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brightbeautifulthings · 5 years

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Vicious by V.E. Schwab

"But these words people threw around--humans, monsters, heroes, villains--to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human."

Year Read: 2019

Rating: 4/5

About: Victor and Eli are college roommates with a shared interest in near-death experiences and the possibility that, under the right conditions, people may develop ExtraOrdinary powers. When they decide to test the theory themselves, the experiment goes better--and worse--than they ever could have dreamed. Ten years later, Victor has broken out of prison with one goal in mind: revenge on his former best friend. In the last ten years, Eli has been hunting down other ExtraOrdinaries, convinced that they're evil and unnatural. The last time they faced off, Victor went to jail. This time, they're determined to stop each other by any means necessary. Trigger warnings: death, child death, suicide, suicide attempts, animal death, rape (off-page), violence, body horror, torture, blood, guns, drowning, alcohol/drug use, overdose, hospitals.

Thoughts: After the experience that was The Monsters of Verity duology, pretty much everything Victoria Schwab has ever written has ended up on my TBR. After reading Vicious, I can conclude that she's the reigning queen of villain stories. Thank you for writing novels for all of us weird people who love monsters more than hero stories. Nearly every character in Vicious is a villain; it's just a matter of who's the bigger villain that determines which side we're on. It's a novel for fans of anti-heroes like Batman and The Green Arrow, only darker, like Unbreakable meets Flatliners with the gritty noir of Sin City (depending on which part of the book you're on). As far as concept, world-building, and characters go, it's one of the best books I've read this year.

The concept of ExtraOrdinaries, regular people who have acquired or were born with superpowers in an ordinary world, isn't unfamiliar, and in Schwab's hands, it sounds utterly plausible. When she starts us off, ExtraOrdinaries are only a theory that Victor and Eli set out to prove through whatever mad science and near-death experiences necessary, and these flashback scenes were among my favorites. (You also can't convince me that Victor Vale, for all his alliterative supervillain name, wasn't also named for Victor Frankenstein.) The more characters we meet with extraordinary powers, the more fascinated I was by them. The powers may be familiar, but what the characters do with them is all Schwab.

If you don't like characters who are awful, there's almost no chance of liking this book. By default, Victor is the hero only because Eli is a greater villain. He's motivated completely by revenge and what other people can do for him, while Eli is convinced that he's on a righteous crusade to wipe out the unnatural ExtraOrdinaries. However, Victor is easily my favorite because he never pretends he's anything but a villain. There's something so compelling about a character who knows he isn't a good person and doesn't care (and also, his power is COOL). I was less enthusiastic about Eli because religious motivation pretty much always hits me the wrong way, and I just didn't find his chapters as interesting as the others. On the other hand, I loved Serena for her coldness and the lengths she would go with her powers. (Was anyone else picturing Serena van der Woodsen? Beautiful, persuasive blonde with the same name?) And, of course, Sydney and Mitch should be loved and protected at all costs. The relationships among Sydney, Mitch, and Victor are awesome and dysfunctional, and I love them all. Excellent, excellent cast.

If there's any downfall of the novel, it's probably the pace. Initially, I enjoyed the short chapters and the jumping around of the timeline. It's cleverly modeled after graphic novels, which tend to be quicker-paced (and, obviously, feature superheroes), and I think it would work really well for people who don't like reading much or who struggle to stay invested in novels. Personally, I prefer longer chapters, and I think my attention wouldn't have wandered so much if I wasn't constantly being pulled into a different part of the story, but different novels accomplish different things. Despite these distractions, flashbacks, and quite a few things happening, the overall pace felt a little slow, like the whole thing could have been fifty-or-so pages shorter. There's an entire novel of build-up for an end conflict we know is coming, and we can, more or less, guess how it's going to go. However, these are small complaints against an otherwise great book. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for Vengeful.

#book review #vicious #v.e. schwab #villains #superheroes #4/5 #rating: 4/5 #2019

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