Working in a bookstore it has been difficult to avoid the hype surrounding Rebecca James’ novel Beautiful Malice. First the subject of a furious publisher bidding war, then heralded to booksellers as the next big thing in young adult literature, we’ve been promoting the hell out of this book for months. When the library called me saying a copy was ready to pick up weeks before the release date, I was pleased, I’d be able to read it in plenty of time before it arrived in stores. Here’s the thing about hype: it’s a commercial construct, it’s created for the sole purpose of making us pick up, and hopefully buy, a book that we might not otherwise even look at. If the hype surrounding a cultural product is not created organically, through word of mouth, from the readers, participants, audience, it seems to be without foundation. A few acknowledgements of my own limitations first: I recognize I’m not the target audience for this book, being older and more jaded than the young adult age bracket, and I’m not overly familiar with the psychological thriller genre.

I’ve heard that charming, powerful people have the knack of making you feel as though you’re the only person in the world and now I know exactly what that means. I’m not quite sure what she does, or how she does it – another person would have come across as overly eager, obsequious even – but when Alice gives me her attention like that, I feel golden, warm with the certainty I’m fully understood.

Katherine has moved to Sydney following a terrible family tragedy involving her younger sister Rachel. Quietly studious in her new surroundings, she is befriended by the wild and vivacious Alice and drawn in to her circle of friends while struggling with her guilty conscience over her past. The novel shifts between multiple points in time, Katherine after-Alice and with a young child, younger Katherine with her sister Rachel and the hours leading up to the shocking event and Katherine as she adjusts to her new friendship and coming to terms with the past. To reveal too much is to spoil what pleasure the novel holds, some of the twists are overly foreshadowed, while some, are completely unexpected. Much of the first half of the novel is drawing attention and hinting toward what revelations are to come and the deliberate vagueness becomes tedious after a while. The relationship between Alice, Katherine and Alice’s on/off again lover Robbie is nicely drawn out, as they each confide in each other about the trauma of their pasts. There is the intimation that something is not quite right with Alice, as her moods and attitude rapidly and unpredictably change on her close friends.

I nod agreeably and smile and let Philippa think that she has made me feel better, that she’s said something I haven’t heard before. The trouble with words is that no matter how much sense they make in theory, they can’t change what you feel inside. And what I’m starting to understand is that there is no real end to this, there can be no complete absolution. Rachel’s death and my own part in it is something I’m going to have to live with. The best I can hope for is that I can learn to forgive myself for being a less-than-perfect sister.

Much of the potential power of Beautiful Malice hinges on the tension between the past and the present, and the dark secrets that have lasting consequences for their keepers. Sometimes, particularly when Katherine falls in love – an occurence which isn’t dealt with the same warmth or degree of detail that the friendships are – the tension disappears completely. We’re still vaguely aware of the troubles to come, but the pacing feels a little off here. The tension picks up again as Alice’s levels of crazy skyrocket and her attempts to sabotage Katherine’s life become more extreme, although perhaps the denouement could have felt much more intense if we hadn’t already been warned of the deaths of two major characters.

I’m a bit conflicted about this one. I wanted to like it, and I found it a mildly entertaining novel that lacked a certain intensity that I was, from the publisher created hype, expecting. And that’s the danger with hype, the combination of publicity efforts and reader anticipation can all too often create expectations that are impossible to reach.