If you’re a fan of Divergent and Fourth Wing, you’ll definitely like Malachite. It follows a similar formula to all the dystopian romance-esque stories. We start with our main character Arianelle attending a ceremony where she has to choose one of the path that she will study at Valmora Academy, which feels very familiar to the genre. I was heavily intrigued by how she was rejected by all of the paths at first, it was the first time I’ve seen it in this genre.

The MMC was not working for me. He just felt very generic in the genre, and his presence just fell very flat for me. The dark academia setting was intriguing and I do think that for a debut novel this was very good. While I do have my qualms with the book, it was a fun read overall, and I will be reading the next one when it comes out.