Vicious (The Villains, #1)

by V.E. Schwab

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates-brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in one another. A shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death-experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. They become EOs, ExtraOrdinaries, leaving a body in their wake and turning on each other.

Ten years later Victor has escaped from prison and is determined to get his revenge on the man who put him there, aided by a young girl with the ability to raise the dead. Eli has spent the years hunting down and killing every EO he can find, convinced that they are a crime against God, all except his sidekick, a woman whose power is persuasion and whom he cannot defy. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the arch-nemeses have set a course for revenge-but who will be left alive at the end?

• ISBN13: 9781783290215
• Publish Date: 10 January 2014 (first published 24 September 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Titan Books Ltd
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[Joséphine]

I think I liked Vicious even more upon my re-read. Glad I picked it up after my partner decided to read it when I recommended it. Definitely looking forward to discussing all the good stuff when he’s done reading too.

[tylerrosereads]

So this was my first V.E. Schwab book and WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG!?!?!

It was not overly complex but so engaging, and SO WELL WRITTEN oh my gosh. WOW I highly recommend. I loved the characters and the short chapters leads to this book being extremely difficult to put down.

[Leah]

I absolutely loved this. It's my first read of 2020 and it was just magnificent. It's my first ever Schwab novel but I'm already excited to dive into all her other books.

I loved Victor and Mitch and Sydney and I'm excited to see where the sequel goes.

[Witty and Sarcastic Bookclub]

DNF- the self-harm angle was upsetting me. Someone tell me how this ends!

[littleread1]

So good, I immediately ordered the 2nd book.

[Laurie]

This hurts me, but I just couldn’t really get through the book. I will try Vengeful but there is an audiobook available for that so maybe that will suit me better.

[lauriesbookshelf]

This hurts me, but I just couldn’t really get through the book. I will try Vengeful but there is an audiobook available for that so maybe that will suit me better.

This book was very interesting, but somehow it did not grip me. I think I expected too much of it because of the hype. At the same time, I did not want to put the book down, all the characters were very complex, and the time jumping made it even better. At first, I was hesitant if going back and forth in the story would not hinder me, but it did not, surprisingly! It was very well done and I can only have the respect for Victoria Schwab, it was a risk and she mastered it.

This book builds up to Eli and Victor meeting, but since I did not care about Victor, I was kinda bored reading about him. The POV switches often, but I feel like most of the book is written from Victor's POV. I really enjoyed every other character, Eli, Serena, Mitch, Sydney, everyone was complex and interesting. Every character was morally grey and did a lot of bad things to be honest, which is also the point of the book.

Even though there was a lot of action in this book, I think I missed the parts where people came to understand why Victor did what he did. Maybe I have misread something or missed a page somehow, but I only hated him and was secretly rooting for the other bad guys instead of being torn between both are bad and evil but also a bit understandable, which I thought was the main thing I would feel throughout this book.

Also, the abilities of the EOs suited them perfectly, and I understand why they are the way they are, but it was just so necessary for the story that it felt a bit 'yeah, of course, he can do this' because we need it in the story. I would have liked to see just a complex character without a gift that suits their problem perfectly.

Don't get me wrong, VE Schwab did a wonderful job and this book is very good. My expectations were too high for this book and I was a bit disappointed. I liked it, but I did not like it enough for four stars because it was just entertaining. It did not grip me as some other books did. I am really excited to read the next book in this series, Vengeful, and see how the story and characters develop.

[jamiereadthis]

But these words people threw around— humans, monsters, heroes, villains— to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.

Nine times out of ten, I’m more interested in the villains when it comes to stories. So there’s no way I wasn’t going to be into this book.

[reveriesociety_]

This is definitely one of those books you can read again and again. The magic doesn't really leave. Loved it!