claragrsn 's review for:

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

5.0

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"The thing about Shakespeare is, he's so eloquent... He speaks the unspeakable. He turns grief and triumph and rapture and rage into words, into something we can understand. He renders the whole mystery of humanity comprehensible."

re-read [16/03/2024] : my heart aches

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first read [26/01/2022] : everyone go read this book RIGHT NOW !! it was sitting on my shelf for months before i finally decided to pick it up, and now i'm incredibly angry at myself for not doing it sooner! if you're familiar with Shakespeare and enjoy reading dark academia novels such as The Secret History, you'll adore If We Were Villains. i wouldn't say that having a deep knowledge of Shakespeare and his work is absolutely necessary though—personally, i'm not an expert—, but it just enhances your reading experience!

seriously, this book is a masterpiece. i fell so deeply in love with both the story and the characters that it took me several days to, one, get over it, and two, be able to organize my thoughts in order to write this review.

you follow seven theater students in their fourth and final year at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, and quickly discover that the novel is in fact a murder mystery revolving around this little group of students. first of all, i loved that even though you can kind of predict who the author of the crime is—M.L. Rio uses quite a lot of foreshadowing throughout the story if you pay attention to the Shakespeare quotes—, the whole unveiling of the mystery is enthralling, especially from Oliver's (the protagonist) viewpoint.

it was absolutely genius on the author's part to not only create theater students and leave it at that, but to structure the entire story in parallel with the dramatic genre. there is a division in acts and scenes (with prologues at the beginning of each act that help us progressively uncover the truth), but furthermore it contains precisely five acts, just like Shakespeare's plays, which basically follow the pattern: exposition, complication, climax, falling action, denouement.

i won't spoil the ending but i am a huge fan of the way the author left it up for interpretation; i did have to do a little research in order to understand exactly everything it could mean, but once i did this it became all the more interesting!

i will conclude this review by saying that I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR JAMES AND OLIVER!! my absolute babies they deserve the whole entire world !! M.L. Rio really knows how to create complex—sometimes morally gray—characters that you can't help but love anyway <3