Reviews

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

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qbourgette's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

natyat's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

4.25

In Vicious, V. E. Schwab writes some great prose and hooks you with a lot of writing gimmicks (past, present and future POVs, extremely convenient circumstances/decisions to set up exciting scenes, etc.) but she struggles to create a believable narrative with likeable characters.

Almost every character is straight from the Build-Your-Own-Fan-Fiction factory which would be fine but they have more in common with cardboard cutouts than living breathing characters.

The premise of the story and the way the story is told is as edgy as possible. It feels as though it's dark to be dark and appeal to a certain demographic not because the story being told needs to be this grim.

It's not bad per say, I enjoyed the moment to moment storytelling but reflecting on the story after reading it has left me feeling not much.

I've entertained myself with much better "people with powers" media in the past. Reading Worm (https://parahumans.wordpress.com/) was life changing and it doesn't suffer from cynical edginess or make use of artificially convenient circumstances to propel the plot forward like Vicious does.

rachelhelmer's review against another edition

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4.0

This book, while it explained it perfectly well in the description, was still nothing like what I expected going in. There was so much happening in this book that I never knew what to feel or to expect in the coming pages.

One of the things that I LOVE when books delve into is the perversion of religion that some people can fall into as they take things to extreme measures. Eli's insane ideas about how he is "God approved" in his killings of what he considers to be a perversion is absolutely fascinating. While I was never an Eli fan, it made him one of the most fascinating people to read from just to see his thought process. I have only seen this added into a couple of books but I love to see different author's take on how religion can be so misconstrued and misused by people to justify their own actions.

I would die for Mitch. He is such an amazing person that just is trying to keep the people he cares about safe. It was so heartbreaking to read about his background and how he's never really had the ability to get close to anyone without them getting hurt. I am so happy for him and his found family that he gained through this book.

Overall, I really loved this book. My only personal critique is that I wasn't able to connect with any of the characters as much as I wanted to. Otherwise a great book and I am definitely going to be forcing my friends to read it as well :)