Genre: Paranormal, Sci FI
My Rating:
A masterful, twisted tale of ambition, jealousy, betrayal, and superpowers, set in a near-future world.
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.'
I’d never read a Victoria (VE) Schwab book until last week. After I finished Vicious all I could think is ‘why on earth did I not read her books sooner?’ especially since she had been on my radar for a while. After I read Vicious, though, I can safely call her a fantastic author and I cannot wait to read A Darker Shade of Magic.
This post is for all of you who have heard of her and were a bit uncertain whether or not to take the leap and give her a go. Do it, do it now. Below are a long list of reasons to push you to take the leap, I can practically guarantee you won’t regret it.
The story is nothing like you expect. I never know what to expect going into books, and I thought it was going to be a more linear story, but once I started reading and I began to meet the characters I was blown away and the story just went to new places I would not have even thought of. It’s incomparable to anything else I’ve read, and for that reason alone you should check it out.
The characters, they are so human you can almost accept they could be people. You read and you expect to have an idea who is good and who is bad and what is right and what’s wrong, but then you can innumerable shades of grey and you just feel confused. You would think that would be disconcerting, but it’s not is, it’s refreshing to read about people that sound genuine.
You will be stuck trying to figure out the story the entire way through. It flicks from past to present, which makes it interesting as you continually looking back to figure out how you got to where you enter the story. It’s not that the story is confusing, it’s just details and motivation are confusing. You’re waiting for the moment where things change and someone does something that helps it all click, but it takes a while.
It is the most original take on superheroes and villains I have ever read, I only wish I had read it sooner because it is so intriguing the various ideas on good and bad.
And I could list a long list of other reasons to read Vicious, but I won’t. I insist you give it a go though, you will not regret your venture into her writing. She has several other books I’m going to have to check out now because if they are all as good as this one, I’m missing out on book gold.
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