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fifi9527 's review for:
If We Were Villains
by M.L. Rio
I hate the phrase “Tiktok made me buy it” but Tiktok made me buy this book. If We Were Villains was first published in 2017 but I didn’t start hearing about it until recently when there was a surge in popularity thanks to BookTok. Set in the 90s, it tells the story of seven 20-something friends who attend the fictional Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a prestigious and highly competitive American arts school, where they are studying as Shakespearean actors.
This book is heavily inspired by Shakespeare, to the way the book is told; instead of chapters, the story is divided into five acts, and each act divided into scenes, to the way they speak. So much of the dialogue, characterisation, and plot rely on Shakespearean language and formatting that Shakespeare feels like an unofficial narrator, pulling the characters’ strings and feeding them lines. As you read this book it becomes hard to discern between performance and reality with the characters, they seem to be caught between the characters they have played and the people they have become. But After being completely immersed into the world of Shakespeare for three years, it’s no wonder that their roles in the plays have seeped into the real world, creating an intertwined story of fact and fiction.
All of the characters are type-casted in roles that become a highlight of their personality: James; the hero, Oliver; his sidekick, Meredith; the femme fatale and Alexander; the villain. Oliver, the narrator in the novel lives up to his role, he highlights the strengths of his counterparts instead of showing off himself and that becomes visible off stage as well. We constantly see the others through Oliver’s eyes and somehow, he always succeeds in bringing out those hidden parts, the ones that don’t necessarily play into the archetypes they’re supposed to fit into.
This is very much so a dark academia/ gothic novel in the sense that the reader knows about the terrible event before it happens.While also using a nightmarish atmosphere so the reader doesn’t forget this is a tragedy, that even moments where the characters are happy amongst the dread, you know this book doesn’t end well. But that is the genius of a tragedy: you can almost believe, right up until the point of everything collapsing, that it might turn out alright.
I really did not know what I was expecting when I read this book. I was scared I would be turned off by all the Shakespeare references, but after the first few chapters I found myself really enjoying this book. If you despise Shakespeare I would not recommend this book, but if you enjoy Shakespeare, dark academia stories, and slow-burning, atmospheric mysteries this one is right up your alley.
This book is heavily inspired by Shakespeare, to the way the book is told; instead of chapters, the story is divided into five acts, and each act divided into scenes, to the way they speak. So much of the dialogue, characterisation, and plot rely on Shakespearean language and formatting that Shakespeare feels like an unofficial narrator, pulling the characters’ strings and feeding them lines. As you read this book it becomes hard to discern between performance and reality with the characters, they seem to be caught between the characters they have played and the people they have become. But After being completely immersed into the world of Shakespeare for three years, it’s no wonder that their roles in the plays have seeped into the real world, creating an intertwined story of fact and fiction.
All of the characters are type-casted in roles that become a highlight of their personality: James; the hero, Oliver; his sidekick, Meredith; the femme fatale and Alexander; the villain. Oliver, the narrator in the novel lives up to his role, he highlights the strengths of his counterparts instead of showing off himself and that becomes visible off stage as well. We constantly see the others through Oliver’s eyes and somehow, he always succeeds in bringing out those hidden parts, the ones that don’t necessarily play into the archetypes they’re supposed to fit into.
This is very much so a dark academia/ gothic novel in the sense that the reader knows about the terrible event before it happens.While also using a nightmarish atmosphere so the reader doesn’t forget this is a tragedy, that even moments where the characters are happy amongst the dread, you know this book doesn’t end well. But that is the genius of a tragedy: you can almost believe, right up until the point of everything collapsing, that it might turn out alright.
I really did not know what I was expecting when I read this book. I was scared I would be turned off by all the Shakespeare references, but after the first few chapters I found myself really enjoying this book. If you despise Shakespeare I would not recommend this book, but if you enjoy Shakespeare, dark academia stories, and slow-burning, atmospheric mysteries this one is right up your alley.