Who’s Villaining the Villains?

Guilty until proven innocent – EON

Vicious, by V.E. Schwab, was a wonderful book, a kind of dark fantasy that’s right up my alley. The storytelling was fantastic, so much so that I devoured its pages one after another, finishing it so quickly that it left me wanting more. Both Victor and Eli are great, broken characters, humans already way above average in looks or intelligence, but not so much that it becomes surreal. They felt fairly real, and broken in all the right ways, full of flaws and mental disorders gifted to them by their non-loving parents. The whole thing about figuring out how to acquire powers and how that twists their personalities was just wonderful. Broken people getting extra broken. Heroes that are actually villains. Villains that are actually heroes. Just perfect.

So when I saw there was a second book, Vengeful, it was a no-brainer. I got it without a second thought.

And what a disappointment.

I mean, the core of the story, the style of Schwab’s storytelling, Victor and Eli, is still there, and it’s still very good. But it’s not everything. Unfortunately, I had to endure a lot of terrible parts so I could be rewarded with the good ones.

And it all comes down to Marcella and her plot.

Every time Marcella appears on the page, the storytelling takes a turn. It’s like I’m not reading a dark fantasy anymore, but one of those cheap, short, soft-porn stories you used to find on newspaper stands, next to the crosswords, some comic books, and, of course, newspapers. Everything about her is just bad. The narrative style changes, which is already annoying, but her character is so forced, so strange, she doesn’t fit in at all with the rest of the cast. It’s like she’s an extreme version of an already extreme trope. A caricature.

Victor, Eli, Sydney, Serena, they became a bit more extreme after gaining their powers, sure, but they still felt grounded. Understandable. Marcella, on the other hand, is too much. Maybe in another kind of story, her character would work. But here, in Villains, surrounded by so many other better characters, she’s just bad.

And I had to endure her every time she showed up, which was far too often. Everything else in the book is still great. Even the other new characters are mostly solid. Well, not all of them. There’s also Jonathan, another terrible character who feels like an afterthought. Probably added just to give Marcella an extra power. And even with Jonathan, she doesn’t do much of anything.

Honestly, if you removed every page and paragraph where Marcella appears, the book would still make perfect sense. The story would still progress normally. Victor’s crew wouldn’t be impacted. Eli and EON wouldn’t be impacted. The only moment that might need replacing is the final party, but that could’ve been rewritten easily. Some new EO planning to kill the Mayor or some other leadership figure during a political event? Done. Simple.

And EON, this whole “Guilty until proven innocent” thing is a fantastic mirror of the common real-world police, wonderfully portrayed on this dark urban fantasy, shoot first, lock them all first, ask questions later.

I would love a refund for the time I wasted on Marcella’s plot. But on the other hand, I still loved everything else. Victor, Sydney, June, Mitch, Eli, Stell, Dominic, even Dol!! All great characters with great stories. I enjoyed their parts of the book very much. It’s just that 20–30% of what I read that was trash.

If there’s a third book, I’ll still want to read it. But I won’t go for it as viciously as I did with this second one.