Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Vengeful by V.E. Schwab

115 reviews

lily_marigold's review

adventurous dark tense fast-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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Physical abuse, Torture, Animal death, and Sexual harassment

lizgriffinwords's review against another edition

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

5.0

It’s been days since I finished this book and I still don’t know how to adequately sum it up. The Villians Verse is closely tied with Darker Shades for my favorite of Schwab’s universes. The tension grips the reader relentlessly, and though there are many POVs and timeline shifts, I never felt lost. Learning Eli’s backstory brings so much sympathy to his character, his faith and guilt and implied neurodivergence all ring so true.

CW: death, murder, violence (including gun violence)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Murder, and Gun violence

Moderate: Torture, Suicide attempt, and Medical trauma

Minor: Domestic abuse

snapweed's review against another edition

dark 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Death, Blood, Gun violence, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Animal death, Medical trauma, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Sexual assault

mini_malist's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Murder, Death, Violence, and Torture

queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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? No

5.0

5 ⭐ CW: violence, gun violence, domestic abuse, child abuse, suicide, murder, sexual content, prescription drug misuse, torture, medical horror, descriptions of blood and gore 

Vengeful by V.E. Schwab is book 2 in the Villains duology. I loved this book just as much as the first one! Everyone is so delightfully awful, evil, and morally gray. 

This book doesn't focus as much on Victor Vale's pov, but we do still get to see what he's up to, but we get a lot of other pov chapters from some of the other characters, including some randos every now and then. Mostly we get POVs from Victor, Eli, Stell, Sydney, June, and Marcella. 

Since last book, Stell has created an organization called EON, ExtraOrdinary Neutralization, designed to hunt and contain EOs. Which brings us to the new EO introduced in this book, Marcella, a wife of a mob boss who has the ability to Ruin anything (metals rusts, wood decays, people shrivel into dust, etc.). She is deliciously wicked, gives no shits, and will not hide. Marcella wants power, and even though she is scary and a little bit (a lot a bit) of a sociopath, you can almost understand where she is coming from as a woman who has been only seen as a beautiful object with no say in anything. 

We get a lot more of Eli's backstory in this one, and it becomes quite clear that even before his forced near death experience, he was a psychopath. We also get more Sydney chapters this book, so we see how her ability has affected her in terms of aging (or lack of aging). This book kept me wanting more, and was difficult to put down. I flew through the end, because it was so fast paced. 

I loved these books! This definitely satisfies my TBR card prompt for Antagonist: a book your favorite villain would read. Since Victor is my favorite villain right now, I'd have to say he'd enjoy reading this, especially about Eli. I may have to look into borrowing the EO graphic novels now, since I'm not ready to let this world go. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Torture, Violence, Medical trauma, Gun violence, Child abuse, Suicide, Murder, Drug abuse, and Blood

Moderate: Sexual content

mpbookreviews's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, Drug use, Cursing, Medical content, Murder, Physical abuse, Torture, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

annierose's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-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

4.75

I liked Vengeful better than the first book in the series, probably mainly because it was considerably longer and took more time to build the story and the tension, even if it sacrificed the faster pace. I really feel like Eli's backstory slowed things down a little in this book and I think it should've been included in the first one instead, which in my opinion was missing some background for the characters. Another thing that bothered me a little was the amount of PoVs. I would've preferred if we'd just had three or four of them to follow. Some chapters felt a little bit like tangents and I think the info in them could've been included in other more creative ways into the main story. 

Overall, I enjoyed most of the characters in this book and seeing the tension build between them got me excited for the showdown at the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, and Violence

Minor: Child abuse

kt2e56's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

5.0

Vengeful is to Vicious what Part II was to the first Godfather. Just so phenomenal from start to finish. It brought back characters we were already glued to in the first book but also gave us some brand new ones that actually wind up stealing the show a bit, including Marcella Morgan who is a “Good for Her” baddie for the ages. This was a satisfying conclusion to Victor and Eli’s story but honestly, Schwab is so talented that I’d absolutely read more about this world and these characters if she were to bring them out again to play some more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Torture, Violence, Hate crime, Forced institutionalization, Death, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Suicide attempt, Drug abuse, Addiction, Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, Pedophilia, Infidelity, and Drug use

sunrae_booknook's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

I loved this book so much. I usually am not a fan of book two but this was better than the first. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Violence, Gun violence, Drug use, and Death

Minor: Chronic illness, Confinement, Animal death, Cursing, Gaslighting, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Violence

aimicampbell's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Torture, Gun violence, and Death

Minor: Self harm, Rape, and Suicide attempt