A review by lyakimov
Vicious by V.E. Schwab

4.0

4.5 stars

This was one of the most hyped books I’ve ever read, and it was actually pretty good. It dragged only a bit, and the characters ended up growing on me, even though it took about a third of the way through to get me to start caring about them. I loved the dynamic between Sydney, Mitch, and Victor, and it was really interesting to see Victor and Eli go from friends to arch-enemies.

As I said, it took me a while for me to start warming up on the characters. I never really grew on many of them, like Eli, though I don’t know if it’s aimed for us to like Eli or hate him, so I really don’t know about that. But pretty much every side character I disliked, none of them interested me. Sydney was definitely my favorite, because I liked her immediately. I connected with her the most, which isn’t surprising, because I don’t think I can connect that well to grown adult men. I liked Mitch, too, and Victor grew on me and I really ended up liking him.

My issue with the book dragging has to do with the flashbacks to when they were at the university and gaining interest in EOs + doing their experiments to turn into ones. To me, the chapters were SO LONG and I was skimming some descriptions because for some reason it just bothered me a lot. I felt like there was a lot of filler within those chapters. Also, I pretty much disliked the chapters in Eli’s perspective because, UGHHH, again, it just bothered me for some reason.

The best part of the book, in my opinion, was the group parts with Victor, Mitch, and Sydney, and the chemistry between them seemed natural and was very enjoyable to read.

This book wasn’t anything I thought it would be, but I still really enjoyed it.