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15,391 ratings
A trade paperback repackage of New York Times bestseller V.E. Schwab's Vicious, a masterful tale of ambition, jealousy, and superpowers which will include:
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?
In Vicious, V. E. Schwab brings to life a gritty comic-book-style world in vivid prose: a world where gaining superpowers doesn't automatically lead to heroism, and a time when allegiances are called into question.
"A dynamic and original twist on what it means to be a hero and a villain. A killer from page one…highly recommended!" ―Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Marvel Universe vs The Avengers and Patient Zero
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ISBN-10
1250183502
ISBN-13
978-1250183507
Print length
400 pages
Language
English
Publisher
Tor Books
Publication date
May 28, 2018
Dimensions
5.4 x 1.2 x 8.2 inches
Item weight
2.31 pounds
When no one understands, that’s usually a good sign that you’re wrong.
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Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.
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All Eli had to do was smile. All Victor had to do was lie. Both proved frighteningly effective.
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B00CQY7WBI
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Entertainment Weekly's 27 Female Authors Who Rule Sci-Fi and Fantasy Right Now
"Fresh, merciless, and, yes, vicious. Wow." ―Mira Grant, New York Times bestselling author of the Newsflesh Trilogy
“Schwab's characters feel vital and real, never reduced to simple archetypes... In a genre that tends toward the flippant or pretentious, this is a rare superhero novel as epic and gripping as any classic comic. Schwab's tale of betrayal, self-hatred, and survival will resonate with superhero fans as well as readers who have never heard of Charles Xavier or Victor von Doom.” ―Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A fun, morally-flexible revenge tale...Vicious methodically ratchets up the tension as Victor and Eli circle each other for the inevitable kill.” ―Daniel H. Wilson, NYT bestselling author of Robopocalypse
“Schwab gathers all the superhero/supervillain tropes and turns them on their sundry heads.... I could not put it down.” ―F. Paul Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of the Repairman Jack series
“Vicious is dark and intricate and daring, twisting back and forth through time and morality and life and death until you can't turn the pages fast enough. I loved it.” ―Dan Wells, author of I Am Not a Serial Killer
“An epic collision of super-powered nemeses. The writing and storycraft is Schwab's own superpower as this tale leaps off the page in all its dark, four-color comic-book glory.” ―Chuck Wendig, author of Blackbirds
“Utterly brilliant. Schwab takes the notion of superhero fiction and bashes it on its head...prepare to be thoroughly entertained.” ―Jackie Kessler, coauthor of Black and White
“A noirish cross between the X-Men and 'The Count of Monte Cristo.' You won't be able to stop turning the pages.” ―Alex Bledsoe, author of The Hum and the Shiver
“V.E. Schwab writes with the fiendish ingenuity, sardonic wit, and twisted imagination of a true supervillain.” ―Greg Cox, New York Times bestselling author
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I
LAST NIGHT
MERIT CEMETERY
VICTOR readjusted the shovels on his shoulder and stepped gingerly over an old, half-sunken grave. His trench billowed faintly, brushing the tops of tombstones as he made his way through Merit Cemetery, humming as he went. The sound carried like wind through the dark. It made Sydney shiver in her too big coat and her rainbow leggings and her winter boots as she trudged along behind him. The two looked like ghosts as they wove through the graveyard, both blond and fair enough to pass for siblings, or perhaps father and daughter. They were neither, but the resemblance certainly came in handy since Victor couldn’t very well tell people he’d picked up the girl on the side of a rain-soaked road a few days before. He’d just broken out of jail. She’d just been shot. A crossing of fates, or so it seemed. In fact, Sydney was the only reason Victor was beginning to believe in fate at all.
He stopped humming, rested his shoe lightly on a tombstone, and scanned the dark. Not with his eyes so much as with his skin, or rather with the thing that crept beneath it, tangled in his pulse. He might have stopped humming, but the sensation never did, keeping on with a faint electrical buzz that only he could hear and feel and read. A buzz that told him when someone was near.
Sydney watched him frown slightly.
“Are we alone?” she asked.
Victor blinked, and the frown was gone, replaced by the even calm he always wore. His shoe slid from the gravestone. “Just us and the dead.”
They made their way into the heart of the cemetery, the shovels tapping softly on Victor’s shoulder as they went. Sydney kicked a loose rock that had broken off from one of the older graves. She could see that there were letters, parts of words, etched into one side. She wanted to know what they said, but the rock had already tumbled into the weeds, and Victor was still moving briskly between the graves. She ran to catch up, nearly tripping several times over the frozen ground before she reached him. He’d come to a stop, and was staring down at a grave. It was fresh, the earth turned over and a temporary marker driven into the soil until a stone one could be cut.
Sydney made a noise, a small groan of discomfort that had nothing to do with the biting cold. Victor glanced back and offered her the edge of a smile.
“Buck up, Syd,” he said casually. “It’ll be fun.”
Truth be told, Victor didn’t care for graveyards, either. He didn’t like dead people, mostly because he had no effect on them. Sydney, conversely, didn’t like dead people because she had such a marked effect on them. She kept her arms crossed tightly over her chest, one gloved thumb rubbing the spot on her upper arm where she’d been shot. It was becoming a tic.
Victor turned and sunk one of the spades into the earth. He then tossed the other one to Sydney, who unfolded her arms just in time to catch it. The shovel was almost as tall as she was. A few days shy of her thirteenth birthday, and even for twelve and eleven twelfths, Sydney Clarke was small. She had always been on the short side, but it certainly didn’t help that she had barely grown an inch since the day she’d died.
Now she hefted the shovel, grimacing at the weight.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.
“The faster we dig, the faster we get to go home.”
Home wasn’t home so much as a hotel room stocked only with Sydney’s stolen clothes, Mitch’s chocolate milk, and Victor’s files, but that wasn’t the point. At this moment, home would have been any place that wasn’t Merit Cemetery. Sydney eyed the grave, tightening her fingers on the wooden grip. Victor had already begun to dig.
“What if…,” she said, swallowing, “… what if the other people accidentally wake up?”
“They won’t,” cooed Victor. “Just focus on this grave. Besides…” He looked up from his work. “Since when are you afraid of bodies?”
“I’m not,” she snapped back, too fast and with all the force of someone used to being the younger sibling. Which she was. Just not Victor’s.
“Look at it this way,” he teased, dumping a pile of dirt onto the grass. “If you do wake them up, they can’t go anywhere. Now dig.”
Sydney leaned forward, her short blond hair falling into her eyes, and began to dig. The two worked in the dark, only Victor’s occasional humming and the thud of the shovels filling the air.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
II
TEN YEARS AGO
LOCKLAND UNIVERSITY
VICTOR drew a steady, straight, black line through the word marvel.
The paper they’d printed the text on was thick enough to keep the ink from bleeding through, so long as he didn’t press down too hard. He stopped to reread the altered page, and winced as one of the metal flourishes on Lockland University’s wrought-iron fence dug into his back. The school prided itself on its country-club-meets-Gothic-manor ambience, but the ornate railing that encircled Lockland, though striving to evoke both the university’s exclusive nature and its old-world aesthetic, succeeded only in being pretentious and suffocating. It reminded Victor of an elegant cage.
He shifted his weight and repositioned the book on his knee, wondering at the sheer size of it as he twirled the Sharpie over his knuckles. It was a self-help book, the latest in a series of five, by the world-renowned Drs. Vale. The very same Vales who were currently on an international tour. The very same Vales who had budgeted just enough time in their busy schedules—even back before they were best-selling “empowerment gurus”—to produce Victor.
He thumbed back through the pages until he found the beginning of his most recent undertaking and began to read. For the first time he wasn’t effacing a Vale book simply for pleasure. No, this was for credit. Victor couldn’t help but smile. He took an immense pride in paring down his parents’ works, stripping the expansive chapters on empowerment down to simple, disturbingly effective messages. He’d been blacking them out for more than a decade now, since he was ten, a painstaking but satisfying affair, but until last week he’d never been able to count it for anything as useful as school credit. Last week, when he’d accidentally left his latest project in the art studios over lunch—Lockland University had a mandatory art credit, even for budding doctors and scientists—he’d come back to his teacher poring over it. He’d expected a reprimand, some lecture on the cultural cost of defacing literature, or maybe the material cost of paper. Instead, the teacher had taken the literary destruction as art. He’d practically supplied the explanation, filled in any blanks using terms such as expression, identity, found art, reshaping.
Victor had only nodded, and offered a perfect word to the end of the teacher’s list—rewriting—and just like that, his senior art thesis had been determined.
The marker hissed as he drew another line, blotting out several sentences in the middle of the page. His knee was going numb from the weight of the tome. If he were in need of self-help, he would search for a thin, simple book, one whose shape mimicked its promise. But maybe some people needed more. Maybe some people scanned the shelves for the heftiest one, assuming that more pages meant more emotional or psychological aid. He skimmed the words and smiled as he found another section to ink out.
By the time the first bell rang, signaling the end of Victor’s art elective, he’d turned his parents’ lectures on how to start the day into:
Be lost. Give up. give In. in the end It would be better to surrender before you begin. be lost. Be lost And then you will not care if you are ever found.
He’d had to strike through entire paragraphs to make the sentence perfect after he accidentally marked out ever and had to go on until he found another instance of the word. But it was worth it. The pages of black that stretched between if you are and ever and found gave the words just the right sense of abandonment.
Victor heard someone coming, but didn’t look up. He flipped through to the back of the book, where he’d been working on a separate exercise. The Sharpie cut through another paragraph, line by line, the sound as slow and even as breathing. He’d marveled, once, that his parents’ books were in fact self-help, simply not in the way they’d intended. He found their destruction incredibly soothing, a kind of meditation.
“Vandalizing school property again?”
Victor looked up to find Eli standing over him. The library-plastic cover crinkled beneath his fingertips as he tipped the book up to show Eli the spine, where VALE was printed in bold capital letters. He wasn’t about to pay $25.99 when Lockland’s library had such a suspiciously extensive collection of Vale-doctrine self-help. Eli took the book from him and skimmed.
“Perhaps … it is … in … our … best interest to … to surrender … to give up … rather than waste … words.”
Victor shrugged. He wasn’t done yet.
“You have an extra to, before surrender,” said Eli, tossing the book back.
Victor caught it and frowned, tracing his finger through the makeshift sentence until he found his mistake, and efficiently blotted out the word.
“You’ve got too much time, Vic.”
“You must make time for that which matters,” he recited, “for that which defines you: your passion, your progress, your pen. Take it up, and write your own story.”
Eli looked at him for a long moment, brow crinkling. “That’s awful.”
“It’s from the introduction,” said Victor. “Don’t worry, I blacked it out.” He flipped back through the pages, a web of thin letters and fat black lines, until he reached the front. “They totally murdered Emerson.”
Eli shrugged. “All I know is that book is a sniffer’s dream,” he said. He was right, the four Sharpies Victor had gone through in converting the book to art had given it an incredibly strong odor, one which Victor found at once entrancing and revolting. He got enough of a high from the destruction itself, but he supposed the smell was an unexpected addition to the project’s complexity, or so the art teacher would spin it. Eli leaned back against the rail. His rich brown hair caught the too bright sun, bringing out reds and even threads of gold. Victor’s hair was a pale blond. When the sunlight hit him, it didn’t bring out any colors, but only accentuated the lack of color, making him look more like an old-fashioned photo than a flesh-and-blood student.
Eli was still staring down at the book in Victor’s hands.
“Doesn’t the Sharpie ruin whatever’s on the other side?”
“You’d think,” said Victor. “But they use this freakishly heavy paper. Like they want the weight of what they’re saying to sink in.”
Eli’s laugh was drowned by the second bell, ringing out across the emptying quad. The bells weren’t buzzers, of course—Lockland was too civilized—but they were loud, and almost ominous, a single deep church bell from the spiritual center that sat in the middle of campus. Eli cursed and helped Victor to his feet, already turning toward the huddle of science buildings, faced in rich red brick to make them seem less sterile. Victor took his time. They still had a minute before the final bell sounded, and even if they were late, the teachers would never mark them down. All Eli had to do was smile. All Victor had to do was lie. Both proved frighteningly effective.
VICTOR sat in the back of his Comprehensive Science Seminar—a course designed to reintegrate students of various scientific disciplines for their senior theses—learning about research methods. Or at least being told about research methods. Distressed by the fact that the class relied on laptops, and since striking through words on a screen hardly gave him the same satisfaction, Victor had taken to watching the other students sleep, doodle, stress out, listen, and pass digital notes. Unsurprisingly, they failed to hold his interest for long, and soon his gaze drifted past them, and past the windows, and past the lawn. Past everything.
His attention was finally dragged back to the lecture when Eli’s hand went up. Victor hadn’t caught the question, but he watched his roommate smile his perfect all-American-political-candidate smile before he answered. Eliot—Eli—Cardale had started out as a predicament. Victor had been none too happy to find the lanky, brown-haired boy standing in the doorway of his dorm a month into sophomore year. His first roommate had experienced a change of heart in the first week (through no fault of Victor’s, of course) and had promptly dropped out. Due either to a shortage of students or perhaps a filing error made possible by fellow sophomore Max Hall’s penchant for any Lockland-specific hacking challenge, the student hadn’t been replaced. Victor’s painfully small double was converted into a much more adequate single room. Until the start of October when Eliot Cardale—who, Victor had immediately decided, smiled too much—appeared with a suitcase in the hall outside.
Victor had initially wondered what it would take to recover his bedroom for a second time in a semester, but before he put any plans into motion, an odd thing happened. Eli began to … grow on him. He was precocious, and frighteningly charming, the kind of guy who got away with everything, thanks to good genes and quick wits. He was born for the sports teams and the clubs, but he surprised everyone, especially Victor, by showing no inclination whatsoever to join either. This small defiance of social norm earned him several notches in Victor’s estimation, and made him instantly more interesting.
But what fascinated Victor most was the fact that something about Eli was decidedly wrong. He was like one of those pictures full of small errors, the kind you could only pick out by searching the image from every angle, and even then, a few always slipped by. On the surface, Eli seemed perfectly normal, but now and then Victor would catch a crack, a sideways glance, a moment when his roommate’s face and his words, his look and his meaning, would not line up. Those fleeting slices fascinated Victor. It was like watching two people, one hiding in the other’s skin. And their skin was always too dry, on the verge of cracking and showing the color of the thing beneath.
“Very astute, Mr. Cardale.”
Victor had missed the question and the answer. He looked up as Professor Lyne turned his attention to the rest of his seniors, and clapped his hands once, with finality.
“All right. It’s time to declare your thesis.”
The class, composed mostly of pre-med students, a handful of aspiring physicists, and even an engineer—not Angie, though, she’d been assigned a different section—gave a collective groan, on principle.
“Now, now,” said the professor, cutting off the protest. “You knew what you were getting into when you signed up.”
“We didn’t,” observed Max. “It’s a mandatory course.” The remark earned him a ripple of encouragement from the class.
“My sincerest apologies then. But now that you’re here, and seeing as there’s no time like the present—”
“Next week would be better,” called out Toby Powell, a broad-shouldered surfer, pre-med, and the son of some governor. Max had only earned a murmur, but this time the other students laughed at a level proportionate to Toby’s popularity.
“Enough,” said Professor Lyne. The class quieted. “Now, Lockland encourages a certain level of … industriousness where theses are concerned, and offers a proportionate amount of freedom, but a word of warning from me. I’ve taught this thesis seminar for seven years. You will do yourselves no favors by making a safe selection and flying under the radar; however, an ambitious thesis will win no points on the grounds of ambitiousness alone. Your grade is contingent upon execution. Find a topic close enough to your area of interest to be productive without selecting one you already consider yourselves expert on.” He offered Toby a withering smile. “Start us off, Mr. Powell.”
Toby ran his fingers through his hair, stalling. The professor’s disclaimer had clearly shaken his confidence in whatever topic he’d been about to declare. He made a few noncommittal sounds while scrolling through his notes.
“Um … T helper 17 cells and immunology.” He was careful not to let his voice wander up at the end into a question. Professor Lyne let him hang for a moment, and everyone waited to see if he would give Toby “the look”—the slight lift of his chin and the tilt of his head that he had become famous for; a look that said, perhaps you’d like to try again—but finally he honored him with a small nod.
His gaze pivoted. “Mr. Hall?”
Max opened his mouth when Lyne cut in with, “No tech. Science yes, tech no. So choose wisely.” Max’s mouth snapped shut a moment as he considered.
“Electrical efficacy in sustainable energy,” he said after a pause.
“Hardware over software. Admirable choice, Mr. Hall.”
Professor Lyne continued around the room.
Inheritance patterns, equilibriums, and radiation were all approved, while effects of alcohol/cigarettes/illegal substances, the chemical properties of methamphetamines, and the body’s response to sex all earned “the look.” One by one the topics were accepted or retooled.
“Next,” ordered Professor Lyne, his sense of humor ebbing.
“Chemical pyrotechnics.”
A long pause. The topic had come from Janine Ellis, whose eyebrows hadn’t fully recovered from her last round of research. Professor Lyne gave a sigh, accompanied by “the look,” but Janine only smiled and there wasn’t much Lyne could say. Ellis was one of the youngest students in the room and had, in her freshman year, discovered a new and vibrant shade of blue that firework companies across the world now used. If she was willing to risk her eyebrows, that was her own business.
“And you, Mr. Vale?”
Victor looked at his professor, narrowing down his options. He’d never been strong in physics, and while chemistry was fun, his real passion lay in biology—anatomy and neuroscience. He’d like a topic with the potential for experimentation, but he’d also like to keep his eyebrows. And while he wanted to hold his rank in the department, offers from med schools, graduate programs, and research labs had been coming in the mail for weeks (and under the table for months). He and Eli had been decorating their entry hall with the letters. Not the offers, no, but the letters that preceded them, all praise and charm, batting lashes and handwritten postscripts. Neither one of them needed to move worlds with their papers. Victor glanced over at Eli, wondering what he would choose.
Professor Lyne cleared his throat.
“Adrenal inducers,” said Victor on a lark.
“Mr. Vale, I’ve already turned down a proposal involving intercourse—”
“No,” Victor said, shaking his head. “Adrenaline and its physical and emotional inducers and consequences. Biochemical thresholds. Fight or flight. That kind of thing.”
He watched Professor Lyne’s face, waiting for a sign, and Lyne eventually nodded.
“Don’t make me regret it,” he said.
And then he turned to Eli, the last person to answer. “Mr. Cardale.”
Eli smiled calmly. “EOs.”
The whole class, which had devolved more and more into muffled conversation as students declared their topics, now stopped. The background chatter and the sound of typing and the fidgeting in chairs went still as Professor Lyne considered Eli with a new look, one that hung between surprise and confusion, tempered only by the understanding that Eliot Cardale was consistently top of the class, top of the entire pre-medical department, even—well, alternating with Victor for first and second spot, anyway.
Fifteen pairs of eyes flicked between Eli and Professor Lyne as the moment of silence lasted and became uncomfortable. Eli wasn’t the kind of student to propose something as a joke, or a test. But he couldn’t possibly be serious.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to expand,” said Lyne slowly.
Eli’s smile didn’t falter. “An argument for the theoretical feasibility of the existence of ExtraOrdinary people, deriving from laws of biology, chemistry, and psychology.”
Professor Lyne’s head tilted and his chin tipped, but when he opened his mouth, all he said was, “Be careful, Mr. Cardale. As I warned, no points will be given for ambition alone. I’ll trust you not to make a mockery of my class.”
“Is that a yes, then?” asked Eli.
The first bell rang.
One person’s chair scraped back an inch, but no one stood up.
“Fine,” said Professor Lyne.
Eli’s smile widened.
Fine? thought Victor. And, reading the looks of every other student in the room, he could see everything from curiosity to surprise to envy echoed in their faces. It was a joke. It had to be. But Professor Lyne only straightened, and resumed his usual composure.
“Go forth, students,” he said. “Create change.”
The room erupted into movement. Chairs were dragged, tables knocked askew, bags hoisted, and the class emptied in a wave into the hall, taking Victor with it. He looked around the corridor for Eli and saw that he was still in the room, talking quietly, animatedly, with Professor Lyne. For a moment the steady calm was gone and his eyes were bright with energy, glinting with hunger. But by the time he broke away and joined Victor in the hall, it was gone, hidden behind a casual smile.
“What the hell was that?” Victor demanded. “I know the thesis doesn’t matter much at this point, but still—was that some kind of joke?”
Eli shrugged, and before the matter could be pressed, his phone broke out into electro-rock in his pocket. Victor sagged against the wall as Eli dug it out.
“Hey, Angie. Yeah, we’re on our way.” He hung up without even waiting for a response.
“We’ve been summoned.” Eli slung his arm around Victor’s shoulders. “My fair damsel is hungry. I dare not keep her waiting.”
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V. E. Schwab
VICTORIA “V. E.” SCHWAB is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, including the acclaimed Shades of Magic series, the Villains series, the Cassidy Blake series and the international bestseller The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Her work has received critical acclaim, translated into over two dozen languages, and optioned for television and film. First Kill – a YA vampire series based on Schwab’s short story of the same name – is currently in the works at Netflix with Emma Roberts’ Belletrist Productions producing. When she's not haunting Paris streets or trudging up English hillsides, she lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is usually tucked in the corner of a coffee shop, dreaming up monsters.
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Customer reviews
4.3 out of 5
15,391 global ratings
Kaleena @ Reader Voracious Blog
5
5/5 stars!
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2018
Verified Purchase
Friends, Vicious is a book that totally surprised me in the best of ways. I've owned this book for months but was kind of afraid to read because of the hype and my lukewarm/conflicted feelings about the Shades of Magic trilogy, but I decided that it was about time that I give this book a try... and I am so glad that I did because I loved it! If you enjoy morally gray characters and anti-heroes like I do, this definitely is a book for you.
Vicious is told in the perspectives of Eli and Victor, who are former college roommates turned enemies, I really enjoyed the storytelling overall: the narrative shifts between present-day and ten years prior, meaning that the reader is thrust into the present with little context and slowly discovers what happened to turn friends into foes. I found this to be incredibly engaging and I was more invested in uncovering how the friendship broke down and led to the events of present day for our characters. One of my notes from 19% says "I so want to know how the friendship fell apart. This is written so well" and I loved how full the characters are... and how I understood the motives for each of them. one of my favorite literary devices is being thrust into the present day and seeing what happened to get us there through flashbacks, and it is executed so well here. I also really love the friends-to-enemies trope, but then again, I like my characters to essentially go through rough situations and grow from them.
This is a world where no one is innocent, yet they each feel justified in their actions. Morally speaking it's a choice of Bad and Worse, and the reader is left to decide whose actions are most justified. Jealousy, self-righteousness, self-preservation, loyalty, betrayal... each character has a driving force that motivates them in Vicious, and they are all very well crafted.
Our main characters: 🔪 "Victor Vale is not a [...] sidekick"; his belief in probability, science, and chance guide him and he has difficulty with religious faith. 🔪 Eli Cardale/Ever "was precocious, and frighteningly charming, the kind of guy who got away with everything, thanks to good genes and quick wits"; his belief and faith in God guides his life and his actions. 🔪 We also have Mitch Turner and Sydney Clarke, both of whom are absolute cinnamon rolls and I adore them wholeheartedly. And let's honest here: the banter between Mitch, Sydney, and Victor cracked me up and I lived for it. 🔪 Lastly we have Serena Clarke, Sydney's older sister and most certainly not a cinnamon roll. This is definitely a character-driven story with a very interesting world that kind of reminds me of the tv series Heroes. I do wish that there was more worldbuilding and an explanation of EOs in the context of the world Victor and Eli live in. When Eli presented his thesis topic it almost appeared like a joke; however, as the plot progressed it is hinted that EOs were a thing even before the thesis. How long had the term been coined? How much did the public know in that ten-years ago period?
The crux of the battle is the whole "us versus them" mentality and the dehumanizing the "enemy" to justify your own actions. But who is the enemy? Who is in the wrong? In this story - and in life - it depends on the side that you are on. “You don’t understand,” he said. “I’m trying to protect people.” She smiled behind her coffee. It wasn’t a happy smile. “Which people?” Serena plays an interesting foil to Eli in this way and brings out an interesting philosophical argument for the reader to consider if they choose.
Overall I found Vicious to be a fast-paced and engaging fantasy story with amazingly deep and flawed characters. While my little worldbuilding heart wish that more information had been presented on the history of the EOs in the context of the world, it didn't really hinder my enjoyment of this story at all. I honestly cannot recommend this book enough.
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Cali
5
Amazing
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2024
Verified Purchase
Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book with a cooler plot. This is a must read!! VE Schwab is a goddess
T. Sparks
5
Complex and original, this book should not be missed!
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2013
Verified Purchase
In a word: An unexpectedly different superhero story, full of love, evil, danger and viciousness, written with spare and lovely prose, with a careful and precise construction that will leave you breathless.
I knew Vicious was a story about superheroes and that the main characters meet in college and embark on some kind of adventure together, but that was about all I knew when I started reading. I didn't know I was going to fall in love with all of the characters (even the most evil ones!). I didn't know that the super powers of these characters would be so subtle and unusual. And I didn't anticipate the utter brilliance of the way Schwab constructed her story: by jumping back and forth through time, slowly peeling away layer after layer of her complex tale, giving the reader only hints at first, then carefully revealing its shocking depths. Schwab is like a diabolical choreographer, telling us her twisted story in bits and pieces as each chapter unfolds.
I don't want to spoil the story for anyone, but here's a quick rundown of what's happening. Eli and Victor are college roommates who end up in a senior thesis class together. When the professor asks his students to declare their theses, Eli boldly decides that he will try to prove that ExtraOrdinaries, or people with extraordinary abilities, exist. When Victor proposes that they experiment on themselves to prove Eli's theory, the story takes a suddenly dark and menacing turn, and before you know it, friends have become enemies, and safety and happiness are things of the past.
Vicious was a completely unpredictable story. I did not see many of the twists coming, which means I was constantly worried about each character. In the beginning it's hard to understand all the relationships between the characters, but you just have to go with it. Like I said before, the author doles out information gradually, and while you may be wondering "How did Eli and Serena meet?" in one chapter, you will find out later when the pieces fall into place. I had many "ah ha!" moments like this, and I adored this method of storytelling.
And the characters. What can I say about them? I loved them, I hated them, I rooted for them, I cursed them, I wanted to be sisters with one of them and happily assist in the murder of another. But I know one thing for sure: every character in this story terrified me at one point or another. Each of the main characters has an unusual power that, in typical superhero fashion, isn't always what it seems. And each power eventually takes its toll on its user and changes him into something less than human.
Sydney was probably my favorite character. She's a twelve-year-old girl who has been shot in the arm when the story begins. (I have a thirteen-year-old daughter so I immediately connected with her.) You don't find out for many chapters why she's been shot, but her run-in with Victor turns out to be fortuitous. They form a complicated bond that only becomes more complicated by the end of the book. The dog and the shovel in Sydney's trading card are very important!
I loved Victor as well, and even though he did not always use his power for good, I loved the way he watched out for Sydney and the way he made friends with a computer hacker named Mitch, a side character with his own sad back-story that I grew very fond of.
On the other side of the coin are Eli and Serena. Eli has a very useful power and wants to use it for a terrible mission that puts everyone around him in grave danger. He's teamed up with a tragically beautiful girl named Serena to help him in his quest, and together they are a force that is hard to beat. Serena was the most damaged of the characters and so for me, the most dangerous. When you discover her connections to the others you will be very worried, trust me! The details in Serena's card are integral to the story, too; in fact this drawing describes Serena to a T!
Schwab gives each character a back-story (or maybe I should say "origin story") that delves into the reasons they behave the way they do. Once you get used to the circuitous method of storytelling, you will be turning pages as fast as you can. She masterfully ends the story with a scene that is almost identical to the opening chapter, but with a twist, of course. I have to say I was completely satisfied with the way things ended, something that doesn't happen as often as I'd like it to. Vicious is so good, that I wish I could read it again for the first time. I envy all you readers out there who have yet to crack open the cover and experience Schwab's unique brand of magic.
Many thanks to Victoria for selecting me to participate in her ARC tour and providing a review copy.
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8 people found this helpful
Ariana (The Quirky Book Nerd)
5
An absolute masterpiece!
Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2018
Verified Purchase
I am finding it extremely difficult to come up with the right words to accurately describe just how much I adored this novel. I completed it well over a month ago and I am still constantly thinking about it. This was my first experience with Victoria Schwab’s work, and I was completely blown away by her talent. It has been quite a while since I was so quickly pulled into a novel. I found this incredibly hard to put down once I started reading; it’s one of those stories where you sit down to read a chapter or two and, before you know it, you’ve read a third of the book. This is due primarily to Schwab’s impressive abilities in character development and storytelling.
Vicious follows the story of two best friends turned archnemeses, with a narrative that jumps between the present day and their time in college together ten years prior. During their study of extraordinary abilities, things get out of control, landing Victor in prison, bent on getting revenge, and Eli attempting to wipe out every super-powered person in existence. In alternating time periods and perspectives, the story of their falling out is gradually filled in, and the mystery pieced together in a fast-paced and suspenseful way.
Victoria Schwab is an absolutely brilliant writer with an incredibly addicting writing style that flows beautifully. Her innovative ideas, particularly in the depiction of the super-human abilities, make a well-loved topic into a remarkable and unique reading experience. It is extremely difficult to base a story around villainous characters and requires major skill—which she clearly has—to do so. She is spot on with her level of detail and description when it comes to her world and character building, and she masterfully creates a dark, chilling mood and atmosphere all the way through. Her words, her details, her plot points, everything just flows so nicely.
Early on, I had my doubts about the way the novel jumped around in time so often. That is something I typically do not enjoy, as I have found that I tend to get lost and confused easily in books that skip around too much. However, this did not happen at all as I was reading this book, and I actually ended up loving the style. In general, this can be a rather dangerous and risky way to write a novel, but Schwab executes it perfectly and completely nails this method of storytelling.
Since the plot is so connected to the past and the history of the characters, being able to jump back and hear first-hand what happened to them definitely contributes a lot to the novel as a whole. Schwab does this in a way where she essentially creates two storylines—a past one and a present one—and the jumping between them alternately causes tension and suspense in both. There is also plenty of suspense within each chapter to boot. All of this really succeeds in fully immersing the reader in the story and making them want to read on.
The character creation and development is one of the strongest and most important aspects of this novel, and is definitely some of the best I have ever come across. This is not your typical tale of good versus evil—in fact, what makes this story so intriguing is the lack of clarity and specificity when it comes to the definitions of both. It is a novel about villains, revenge, and the dangers of extreme power. The characterization relies heavily on moral ambiguity, and no one is truly heroic in the traditional sense of the word; there is typically an ulterior motive behind each character’s actions.
Schwab works hard to create vivid and complex characters, and she presents the reader with a comprehensive portrayal of every single one. This is one of my personal favorite elements to see in a story. Clearly displaying a character’s good qualities as well as their flaws will always make for a far more memorable and three-dimensional character that your reader will take an interest in. And whether they are hero or villain, this connection is essential. No matter what side their loyalties lie on, every character needs to be relatable in order to have an impact on an audience.
Vicious contains a very flawed group of individuals, and none of their negative qualities are sugar-coated. Their flaws are a driving force in the plot. This is the type of story that requires messed up and imperfect characters—ones who are not distinctly good or bad and whose motives are questionable. That is exactly what she has succeeded in creating here, and it adds a great amount of depth to the story. Whether you like them or not, they are utterly fascinating, and you find yourself fully captivated by their plotlines, constantly wanting to know more.
This book is filled with many magnificent examples of antiheroes, and what comes from this is an absolutely enthralling character study. Victor is one of the most amazingly well-imagined characters I have ever read about in my life. His characterization was brilliantly done, and his storyline was absorbing from the very first page. He is that villain that you hate to love, and potentially even love to hate—and though his actions are not always entirely permissible due to his focus on revenge, you find yourself siding with and rooting for him anyway. Overall, Victor is a surprisingly relatable and likeable villain, and an impeccable choice for a main protagonist. He was by far my favorite character in the novel.
On the opposite side of this, from the very first time we see Eli and Victor together, something about Eli immediately rubbed me the wrong way—and as the story progressed, my opinion of him most definitely did not improve. Though he is an intensely dislikable character, his plotline was fantastically well executed. Schwab wrote it in an incredibly interesting way, making it one of those stories where, depending on one’s point of view or position, Eli might not necessarily be a villain in everyone’s eyes.
As a reader, we are meant to feel that he is entirely immoral. His actions are not at all condonable, nor is there any justification for anything he does. And we as the reader are correct in thinking this, because his inhumane actions are not and should not be justifiable; he is a monster. However, it is also easy to understand why he justifies his own actions to himself.
Eli believes that he is doing right, that he is being heroic and fulfilling God’s will, and it would be impossible for anyone working under that type of extreme delusion to see their own—or potentially someone else’s—immorality. While neither Eli or Victor are truly heroes, Eli’s delusion of heroism and inability to see his own inhumanity makes him not only more villainous, but also far more dangerous.
Victor is much more aware of what he is doing and, though he does questionable things primarily for his own motives, that is not the definition of all of his actions. He has far more restraint and humanity left in him—more of a conscience than Eli has. There are certain actions each do individually that it would be hard imagining the other doing. Victor is certainly more aware of the consequences of his actions, and though that might not prevent him from ever doing evil, he has limits and never has any misconception about his purpose in life.
Schwab also fills this book with an all-star set of secondary characters. Sydney is a downright lovely character, and by far the most purely endearing and innocent of the bunch. On top of this, the role that she played in the story was fascinating, and her powers were an element that served to create a lot of mystery and suspense throughout. Another character that added to the huge amount of suspense in the plot was Mitch. Mitch is one of the only other truly lovable characters in the novel, and the juxtaposition of his natural talents against the others’ powers was a highlight for me.
Serena falls more toward the Eli side of the scale of villains. She is quite dislikable from the very start, and while she remains that way throughout the novel, you begin to understand her actions as more information about her is revealed. As with Eli, it is impossible to condone what she does, but you do begin to get an understanding of how aspects of her life—such as her powers—would cause her to act in the way that she does. All in all, though these three are all supporting characters, they are no less vivid or complex than the protagonists, and their plotlines are fully conceived.
Victoria Schwab has produced an absolute masterpiece with this novel. Her three-dimensional characters and unique plotlines work together to create a truly engrossing and addictive read that will stay with you long after you’ve finished it. Whether or not you are a superhero/supervillain fan like myself, this book holds something for everyone to enjoy. If you have not read this yet, I very highly recommend giving it a go. I’m not sure what to expect from the sequel, but I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what happens next; I cannot wait to be back in this world with these characters. Vicious, without a doubt, now holds a place on my list of all-time favorite novels.
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80 people found this helpful
Rosetta
5
Chilling book
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2024
Verified Purchase
Great book that is remarkable and horrifying. The possible existence of people who became back from the dead and living in the world is horrific.
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