Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - If We Were Villains

I am conflicted, to say the least. (Also this is a mess but it is 2 am, so my brain juice is at its limit)

Pretentious, dramatic and passionate theatre kids who bring to life shakespearean plays both in ans offstage, are a tangled mess of emotions and riddles while also being quite flat characters. I liked the writing, it was fitting for the theme and atmosphere. I loved some passages and use of the plays throughout the story to obscure and bring light to the characters' feelings. I enjoyed the drama and the story. I had my doubts about dark academia books but this one made it for me and now I know I yearn for more books with theatre actors as protagonists being unhinged and frustrating. I also liked the references to some motifs in Shakespeare's plays (ghosts, lies, blood, guilt, madness). As a Shakespeare enthusiastic, especially his tragedies and villains, I am content.

The parts that mostly bother me are for example, what exactly did send Alexander spiraling into overdose? Was it the guilt in all cases? Did Richard haunt them so bad as a ghost like in Macbeth? Did Wren knew all along it was James? I needed to see them descend into madness more.

At some point I truly thought I was being lied by the internet and my own biased analysis, which always searches for some homoerotic subtext, because HELL the moments between Oliver and James were sparse. Those weren't even crumbs, I was holding the ship with a thread and both eyes closed, going by instinct. So yeah, the slow-burn was way too much, as it didn't deliver the relief you would expect after so many "heteronormative looking" scenes (idk how to describe it bc the book had me doubting my bisexual suspicions and then rooting for a poly relationship between Oliver Meredith and James). (What do you mean a botherly kiss that is not quite brotherly? but yeah, only one brief kiss, nothing else, no more scenes between them that hint at their feelings before or after halloween. I am not even asking for a love confession or any grand gesture, but more subtle scenes between them, more tension... idk i went insane, i am in pain but i also apprecite how complicated their relationship is, as they were best friends, brothers, partners in crime, lovers, enemies...). Or more about the internal turmoil they had going on realizing they are queer, which we barely got because they didn't want to think about it... I wanted to see how they come to terms with their sexuality, the guilt and love they felt (this specially)!!!

I probably forget many things I want to say but frankly I have been reading 3h non-stop and cried at the ending, so cut me some slack.

Content Warnings

nicolebooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

Content Warnings

jacobandthefrogs's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Give this books all the trigger warnings ever.
Theatre troupe of 7 turns to a shatter 6 when one of them is dead after the opening night of their first show of the year.
The characters in this book took me as a reader by storm, with terrible decisions but realistic voices. If someone spoke to me any of their dialogue in real life I would tinge on the feeling of unsafeness and insanity around them, because their voices are dipped and coated in that old English of Shakespeare in at least 25% of their words on paper. I knew this book would highlight many of Shakespeare’s plays given the synopsis but the depth and thought given to how they are interpreted really adds a much deeper level to how I appreciated the novel.

Content Warnings

ruthio's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Content Warnings

jenniferpalmblad's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-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

“This… This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeit of our own behavior—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars… as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc’d obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting-on!” He looked heavenward, made a fist, and shook it at the stars. A laugh blossomed from his lips and rang in my ears, bold and unabashed. “An admirable evasion of whore-master man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star!” — James speaking lines from King Lear

TITLE—If We Were Villains

AUTHOR—M. L. Rio

PUBLISHED—2017

GENRE—dark academia

SETTING—a conservatory college in northern Illinois in 1997

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—Murder! (maybe 😅), obsession, dark academia, private conservatory college, Shakespeare & Bardolatry, art school, love & friendship, actors & acting

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

STORY/PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

BONUS ELEMENT/S—I was personally OBSESSED with the excessive amount of Shakespeare quotes and references so this was actually probably my favorite part of the book 🥰

PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️—The philosophy was actually heavily related to a very deep reading and understanding of Shakespeare, likely even deeper than I’ve ever done (even though I am still quite familiar with his work, but this is *next level* Bardolatry) so…. I would love to continually reread this book as I continue to explore Shakespeare’s work as well.

“The thing about Shakespeare is, he’s so eloquent… He speaks the unspeakable. He turns grief and triumph and rapture and rage into words, into something we can understand. He renders the whole mystery of humanity comprehensible.”

Whew! This book kind of blew my mind. One of my best friends in college was a Shakespeare scholar so I absorbed a lot of material through her and even took two classes with her and spent a lot of time at the Folger Shakespeare Library and Theater with her as well so my knowledge of Shakespeare—while not even close to that of Rio’s 😅—is on the above-average level of amateur I’d say. 😂 I’d be curious to know if readers with little to no knowledge of Shakespeare would enjoy this book as much as I did because my favorite thing about this book was the *intense* study of Shakespeare that was necessary to write it. The use of Shakespeare quotes as a sort of second language that the students would speak with each other was incredibly fascinating and made me pull down my Norton anthology of Shakespeare’s works to browse and explore the context for each line. It definitely reignited an old interest in the Bard and his works.

As a story, however, I still think this book is phenomenal. The characters are all incredibly well developed, complex, and even very sympathetic all in their own way. The plot keeps you on the EDGE of your seat the whole time and I didn’t know how it was going to end until it did end and I also thought the ending was extremely, idk if “satisfying” is the right word but, believable? Let’s say the ending “suited” the story as a whole. The writing style is also excellent, using a lot of tropes from drama and Shakespeare even in the structure of the writing. The sexual tension (half of them queer!) between some of the characters was *chefs kiss* and the atmosphere of the school was one of my favorites yet in a dark academia novel. This is an easy pure five-star rating for me. Definitely will be rereading. 📖👩🏻‍🎓💀💕

“The sky was clear and quiet, stars peering curiously down at us from a wide dome of indigo. The water, too, was still, and I thought, what liars they are, the sky and the water. Still and calm and clear, like everything was fine. It wasn’t fine, and really, it never would be again.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

TW // eating disorder, violence, bullying, sexual violence, prison, drug (including an overdose) & alcohol use (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—

The Secret History, by Donna Tartt—these two books are remarkably similar to the point where if you like one you’ll probably enjoy the other, but also *entirely* different to the point where you couldn’t even begin to really compare them… isn’t that fun??? 😂😂
Oligarchy, by Scarlett Thomas
The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova
Ninth House, by Leigh Bardugo
The Bookman’s Tale, by Charlie Lovett
The Rehearsal, by Eleanor Catton

Content Warnings

inkslate's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective 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

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