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li_reading's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Really well written, but the characters are largely unlikeable, I didn’t find myself rooting for anyone so the tension dissipated.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Murder, Self harm, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Violence
Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Child death, Drug use, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual assault, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Abandonment, Car accident, Confinement, and Medical content
oktuber's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The pacing at the beginning of the book was pretty slow. It seemed as though the author was trying to avoid writing just an origin story and instead telling that origin through flashbacks. But this led to every single thing that would have been mysterious, such as whether they will actually become ExtraOrdinaries or what certain character’s powers are, being easily spotted chapters before the big “reveal.” The ending was great, going from about the middle of the book onward, but the beginning was underwhelming.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Medical content, Murder, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence
Moderate: Body horror, Stalking, Religious bigotry, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Drug abuse, and Drug use
spearly's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Victor was out. Victor was free.
And Victor was coming for Eli—just as he’d promised he would.
This might surprise you, but Vicious is my first V.E. Schwab book. I never hopped on the Addie LaRue train, and honestly, I'm glad, because this was an excellent introduction into the lyrical writing, world building, and complexities of Victoria Schwab.
10 years ago, college roommates Eli and Victor decide to put a theory to the test - under the right conditions, with enough pain and willpower to live, you can make an ExtraOrdinary person, or EO; regular people who survive a near-death experience and develop incredible powers. But the night Victor comes back from the brink of death is the night everything changed.
I won't lie and say that I love love loved this as much as some of my mutuals. Am I crushing on a verifiable sociopath with powers and a hunger for revenge? No.
Victor Vale and Eli Ever are two very complicated, nuanced, and morally ambiguous characters. Their sense of right and wrong is almost completely manufactured, especially when the both come back after their NDE with that vital part of themselves missing: Eli calls it a soul. I call it humanity. But even before their accidents, there was something dark beneath the surface.
I'm torn, because I love complex characters but when it comes to moral ambiguity.... it's tough. I HATE hypocrites, and I hate hypocritical characters. But like... I know that's the POINT.
There are no good men in this game.
And it's true. Victor Vale is not a good man. Eli Ever is not a good man. They both skew their realities to give themselves some moral superiority where there is none. Eli uses God and faith to justify his work, and Victor uses, tortures, and forces anyone who serves him a purpose. But again... I KNOW THAT'S THE POINT.
That aside though, I appreciated Victor's struggle to fabricate his old, human feelings, his need to do right, even when it didn't come naturally to him. How, in his own way, he did still have people he cared about. I could even see how Eli came to be as Eli was: a man who thought he was touched by God. A man who thought it was his divine purpose to eradicate the world of other EOs. His chapters helped with that. I didn't like them, but they helped.
The world building though was *chef's kiss*. I loved how uncanny if felt. It teeters on the edge of possibility, which I suppose is the marking of a good sci-fi. Atmospheric. A fantasy noir. I could picture the rain and the sizzle of power and the darkness that loomed over a world so similar to our. Juts unknown.
I need a breather I think before I pick up Vengeful, but i will come back to it. I loved Sydney. I loved Mitch. I loved Dol. Justice for Angie.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Gore, Gun violence, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Religious bigotry, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Violence
Moderate: Vomit
Minor: Alcoholism, Car accident, Confinement, and Sexual content
redthistle's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Car accident, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Violence, Toxic relationship, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Self harm, Murder, Gun violence, and Gore
reyastray's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
HELLO HELLO THIS GAVE ME SO MUCH SEROTONIN I AM SO HAPPY I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH!!!!!
like yes please give me morally grey everyone and wonderful vibes and dark very dark i am THRIVING off this energy right now. also this book is just SO WELL WRITTEN like i could quote the whole book there were so many pretty lines,,, ahhhhhh
like yes please give me morally grey everyone and wonderful vibes and dark very dark i am THRIVING off this energy right now. also this book is just SO WELL WRITTEN like i could quote the whole book there were so many pretty lines,,, ahhhhhh
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Blood, Gun violence, Gore, Murder, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Violence
Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Suicide
Minor: Confinement
tachyondecay's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
This one took a while to start to work for me, and I’m not sure it really ever did. Vicious is one of those novels where I can tell that V.E. Schwab knows her stuff. That is, the writing here is quality; the plot is top-notch, the characterization is exemplary. Nevertheless, there is something about her style, something about the tenor or tone or theme of the book, that left me cold. And so this is a review where I can sing praises for this novel’s technical achievements, but as a work of art it left me wanting.
Told for the most part in a split timeline narrative, with flashbacks to ten years prior mixed in with the present day, Vicious follows 2 men who successfully turn themselves into ExtraOrdinary people, or EOs. Their transformations create a rift in their relationship that results in one of them going to prison and the other believing it is his duty to remove EOs from the world, as they are an affront to God. Now, a reckoning comes: they will reunite, fight, and one of them won’t be walking away.
As far as plot goes, like I said in my intro, it is all here. Schwab has very clearly planned and intricately imagined every moment, right down to Victor and Eli’s confrontation, and it pays off. Despite my coolness towards the book, even I was getting tense and turning pages faster as we approached the climax.
Additionally, Schwab has a good core premise here. Eli’s fixation with being the only one who is different, with the idea that an EO comes back to life “wrong” and therefore is an aberration, it’s not necessarily original, but she conceptualizes it in a believable and interesting way. Eli’s saviour/god complexes make him a potent villain, while Victor’s brusque fatalism makes him a good anti-hero.
Where this book doesn’t work for me is in the heart of it all. I just didn’t care about any of these characters (no, not even Sydney). I blame the structure of the novel—the jumping back and forth in time didn’t work for me from the beginning—but even if the narrative were linear, I’m not sure that would have fixed it for me, because young Victor was still a dick. More importantly, because the plot is so laser-focused on Victor-versus-Eli, because all of the backstory is mostly told rather than shown in an attempt to fill us in on how these characters got to now, this novel really lacks the depth of context that we often refer to as worldbuilding.
We have the barest of hints that, in this world, some people know about EOs (Detective Stell is an example), but most people don’t believe. However, the paucity of side characters and Schwab’s avoidance of scenes extraneous to the main plot make it difficult for me to feel invested in this universe. Victor’s parents remain abstract ideas rather than real people. Mitch’s past, presented to me in a single rushed chapter that really doesn’t satisfy me, is an abstraction designed to make him the character he needs to be.
Maybe this all gets fleshed out more in the next book of the series. Cool. But the first book hasn’t sold me that this is a world I want to know more about. I’m really glad so many people I know enjoyed this one—I don’t want to condemn this book as bad—but this is a great example of something that turned out to be not my cup of tea.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Animal death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Self harm
Moderate: Confinement and Drug use
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