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torturedreadersdept's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Dysphoria, Grief, Sexual content, Blood, Body horror, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Alcohol, Bullying, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Drug abuse, Suicide, Toxic friendship, and Violence
Moderate: Abandonment, Addiction, Vomit, and Cursing
Minor: Eating disorder, Confinement, and Homophobia
lefty31's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-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
5.0
This is such a good book that kept me on my toes the whole time. I loved how they are actors as well and the way the story was told. It was my favorite book so far of 2023
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Murder, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Cursing, and Death
kaynic22's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Physical abuse, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Blood, Alcohol, Bullying, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Murder, Suicide, and Violence
scifipunk's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Honestly, when I first started reading this book, I expected to spend my review tearing it apart.
Interestingly, now at the end, my opinion changed completely.
It is remarkable that a lot of things that annoyed me at the beginning, regarding plot, characters, and some choices the author made, almost all of them improved or at least became ignoreable by the later chapters.
Especially in the beginning, I had the impression that a lot of the characters were extremely flat and one-dimensional — I feel like in many, many scenes, the reader is told about all these different, vibrant personalities, and yet I still had the impression that Filippa and Wren could be fused into one character without any relevant change to the plot or group dynamic.
I still think so, but it somewhat justified by the characters’ in-universe theater obsession making them think in tropes rather than individuals, and in the end, the plot managed to immerse me and I found myself not as bothered by the characters as I thought I would be.
The author is amazing at describing atmosphere and creating tension in her writing — once the pace picks up, it works well, and this book does have a couple of paragraphs and scenes that stand out for simply how elegant and beautifully phrased they are.
The protagonists, as theater students at an elite university, also have the habit of speaking in shakespearean verse in otherwise casual conversation.
This comes off extremely pretentious at first, but seems to be by design — in at least one scene, a character shows awareness of how he and his friends must sound to regular people, and critically reflects about it for a bit. It flowed into the narrative well and seemed natural, and honestly, I would have liked more introspective like this throughout the novel.
I am absolutely torn on the amounts of verse in this book as a whole, however. There are many great scenes, where as a reader, you can see even with minimal knowledge of the original text, that the author means to highlight a certain dynamic or subtext, foreshadow, or give some characterisation. And if it works, it works well.
But on the other hand, there are just as many scenes where it feels excessive or much longer than necessary.
I did. enjoy the book as a whole, and the main plot definitely felt cohesive and satisfying in the end. About the subplots, I’m not so sure. Some major plot twists and entire characters, especially some that are relatively important later on for example a character’s struggle with addiction and near death experience, a girl’s mental breakdown, the narrator’s jealousy of another’s relationship, people questioning their sexuality, someone’s sister developing an eating disorder, people getting into fistfights on stage, and so on… are established in a major scene and then just, never brought up again, let alone become relevant.
I thought that was really a tragedy, since so many plot threads actually seemed interesting and worth exploring. The author, in my opinion, clearly has talent and put a lot of thought and effort into her work, so I really would have liked to see where all these subplots go… but well.
I enjoyed reading “If We Were Villains” a lot, but it did not quite leave me satisfied in the end.
If you are looking for a captivating, well-executed mystery with a great, immersive atmosphere, then this is for you. The book clearly deserves the “dark academia” hype it got. If you are, however, the type of person who is very annoyed by excess drama, pretentious characters, handwaved details and so on, then you should probably give this one a pass.
Interestingly, now at the end, my opinion changed completely.
It is remarkable that a lot of things that annoyed me at the beginning, regarding plot, characters, and some choices the author made, almost all of them improved or at least became ignoreable by the later chapters.
Especially in the beginning, I had the impression that a lot of the characters were extremely flat and one-dimensional — I feel like in many, many scenes, the reader is told about all these different, vibrant personalities, and yet I still had the impression that Filippa and Wren could be fused into one character without any relevant change to the plot or group dynamic.
I still think so, but it somewhat justified by the characters’ in-universe theater obsession making them think in tropes rather than individuals, and in the end, the plot managed to immerse me and I found myself not as bothered by the characters as I thought I would be.
The author is amazing at describing atmosphere and creating tension in her writing — once the pace picks up, it works well, and this book does have a couple of paragraphs and scenes that stand out for simply how elegant and beautifully phrased they are.
The protagonists, as theater students at an elite university, also have the habit of speaking in shakespearean verse in otherwise casual conversation.
This comes off extremely pretentious at first, but seems to be by design — in at least one scene, a character shows awareness of how he and his friends must sound to regular people, and critically reflects about it for a bit. It flowed into the narrative well and seemed natural, and honestly, I would have liked more introspective like this throughout the novel.
I am absolutely torn on the amounts of verse in this book as a whole, however. There are many great scenes, where as a reader, you can see even with minimal knowledge of the original text, that the author means to highlight a certain dynamic or subtext, foreshadow, or give some characterisation. And if it works, it works well.
But on the other hand, there are just as many scenes where it feels excessive or much longer than necessary.
I did. enjoy the book as a whole, and the main plot definitely felt cohesive and satisfying in the end. About the subplots, I’m not so sure. Some major plot twists and entire characters, especially some that are relatively important later on for example
I thought that was really a tragedy, since so many plot threads actually seemed interesting and worth exploring. The author, in my opinion, clearly has talent and put a lot of thought and effort into her work, so I really would have liked to see where all these subplots go… but well.
I enjoyed reading “If We Were Villains” a lot, but it did not quite leave me satisfied in the end.
If you are looking for a captivating, well-executed mystery with a great, immersive atmosphere, then this is for you. The book clearly deserves the “dark academia” hype it got. If you are, however, the type of person who is very annoyed by excess drama, pretentious characters, handwaved details and so on, then you should probably give this one a pass.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Grief, Sexism, Violence, and Drug abuse
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Suicide, Physical abuse, Blood, Cursing, and Addiction
Minor: Outing, Eating disorder, Misogyny, and Mental illness
bookishtea's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Will I recover? Probably not.
Will I cry like a baby now that it’s over and I’ve gotten attached? Yes, yes I will.
I will be the first to admit that I did shy away from the book at first with the Shakespeare references. I’m not a huge Shakespeare nerd so I had a fear that I wouldn’t understand what was going on but my fear was proven wrong. The more I read the more immersed I was and the more important it was to see how the characters interacted using Shakespeare references. As a theater kid you know that the more you study for plays and act them out the more connected you are to it and the more pieces of yourself you leave in it. And the people you act out that play with are people you get close to so lines from a play can become an inside joke and that’s how it was here in the book. So it all made sense to see with character development and building and it made me further enjoy the book. So yes I highly recommend giving it a try!
Will I cry like a baby now that it’s over and I’ve gotten attached? Yes, yes I will.
I will be the first to admit that I did shy away from the book at first with the Shakespeare references. I’m not a huge Shakespeare nerd so I had a fear that I wouldn’t understand what was going on but my fear was proven wrong. The more I read the more immersed I was and the more important it was to see how the characters interacted using Shakespeare references. As a theater kid you know that the more you study for plays and act them out the more connected you are to it and the more pieces of yourself you leave in it. And the people you act out that play with are people you get close to so lines from a play can become an inside joke and that’s how it was here in the book. So it all made sense to see with character development and building and it made me further enjoy the book. So yes I highly recommend giving it a try!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, Eating disorder, Grief, Cursing, Death, Alcohol, and Suicide
quinn24's review against another edition
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
I had fun reading it, but i don’t think I took from it what was supposed to be taken, I am not a Shakespeare fan so that may be it. I did think it was rather obvious but then maybe it was supposed to be? I’m not sure it wasn’t clear to me whether it was meant to be obvious to the reader or not. I also didn’t like the little ending switch-up. But I did enjoy myself.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Blood, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, and Violence
Moderate: Misogyny, Addiction, Medical content, Mental illness, and Domestic abuse
Minor: Homophobia, Suicide, Panic attacks/disorders, and Vomit
nenya's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This was absolutely incredible, I literally devoured this book so quickly - it‘s very addicting.
It is structured like a Shakespeare play and incorporates a lot of his plays into the plot as well as the characters dialogue, which makes it even more intriguing. The characters themselves are at once love- and hateable and you end up not really knowing if you should be rooting for them or not since they‘re doing a lot of morally very wrong stuff (you end up rooting for them anyways). The ending also really packed a punch with some predictable elements but some totally „I did not see that coming“ kind of twists - it also had me sobbing in the middle of the night.
At first I thought this would be too similar to „The Secret History“, which in some cases it was, however it was unique enough to be appreciated on its own. (However the inspiration is quite obvious)
It is structured like a Shakespeare play and incorporates a lot of his plays into the plot as well as the characters dialogue, which makes it even more intriguing. The characters themselves are at once love- and hateable and you end up not really knowing if you should be rooting for them or not since they‘re doing a lot of morally very wrong stuff (you end up rooting for them anyways). The ending also really packed a punch with some predictable elements but some totally „I did not see that coming“ kind of twists - it also had me sobbing in the middle of the night.
At first I thought this would be too similar to „The Secret History“, which in some cases it was, however it was unique enough to be appreciated on its own. (However the inspiration is quite obvious)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Toxic relationship, Cursing, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Body horror, Drug use, Addiction, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Sexual content, Suicide, Vomit, Eating disorder, and Mental illness
shelfofunread's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-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
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing, Drug use, Bullying, Violence, Alcohol, Toxic friendship, Addiction, Drug abuse, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Outing, Grief, Homophobia, Sexual content, Murder, Vomit, Misogyny, Sexism, and Suicidal thoughts
brianneh's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Let me just start with this- this book is dark. Please check content warnings before reading.
Also if you hate Shakespeare, this is probably not the book for you. The characters attend a school where they only perform Shakespeare, learn about and discuss his works in their classes and have developed their own way of speaking to each other entirely through Shakespeare’s verses. The whole book is structured with nods to Shakespeare’s works. As a Shakespeare nerd, I loved this aspect of the book. But if you’re not a fan, the references to the Bard might seem a bit gratuitous.
As soon as I got to this line:
What is more important, that Caesar is assassinated or that he is assassinated by his intimate friends? … That,’ Frederick said, 'is where the tragedy is.
I thought the group dynamics overall were super interesting. Characterizing everyone right from the beginning with their respective roles really set the stage.
He had always been the most serious student in our year, which (probably) explained why he was also the best actor and (certainly) why no one resented him for it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Drug abuse, Drug use, Alcohol, and Violence
Moderate: Cursing, Vomit, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Alcoholism, Suicide, Bullying, Death, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Eating disorder and Sexual content
alexandrabelze's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
oh my god. m. l. rio is insane for this one. it has an achingly slow beginning but once you get into all of the drama it’s hard to put down. i had pieced together the “big reveal” before the “big reveal,” but i did not expect ANYTHING that was revealed in the epilogue. that epilogue gave me whiplash. i felt way too many things in a way too short span of time. i can’t even begin to describe the ache that i felt in my heart for james and oliver. also, loved the open ending.
james’s “suicide” was a whirlwind of emotions. first, i have to mourn with oliver over his death. then, i have to choke on my own shock over the fact that he’s NOT DEAD? oh my god. amazing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Murder, Toxic relationship, Drug abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Suicide, Violence, and Vomit
Moderate: Homophobia