Vicious by V.E. Schwab – Review

Published: September 24, 2013

Publisher: Tor Books

Series: Villains #1

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 368 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 5.0/5.0

Synopsis:

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, 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.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?

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Vicious is another book that I put off reading for far too long. Why you may ask? Well, aside from the usual issue of I have too many other books to read, it’s because I just didn’t love A Darker Shade of Magic and was hesitant to start another Schwab book. I did though because it just sounded so cool. And the best part was, once about five pages in I already knew I was going to love it.

Victor Vale is a troubled college student – he’s got a dysfunctional family and takes great joy in making angsty black out poetry from his parents’ self-help books. When his best friend and school golden child Eli Cardale decides to do his senior research on the so-called EO’s (extraordinaries) Victor’s life changes rather quickly. Essentially, the pair conclude that an EO can be created by having a near death (or to be more precise an actual death) experience and they set out to test the hypothesis. Eli and Victor both succeed and gain powers, though not without cost. Long story short, Victor ends up in jail for a decade, gets out and has revenge at the forefront of his thoughts. The story is split into two timelines – the college days ten years prior and the present day with post-jail Victor, his cell-mate Mitch and a young EO named Sydney who is carrying her own grudge against Eli Ever.

This story has the most excellent anti-heroes. Neither Eli nor Victor is really a hero, though in each of their eyes they are. Eli thinks his calling is to kill all the horrid, unnatural EOs and Victor’s is to kill Eli, not because he’s killing other really, but because Eli wronged him all those years ago. I couldn’t help but to root for Victor and most especially tough little Sydney. She came back with a unique and rather useful gift and her young age and rather traumatic life experiences made her fascinating. Mitch was also an interesting character and I spent most of the book wondering if he was an EO as well and if so, what was his gift. It doesn’t become clear for quite a while if he’s a normal dude or not and the mystery was kind of a nice touch.

Overall, I’m extremely happy with this book. It was awesome on many levels and the story was an excellent one, made even more memorable by a cast of delightfully dark characters. I would LOVE to see a screen adaptation of this and I definitely want to read the recently released sequel, Vengeful as soon as time allows!