A review by maxgardner
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Hmm...well, I really liked this book to start out. Confirmed, I'm definitely a sucker for dark academia - college is such a pivotal, unique moment in one's life, full of hope, despair, and curiosity, and combining that with murder, it's hard not to be pulled into the story. But as I read on, I grew annoyed with the melodrama of it all and how much of a caricature the main "villain" was. I realize a huge point of this book is to play into that drama because these are stage actors obsessed with Shakespeare, but it ended up feeling like all drama no character development a lot of the time. Starting especially with the scenes leading up to and when the death occurs onward, the book was just a mix of that - me being interested for bits of it and then annoyed and pushing through for the other parts. I found most of the characters insufferable by the end, especially Oliver; they'd each repeat the same behaviors again and again with no growth, and if a character needed to shift their personality and become mysteriously different, Rio would just take them "off screen", which took away some of the stakes and made these shifts less believable. And after all of that, the ending was unsatisfying. Overall, I didn't hate it, didn't love it, wouldn't read it again.