Reviews with content warning for Violence - Vengeful

Schwab just has a way of making you understand and sympathize with the villains and see death and destruction as an everyday occurrence …
I did not think that I would like introducing a new main character this much, but Marcella is very interesting to follow (although she did girl boss a little too close to the sun). How does one fight evil? And how does one differentiate good and evil? When do power and greed become your downfall?
The ending leaves you satisfied and yet wanting for more.

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corin_134340's review against another edition

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emotional tense slow-paced

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

3.5

Way too many time jumps, too confusing that way. —> felt like they were more frequent than in the first book? Or at least they didn’t come off as this confusing
I really don’t need the back story and povs of all the new characters, that’s not why I’m reading the second book of a series, also there’s too many new characters that seem to be important for the main plot (I wanted more Victor, Mick, Syd and Eli, not whatever this was)
On the same note: random side characters getting povs is just so unnecessary (e.g. that one doctor, just to tell me he’s shady? I could have guessed that without wasting my time on a chapter from his point of view) —> makes me think that the author assumes the readers aren’t smart enough to guess the stuff that’s not being said. We are. The story is not that complicated. Subtext is a thing.
Feel like comments 1 to 3 are the reason why the book is almost 600 pages long. But a lot of the chapters feel like fillers and I really could have done without them. —> book needs more "show, don’t tell", hate it when I’m handed every small piece of information (let the readers guess, don’t hand them everything)
Definite Pro: Victor confirmed somewhere on the ace spectrum
Still like the writing style (most of the time)

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alexandrabelze's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.25

i have so many issues with this book idek where to start. i actually enjoyed the first one and got so excited for this one (especially after reading marcella’s intro chapters), but this was just disappointing. victoria tried to fit WAY too many storylines and new characters into this book. and it doesn’t help her case that her storytelling was, at times, extremely messy. on top of that, the structure of these books did not help that issue at all. i also could not vibe with june’s character. which is disappointing bc her power is cool. anyways i’m about to go off in the spoiler <3

first of all, i expected that when sydney found out that victor was the one who killed serena it would be more dramatic? maybe a little tense? but instead i was let down and we moved on almost immediately. like hello??? next, and i hate to say this, i think dol should have stayed dead this time. i’m glad victoria kept him for a majority of the story, but it would’ve felt more complete to add him to the final deaths. and it would’ve built up sydney’s character. speaking of building her character, WHY did we go through ALL of that with the dead birds just for sydney to decide in ONE PARAGRAPH that she did not want to revive serena?? i honestly would’ve preferred she tried it and failed. finally, eli’s death was boring. i was expecting an insane emotional battle between him and victor that ended in something so dramatic and lowkey sensual, but instead he just…died. like that was next level disappointing.

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lauraeerika's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

there was no reason for this book to be so fucking long & messy at the same time!?
where was the editor?
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everything else in this book chef’s kiss, i just couldn’t care less about the constant pov change’s, im still thinking why did stell have a pov?
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the thing is i love v.e.schwab’s writing but to me there was so much going on that everything that we were supposed care about kind of were swept under the rug of the action and by the end of it, i was just so confused
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don’t know if i’ll read the third book (i kind of consider vicious now a standalone in my mind)

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