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A review by bethsbookshelf
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-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
3.75
Okay, this book is genius. I will give it that. No doubt that the other knows her Shakespeare and created a beautiful story inspired by the tragedy and comedy of him. Even as someone who doesn't know Shakespeare THAT well, this was also super accessible. The references were easy to understand, and if I didn't understand them, they were easy enough to look up. But the author still knew best, and did what she set out to do, and overall, I was SUPER inspired by this book from a writer's perspective.
The writing is absolutely magnificent. I was swooning, laughing and screaming all throughout this book. There are so many beautiful quotes, such rich and lovely descriptions, fantastic and funny dialogue, and a brilliant structure (split into 5 acts and multiple scenes). At first I was comparing this book to The Secret History (which I hated) but it's actually nothing like it. This book is written in a much more accessible way; the characters are a bit more relatable; and you don't feel like an idiot if you don't understand the references. Plus, the plot is a little bit more exciting.
The world building was great, too. I loved the setting of Dellecher, the competitiveness of it, the grandness of the castle, the mystery of the lake, and of course, the dark academia vibes. It was such an immersive book and I really did feel like I was there!
I actually loved the characters a lot, too. A few reviews I saw criticised the characters and said they were hard to distinguish between and boring. They quoted a lot. But I liked it. I liked that they had this role within their troupe that was reflected both on stage and off. I would have liked to see a lot more of them acting offstage and how they lied to each other about stuff, but I did really like them and found them all interesting which is a lot to say when there are basically seven main characters!
But let's get into the stuff I didn't like so much.
First, I did enjoy certain plot points in this book, particularly the main plot points. However, it felt like there were SO MANY filler scenes where nothing happened!! I always felt like I was waiting 50-60 pages for the NEXT plot point to happen. There was a lot of "I'll tell you later" from characters and the author, and then the reader was put through another few scenes of the students acting or being elusive, which I didn't really enjoy. It sort of felt like there were 10 cliffhangers throughout the book and by the time the next big event happened, you'd already forgotten about the last cliffhanger.
Which sort of leaders into my issue with pace. The pacing of this was all over the place. I could sit down and sometimes read 60-70 pages and not even have noticed; other times I struggled to read even 10 pages. It was a weird one in that regard. I sometimes felt the author repeated a lot of the same scenes when I'd have liked to see more action/plot moving forward. I would have loved more scenes with Oliver's family, him and James, and James and Meridith. But instead, we just got lots of tea drinking scenes and boring auditons.
Another issue I had was how the characters reacted to the mental health aspects. There is a lot of PTSD, trauma and eating disorder references throughout and it's never really dealt with sensitively. I thought it could have been, while also making sure that these aspects furthered the plot or muddied the investigation.
Speaking of the investigation, and the cops randomly showing up, I didn't feel that was fleshed out that much. I don't know. I just expected a little bit more originality and suspense with the last quarter of the book as everything was revealed.
That being said, I did enjoy the last few pages after Oliver got out of jail. There are some really good theories about the Pericles references which, DUDE, I'm shook. The author really went for it with those references!
This would be such a fun book to analyse and close read in a literature degree! But overall, I did enjoy my reading experience and definitely recommend this book. I can see why people love it, but I can also see why people hate it lol.
The writing is absolutely magnificent. I was swooning, laughing and screaming all throughout this book. There are so many beautiful quotes, such rich and lovely descriptions, fantastic and funny dialogue, and a brilliant structure (split into 5 acts and multiple scenes). At first I was comparing this book to The Secret History (which I hated) but it's actually nothing like it. This book is written in a much more accessible way; the characters are a bit more relatable; and you don't feel like an idiot if you don't understand the references. Plus, the plot is a little bit more exciting.
The world building was great, too. I loved the setting of Dellecher, the competitiveness of it, the grandness of the castle, the mystery of the lake, and of course, the dark academia vibes. It was such an immersive book and I really did feel like I was there!
I actually loved the characters a lot, too. A few reviews I saw criticised the characters and said they were hard to distinguish between and boring. They quoted a lot. But I liked it. I liked that they had this role within their troupe that was reflected both on stage and off. I would have liked to see a lot more of them acting offstage and how they lied to each other about stuff, but I did really like them and found them all interesting which is a lot to say when there are basically seven main characters!
But let's get into the stuff I didn't like so much.
First, I did enjoy certain plot points in this book, particularly the main plot points. However, it felt like there were SO MANY filler scenes where nothing happened!! I always felt like I was waiting 50-60 pages for the NEXT plot point to happen. There was a lot of "I'll tell you later" from characters and the author, and then the reader was put through another few scenes of the students acting or being elusive, which I didn't really enjoy. It sort of felt like there were 10 cliffhangers throughout the book and by the time the next big event happened, you'd already forgotten about the last cliffhanger.
Which sort of leaders into my issue with pace. The pacing of this was all over the place. I could sit down and sometimes read 60-70 pages and not even have noticed; other times I struggled to read even 10 pages. It was a weird one in that regard. I sometimes felt the author repeated a lot of the same scenes when I'd have liked to see more action/plot moving forward. I would have loved more scenes with Oliver's family, him and James, and James and Meridith. But instead, we just got lots of tea drinking scenes and boring auditons.
Another issue I had was how the characters reacted to the mental health aspects. There is a lot of PTSD, trauma and eating disorder references throughout and it's never really dealt with sensitively. I thought it could have been, while also making sure that these aspects furthered the plot or muddied the investigation.
Speaking of the investigation, and the cops randomly showing up, I didn't feel that was fleshed out that much. I don't know. I just expected a little bit more originality and suspense with the last quarter of the book as everything was revealed.
That being said, I did enjoy the last few pages after Oliver got out of jail. There are some really good theories about the Pericles references which, DUDE, I'm shook. The author really went for it with those references!
This would be such a fun book to analyse and close read in a literature degree! But overall, I did enjoy my reading experience and definitely recommend this book. I can see why people love it, but I can also see why people hate it lol.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit