Vengeful by V.E. Schwab: Book Review
"Ignorance is only bliss if you want to get caught." - Vengeful by V.E. Schwab
My two favorite morally gray characters are back and better than ever.
It's no surprise to anyone when I say that I gave Vengeful 5 stars. After all, Victoria (V.E.) Schwab is one of my favorite authors of all time, if not the favorite. I have a lot of favorites, though, so it's just easier to lump them together instead of trying to make them fight each other for the humble and nonexistent crown of mine.
Schwab has an uncanny ability to make everyone a villain, and to make every villain humane. It's incredible, really. She jumps rope with the line between good and evil. Hell, she freaking plays Jacob's ladder with it. You end up finishing one of her books not knowing who really was the good guy or who to root for. And it's phenomenal.
Vicious was the last book I picked up of hers. I had already been well versed in her other works, having even read the series that was born from Vicious' own Victor Vale: The Monsters of Verity duology (probably my favorite series of hers). So I already had an idea of her writing style, and the tropes that she loved as well as despised. It was easy for me to be dragged into her world of EOs and the havoc they wreak.
As you all probably know, Vengeful was the sequel to Vicious, debuting five years after the original book was published. While we also get more of Victor and Eli, we follow a brand new host of anti-heroes and their superhuman-sized egos and inferiority complexes. We also meet a new big-bad, headed by the original annoyance of the series, who somehow has become even more infuriating in the five years between publications.
For those who need a refresher course before we dive into the sequel: Vicious follows two college roommates, Victor Vale and Eli Cardale, as they try to prove that ExtraOrdinary people (or EOs) exist. EOs are said to be people with unique abilities and powers, and are rumored to just be a myth. Until Victor and Eli step into the light. Ten years later, Victor is just breaking out of prison after being arrested for murder, and Eli is on a rampage trying to purge the world of EOs. The book ends with Eli killing Victor and being hauled away by Detective Stell, who recently discovered that Eli had killed well over forty people, now including his arch-nemesis. However, Victor has a trick up his sleeve; Syd, a young EO who has the power to bring things back from the dead.
So, five years have passed since Victor's second death and Eli's arrest, and things are looking bleak. Victor is having trouble staying alive, and his power to inflict pain on others is out of control. Eli is now the hunting dog of the newly established EON, or ExtraOrdinaryObservation and Neutralization, headed by none other than former-Detective Stell. He sits in solitary confinement with no one but his ghost of Victor to keep him company.
The story starts out introducing us to our new main character: Marcella Riggins, vindictive wife of a mob crime boss. After her husband attempts to murder her by setting their house on fire with her trapped inside, she develops the ability to turn anything she touches into ruin. Metal rusts, glass turns to sand, people disintegrate into ash. Now she is hell-bent on disposing Merit's crime lords and seating herself on the throne in their place.
We also meet June, a mysterious EO with the power to shift into anyone as long as they are not EOs themselves. All she needs to do is brush against them, and suddenly she is them, inhabiting their body as well as having access to their memories. And, even better, any pain or injury that befalls her while wearing an aspect, is directly inflicted on the person whose body she's wearing.
Marcella and June team up to run Merit into the ground, and end up in Stell's crosshairs. Stell employs Eli to track down Marcella, giving him the trail of bodies she's leaving behind as a starting point. However, while on Marcella's trail, Eli comes across what he believes to be a copycat killer of his own. Someone is murdering EOs at gunpoint, and the only pattern he can find is that the EOs in question all had some sort of regenerative ability.
Okay, I'm going to be straight with you all. It's hard for me to find fault in Schwab's writings. I mean they're all just so good. I know as a book reviewer I have to try and remain to be as objective as possible, but like? How? She can literally write the most unlikable characters and I'll still love them.
Between Victor and Eli, I've always loved Victor more. I think maybe it was because we got more of Victor's POV in the first book, so it was hard to humanize Eli when all we saw were his actions and not his thoughts. Of course, Victor did some pretty horrible things as well, but they all seemed rational when we were seeing them through his eyes. Rational yes, but not necessarily moral, or legal for that matter. But we get more of Eli in Vengeful, and therefore he started to become a little more human to me. It absolutely doesn't negate what he did and what he believes he should still be doing, but still. Seeing his awful past being brought to light, and the torture he's suffered through, it makes it a little harder to hate the guy.
However, it was really hard for me to connect with him (which obviously was Schwab's point. You're not supposed to connect with these characters. They're literal mass murderers. Murder is bad, kids.). Eli's views just reminded me of all the radical evangelists I've had the displeasure of encountering in my lifetime. As someone who is religious herself, I find it difficult to empathize with Eli's views and morals. Also, I'm pretty sure that using God and His word as an excuse to commit murder is against the Bible and therefore blasphemy, but what do I know? If anything, Eli's backstory just proves that he's been screwed up for a long time. Yes, okay, his father did beat and abuse him, but that still does not negate murder. And the fact that Eli felt so comfortable as he pushed his father down the basement stairs, as he watched him twitch and spasm until the nerves finally died...it's just downright psychotic, okay? Eli was never a good person.
I was kind of happy when he died.
Okay wow. That makes me sound as psychotic as him. But the difference is, Eli is a fictional character. And yes by that standard his father is fictional too and therefore how can he really be psychotic, but just hear me out. If you heard on the news that a mass murderer had been killed, I can guarantee you that there would be at least one person out there in the world who didn't mourn.
Anyway, I digress.
I thought it was poetic that Syd was the one to kill him, in the end. I would have only wanted it to be her or Victor. After all, they were the ones left alive from all of the devastation that Eli reigned down on Merit, so it feels only right. Especially after all of the hell that he had put Syd through, the endless nightmares and panic and PTSD.
I really enjoyed all of Sydney's parts in this book. She got a more prominent role in Vengeful than she had in Vicious, and I was all for that. I especially loved that Syd and June became friends, unhealthy though it was. After living with Victor and Mitch for five years, after losing her older sister to Eli's radicalism, Sydney needed another girl in her life. I appreciated that she was able to find that in June.
June herself was a difficult character to pin down. On one hand, she went along with Marcella's plans and was perfectly okay with the killing and destruction in her wake. She had her own personal hit list of everyone who had ever wronged her. It's not like she was innocent. But she also looked out for Sydney, protected Victor when asked, and overall helped him achieve his goal of bringing down Eli and the EON (sort of). I truly feel June is the grayest of morally gray characters in this story. I have a feeling that if and when the third book comes out, June will have a prominent role in the plot. Maybe she'll team up with Syd and Mitch? Maybe she'll create her own vendetta against EON and plot to destroy it once and for all? Maybe her and Victor will have an all out grudge match? Only Victoria Schwab knows.
So, in closing: I felt that this was a really strong sequel to Vicious. It had all the makings of a full on war division, setting up for the next volume in the series. Schwab does not disappoint, that's for damn sure.
My two favorite morally gray characters are back and better than ever.
It's no surprise to anyone when I say that I gave Vengeful 5 stars. After all, Victoria (V.E.) Schwab is one of my favorite authors of all time, if not the favorite. I have a lot of favorites, though, so it's just easier to lump them together instead of trying to make them fight each other for the humble and nonexistent crown of mine.
Schwab has an uncanny ability to make everyone a villain, and to make every villain humane. It's incredible, really. She jumps rope with the line between good and evil. Hell, she freaking plays Jacob's ladder with it. You end up finishing one of her books not knowing who really was the good guy or who to root for. And it's phenomenal.
Vicious was the last book I picked up of hers. I had already been well versed in her other works, having even read the series that was born from Vicious' own Victor Vale: The Monsters of Verity duology (probably my favorite series of hers). So I already had an idea of her writing style, and the tropes that she loved as well as despised. It was easy for me to be dragged into her world of EOs and the havoc they wreak.
As you all probably know, Vengeful was the sequel to Vicious, debuting five years after the original book was published. While we also get more of Victor and Eli, we follow a brand new host of anti-heroes and their superhuman-sized egos and inferiority complexes. We also meet a new big-bad, headed by the original annoyance of the series, who somehow has become even more infuriating in the five years between publications.
For those who need a refresher course before we dive into the sequel: Vicious follows two college roommates, Victor Vale and Eli Cardale, as they try to prove that ExtraOrdinary people (or EOs) exist. EOs are said to be people with unique abilities and powers, and are rumored to just be a myth. Until Victor and Eli step into the light. Ten years later, Victor is just breaking out of prison after being arrested for murder, and Eli is on a rampage trying to purge the world of EOs. The book ends with Eli killing Victor and being hauled away by Detective Stell, who recently discovered that Eli had killed well over forty people, now including his arch-nemesis. However, Victor has a trick up his sleeve; Syd, a young EO who has the power to bring things back from the dead.
So, five years have passed since Victor's second death and Eli's arrest, and things are looking bleak. Victor is having trouble staying alive, and his power to inflict pain on others is out of control. Eli is now the hunting dog of the newly established EON, or ExtraOrdinaryObservation and Neutralization, headed by none other than former-Detective Stell. He sits in solitary confinement with no one but his ghost of Victor to keep him company.
The story starts out introducing us to our new main character: Marcella Riggins, vindictive wife of a mob crime boss. After her husband attempts to murder her by setting their house on fire with her trapped inside, she develops the ability to turn anything she touches into ruin. Metal rusts, glass turns to sand, people disintegrate into ash. Now she is hell-bent on disposing Merit's crime lords and seating herself on the throne in their place.
We also meet June, a mysterious EO with the power to shift into anyone as long as they are not EOs themselves. All she needs to do is brush against them, and suddenly she is them, inhabiting their body as well as having access to their memories. And, even better, any pain or injury that befalls her while wearing an aspect, is directly inflicted on the person whose body she's wearing.
Marcella and June team up to run Merit into the ground, and end up in Stell's crosshairs. Stell employs Eli to track down Marcella, giving him the trail of bodies she's leaving behind as a starting point. However, while on Marcella's trail, Eli comes across what he believes to be a copycat killer of his own. Someone is murdering EOs at gunpoint, and the only pattern he can find is that the EOs in question all had some sort of regenerative ability.
Okay, I'm going to be straight with you all. It's hard for me to find fault in Schwab's writings. I mean they're all just so good. I know as a book reviewer I have to try and remain to be as objective as possible, but like? How? She can literally write the most unlikable characters and I'll still love them.
Between Victor and Eli, I've always loved Victor more. I think maybe it was because we got more of Victor's POV in the first book, so it was hard to humanize Eli when all we saw were his actions and not his thoughts. Of course, Victor did some pretty horrible things as well, but they all seemed rational when we were seeing them through his eyes. Rational yes, but not necessarily moral, or legal for that matter. But we get more of Eli in Vengeful, and therefore he started to become a little more human to me. It absolutely doesn't negate what he did and what he believes he should still be doing, but still. Seeing his awful past being brought to light, and the torture he's suffered through, it makes it a little harder to hate the guy.
However, it was really hard for me to connect with him (which obviously was Schwab's point. You're not supposed to connect with these characters. They're literal mass murderers. Murder is bad, kids.). Eli's views just reminded me of all the radical evangelists I've had the displeasure of encountering in my lifetime. As someone who is religious herself, I find it difficult to empathize with Eli's views and morals. Also, I'm pretty sure that using God and His word as an excuse to commit murder is against the Bible and therefore blasphemy, but what do I know? If anything, Eli's backstory just proves that he's been screwed up for a long time. Yes, okay, his father did beat and abuse him, but that still does not negate murder. And the fact that Eli felt so comfortable as he pushed his father down the basement stairs, as he watched him twitch and spasm until the nerves finally died...it's just downright psychotic, okay? Eli was never a good person.
I was kind of happy when he died.
Okay wow. That makes me sound as psychotic as him. But the difference is, Eli is a fictional character. And yes by that standard his father is fictional too and therefore how can he really be psychotic, but just hear me out. If you heard on the news that a mass murderer had been killed, I can guarantee you that there would be at least one person out there in the world who didn't mourn.
Anyway, I digress.
I thought it was poetic that Syd was the one to kill him, in the end. I would have only wanted it to be her or Victor. After all, they were the ones left alive from all of the devastation that Eli reigned down on Merit, so it feels only right. Especially after all of the hell that he had put Syd through, the endless nightmares and panic and PTSD.
I really enjoyed all of Sydney's parts in this book. She got a more prominent role in Vengeful than she had in Vicious, and I was all for that. I especially loved that Syd and June became friends, unhealthy though it was. After living with Victor and Mitch for five years, after losing her older sister to Eli's radicalism, Sydney needed another girl in her life. I appreciated that she was able to find that in June.
June herself was a difficult character to pin down. On one hand, she went along with Marcella's plans and was perfectly okay with the killing and destruction in her wake. She had her own personal hit list of everyone who had ever wronged her. It's not like she was innocent. But she also looked out for Sydney, protected Victor when asked, and overall helped him achieve his goal of bringing down Eli and the EON (sort of). I truly feel June is the grayest of morally gray characters in this story. I have a feeling that if and when the third book comes out, June will have a prominent role in the plot. Maybe she'll team up with Syd and Mitch? Maybe she'll create her own vendetta against EON and plot to destroy it once and for all? Maybe her and Victor will have an all out grudge match? Only Victoria Schwab knows.
So, in closing: I felt that this was a really strong sequel to Vicious. It had all the makings of a full on war division, setting up for the next volume in the series. Schwab does not disappoint, that's for damn sure.
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