Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

37 reviews

acrea17's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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

5.0

Wow I l loved this book! It was genre bending (fantasy / sci-fi / thriller) and was so easy to get into. All the characters are so flawed and there’s so many morally grey characters and situations that keep you on your toes and make you unsure who you should root for (the answer is probably no one but the characters are so murky that there’s no clear line for so much of the book.) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Murder, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Police brutality

Minor: Abandonment and Addiction

booksandtea997's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, Violence, and Self harm

Moderate: Gun violence, Violence, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Grief, Drug abuse, Blood, and Alcoholism

Minor: Mental illness

spearly's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

Victor was out. Victor was free.
And Victor was coming for Eli—just as he’d promised he would.

This might surprise you, but Vicious is my first V.E. Schwab book. I never hopped on the Addie LaRue train, and honestly, I'm glad, because this was an excellent introduction into the lyrical writing, world building, and complexities of Victoria Schwab.

10 years ago, college roommates Eli and Victor decide to put a theory to the test - under the right conditions, with enough pain and willpower to live, you can make an ExtraOrdinary person, or EO; regular people who survive a near-death experience and develop incredible powers. But the night Victor comes back from the brink of death is the night everything changed.

I won't lie and say that I love love loved this as much as some of my mutuals. Am I crushing on a verifiable sociopath with powers and a hunger for revenge? No.

Victor Vale and Eli Ever are two very complicated, nuanced, and morally ambiguous characters. Their sense of right and wrong is almost completely manufactured, especially when the both come back after their NDE with that vital part of themselves missing: Eli calls it a soul. I call it humanity. But even before their accidents, there was something dark beneath the surface.

I'm torn, because I love complex characters but when it comes to moral ambiguity.... it's tough. I HATE hypocrites, and I hate hypocritical characters. But like... I know that's the POINT.

There are no good men in this game.

And it's true. Victor Vale is not a good man. Eli Ever is not a good man. They both skew their realities to give themselves some moral superiority where there is none. Eli uses God and faith to justify his work, and Victor uses, tortures, and forces anyone who serves him a purpose. But again... I KNOW THAT'S THE POINT.

That aside though, I appreciated Victor's struggle to fabricate his old, human feelings, his need to do right, even when it didn't come naturally to him. How, in his own way, he did still have people he cared about. I could even see how Eli came to be as Eli was: a man who thought he was touched by God. A man who thought it was his divine purpose to eradicate the world of other EOs. His chapters helped with that. I didn't like them, but they helped.

The world building though was *chef's kiss*. I loved how uncanny if felt. It teeters on the edge of possibility, which I suppose is the marking of a good sci-fi. Atmospheric. A fantasy noir. I could picture the rain and the sizzle of power and the darkness that loomed over a world so similar to our. Juts unknown.

I need a breather I think before I pick up Vengeful, but i will come back to it. I loved Sydney. I loved Mitch. I loved Dol. Justice for Angie.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gore, Gun violence, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Religious bigotry, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Violence

Moderate: Vomit

Minor: Alcoholism, Car accident, Confinement, and Sexual content

fpwoper's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? Yes

5.0

I am so impressed by this book, whoa. I honestly can't wait to delve into the second book (but first... other books to read. Then the second on in this series. I'm going to need to show some restraint here).
Look. Morally grey characters (if they aren't actually all evil, because that's still almost up for debate, because both of them are a little conflicting in their morality), plus special powers... well, you've got me hooked. The fact that we slowly get more information about people's powers, how the ExtraOrdinaries work, but also how this feud between Eli and Victor started... it's just so good. Perfectly balanced and I felt like every character had an actual good motivation for what they were doing instead of just being good or bad - hence the morally grey. Eli is clearly driven by his own motivations, ones that might look eerily familiar to some people, which makes it even more believable. The fact that Eli and Victor's powers both look a little overpowered isn't too much of a detractor, either, because it just makes their feud a) longer; b) more believable; and c) way more enjoyable.
I just love this book, and I cannot wait to pick up the second book.

(The short story Warm Up, by the way, was very short and very much to the point!)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Drug abuse, and Alcoholism

Suicide/Drug abuse/Overdosing explanation:

In order to become an EO, one has to die but survive. Both Eli and Victor commit suicide to become EO, and for Victor, it takes two tries, one of which includes overdosing on drugs and alcohol

forestthieves's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Brilliant. I found myself falling more and more in love with Victor's character, and once I reached the halfway mark I didn't stop until I finished the book. I loved the pacing and the snippets of information until everything came into context. Lots of morally grey and outright evil characters.

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Content Warnings

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

Minor: Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Cursing, and Emotional abuse

junefish's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gun violence, and Torture

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, and Drug abuse

nicolaaa's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Suicide, and Violence

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Body horror, Blood, Drug use, Emotional abuse, and Gore