few people say that while the “vibes were immaculate” for this book, the setting feels more like a set piece, and the voice and descriptions are trying too hard to fit the genre. I’m glad I’m not alone in feeling this way. While I enjoyed the book and I liked the Gothic aspects of it, I thought it had a lot of potential and I think it could have been up there with some of my favourites if it just let itself be its own thing, rather than trying so hard to fit in with the genre.

 

Overall, I’m giving An Education in Malice:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really loved some of the prose, and I liked the creative writing class setting and the added addition of vampires to weave in some Gothic elements to the Dark Academia genre. And I enjoyed the academic rivalry with the clear chemistry there. However, I wasn’t a huge fan of the dual POV, and ultimately, I think the book tried too hard to fit in with the Dark Academia genre and vibes to the point where it was sometimes cringy and awkward to read.

Has anyone else read this book or plans to? What do you think about it? Let me know by joining in the discussion in the comments section down below! <3