Reviews tagging 'Outing'

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

17 reviews

geerbeer's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Heerlijk boek. Zou 5 sterren krijgen als het niet zóveel Shakespear was. Ik vind het heel vet gedaan, maar mijn Engels en kennis van Shakespear is niet goed genoeg om alles écht goed te begrijpen.

Ik houd wel echt van de meta dingetjes, dat de hoofdstukken geschreven zijn als aktes e.d. en ook hoe Shakespear-drama het allemaal is. Super goede en mooie world building en de karakters ook allemaal voldoende uniek om goed te kunnen volgen 😊

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bootsmom3's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0


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carajewels's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

3.5

i have so many thoughts for this book, the first being SECRET HISTORY TEASE!! a tight knit group of twentysomethings a bit too immersed in academia and suddenly one of them dies and everyone is wondering what happens? yeahh i think ive seen this before! of course, books can take inspiration from others, and for what it’s worth this book didn’t feel like a complete copy of TSH, it felt more heavily inspired. i definitely think there were direct nods to TSH (greek students, bacchanalian parties), however the story clearly diverged from TSH numerous times.
 
personally, i couldn’t stand the tension between james and oliver. these bitches are so obviously in love!! and we have to wait the WHOLE BOOK for them to admit it??? and see them pretend to be straight in the meantime? why? i don’t get it it’s not like they’re homophobic, they’re clearly accepting of alexander. additionally, gwendolyn is supposedly this all-seeing figure that can psychologically rip them apart in her classes, yet she is painfully oblivious to the romance b/w james and oliver, which everyone else seems to have picked up on. it’s just very convenient that she never brought it up in front of them. 

i loved the constant, almost overbearing use of shakespeare! at first i didn’t want to read this book until i was more well-read on his works (i’ve only read R+J, hamlet, and macbeth) but the book was perfectly readable without that knowledge. however, i’d love to reread it after reading more of his works to understand more. i love that ML Rio has a masters in shakespeare studies, there were definitely references that she put it in that i didn’t understand.  

i’m conflicted about the characters. james and oliver were the ones i was paying keen attention to the entire time because i could tell from the first chapter they were in love. i couldn’t stand seeing oliver and meredith together, and meredith’s character i liked as she made me sad. i could see she is very lonely and felt the need to be with oliver because of that, but their romance were the worst pages of the books. wren i don’t really know that much about, she’s blonde and the best actress and in love with james? aside from her fainting i don’t think her character served many purposes. alexander and colborne were probably my favorites as they provided much needed comedic relief numerous times (idc that colborne was the cop investigating the crime that’s my king), and filippa was also a favorite of mine as she was so no-bullshit. i loved how in the end she finally spoke of her family, information she had always withheld until oliver was incarcerated. 

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scifipunk's review against another edition

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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.

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shelfofunread's review against another edition

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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


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cdt96's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

M.L Rio writes betrayal, loss, guilt and love excellently the characters are well rounded yet perfectly represent their given archetypes. Overall an excellent book 

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_piercingwords_'s review against another edition

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challenging 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? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A really intense read that got me out of a reading slump. 

The story feels very real, on an emotional rather than logical level. The structure is a nice touch and fitting for the Shakespeare centered story. There's a lot to be analysed, a lot of foreshadowing and parallels to the plays alluded to in the book;
definitely a book you need to read in depth to really be able to appreciate the thought put into it, I will have to read it again, more thoroughly and with the knowledge of everything happening.

In the end, it is a love story, in a twisted, untraditional way.
It left me with a few questions unanswered but I couldn't put it down, the tension high until the last page and I do recommend it, especially to Shakespeare lovers.


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aastedorgli's review against another edition

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challenging dark hopeful mysterious slow-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

5.0

This is a for specially interested people, if you have no interest for shakespear, that is litterally the whole book. You’ll get enoguht if you have an interest for ancient rome (specifically Julius Ceasar). If you search up quotes you’ll get a better reading experience

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itsheyfay'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? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5


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vthecreature's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-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

Great read, slipped right down the gullet. The characters reminded me a lot of the characters I met during my stint in HS theater. The balance of personalities worked well together and the characters had pretty distinct voices, but as a result of this they sometimes felt like archetypes, especially Richard (the violent man) and Meredith (the promiscuous girl). The tension and confusion was great, and I think Oliver was a good choice for the POV character since he’s famously oblivious and we get to watch the story unravel alongside him (besides the fact that he went down for the crime). I loved the parallels drawn between Meredith and James, it perfectly encapsulates Oliver’s confusion and indecision. And the Shakespeare quotes they all use, go so well with their situations and feelings. God they’re all so dramatic. Real obnoxious theater kids but it’s so believable and fun. I loved their mysterious little productions where the castings were a surprise. It added so much tension to the group as their roles shifted and they all began to lose their minds. The theatercest was also very prominent which was realistic but grossed me out sometimes. There strong queer themes in this. Does it have a happy ending?
Not really. Oliver gets out of prison but by then James has drowned himself from guilt, and the last few lines are about how his body was never found. The other characters seemed to be doing alright though.
Overall beautifully written, tense, emotional, and a bit frustrating at times. 

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