Vicious by V. E. Schwab Series: Villains #1
Published by Tor Publishing Group on September 24, 2013
Genres: Fiction / Fantasy / Paranormal, Fiction / Superheroes
Pages: 368
Format: Audiobook, eBook, Paperback
Source: Booksweet, Library
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V. E. Schwab's New York Times bestseller Vicious is a masterful tale of ambition, jealousy, desire, and superpowers.
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
One of Publishers Weekly's Best Fantasy Books of 2013
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
I have been highly recommended Vicious from many different people in my life and promised a fun, friends to enemies story with some homosexual tension. Unfortunately I would have thought this was good in 2008 but have read much deeper books since then, so it flopped for me in a lot of ways. I didn’t think that Eli was deep enough as a character and thought that the book’s relationship with religion through Eli was weird, I thought Victor was good and I liked Syd. And I really really enjoyed the heist / final confrontation scene. I wish Serena was not so Evil and I also wish that we had some ‘regular’ characters to compare our main cast to (as they were all extraordinary people). I also thought that this book started going down a superhero lane but didn’t really end up doing anything interesting with it, which I found quite frustrating. With many of V.E Schwab’s ‘earlier’ books, I feel quite frustrated, because I feel that they don’t go hard ‘enough’. However, I really enjoyed This Savage Song, so I keep trying with her. (I also really enjoyed First Kill! Pour one out for that terrible and beautiful Netflix series). 3.5 stars.
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