Review: Vengeful - V.E. Schwab

A Super-powered collision of extraordinary minds and vengeful intentions - V.E. Schwab returns with the thrilling follow-up to Vicious.

Magneto and Professor X. Superman and Lex Luthor. Victor Vale and Eli Ever. Sydney and Serena Clarke. Great partnerships, now soured on the vine.

But Marcella Riggins needs no one. Flush from her brush with death, she's finally gained the control she's always sought - and will use her newfound power to bring the city of Merit to its knees. She'll do whatever it takes, collecting her own sidekicks, and leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, against each other once more.

With Marcella's rise, new enmities create opportunity - and the stage of Merit City will once again be set for a final, terrible reckoning.

Villains Series:
Warm Up (free prequel short story can be read online here)
Vicious
Vengeful

Visit V.E. Schwab's website for more information

Review:
I absolutely loved Vicious so although the story worked well as a stand alone I was really excited when Victoria Schwab decided to revisit these characters in Vengeful. This really has been a series unlike anything else I've ever read and I still stand by my comment in my previous review that rather than being a series about anti-heroes it's more a series about characters who are varying levels of evil. There aren't really any good guys here, well apart from Sydney and Mitch that is, but since they follow everything Victor plans they aren't really innocent bystanders either.

The main events in Vengeful are set about 5 years on from the end of the previous book but it's not told in a standard linear way so the timeline jumps about from one chapter to the next, we see parts of Eli's childhood, events from Vicious from different points of view and things that have happened to all of the main players in the years we've missed. I was worried I might find it confusing, especially since we have multiple narrators too, but it was actually so cleverly written that I had no problem following the story and I was about to really appreciate how the story gradually comes together as you start linking more and more of the different threads together.

Eli has spent the last few years in prison, most of it being tortured but now in isolation helping the police with their enquiries while Victor, Sydney and Mitch have been hunting down EOs looking for answers to a problem that Victor is experiencing. New character Marcella has gone from mob wife trying to guide her husband's criminal career to vengeful woman looking for revenge and determined to take power for herself. We're introduced to a few other new characters, most of whom are looking out for themselves and never quite seem trustworthy, but you'll have to read the book for yourself to find out about all of them.

Sydney and Mitch have long been my favourite characters in this, they're the only two who are somewhat innocent, they've crossed lines at times but they would rather not choose the path of violence. Victor has pretty much gone off the deep end though, he's dealing with some major issues but that doesn't really excuse his behaviour in this book even though you can kind of understand why he's making the choices he does. I still find Eli despicable but Victoria Schwab actually managed to make me feel a little bit sorry for him, not just for his childhood but also for the treatment he was receiving in prison.

This world is just so complex and I love that all of the characters are shades of grey, nothing is simple and they've all done bad things, sometimes for good reasons but not always. I was totally rooting for Marcella when she started her bid for revenge against the person who tried to kill her but she ended up taking things far too far which made her much harder to like. It was pretty hard to root for anyone really but that's what makes it fun to read.

I have to finish this review by mentioning how gorgeous the UK hardback of Vengeful is, it matches the collectors edition of Vicious perfectly & is a great addition to my overloaded bookcase.

The foil on the naked hardback is silver this time not gold

and the end papers are just as pretty

Source: Received from Titan Books in exchange for an honest review

Other reviews of this book:
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Hardback / Paperback (Preorder) / Kindle:

Review: Vicious - V.E. Schwab

A brand new hardback edition of V.E. Schwab's critically acclaimed novel.

Features:
New cover art
In-universe short story Warm Up
A teaser for the forthcoming sequel Vengeance
Specially designed end papers - unique to this edition
Presented with a ribbon marker

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in one another. 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. They become EOs, ExtraOrdinaries, leaving a body in their wake and turning on each other.

Ten years later Victor has escaped from prison and is determined to get his revenge on the man who put him there, aided by a young girl with the ability to raise the dead. Eli has spent the years hunting down and killing every EO he can find, convinced that they are a crime against God, all except his sidekick, a woman whose power is persuasion and whom he cannot defy. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the arch-nemeses have set a course for revenge but who will be left alive at the end?

Villains Series:
Warm Up (free prequel short story can be read online here)
Vicious
Vengeful

Visit V.E. Schwab's website for more information

Review:
After really enjoying A Darker Shade of Magic I was really excited to get my hands on a copy of Vicious to see what else V.E. Schwab was capable of. The two stories couldn't be more different but they both show what a talented writer she is and I thoroughly enjoyed her take on superheroes, or perhaps I should say anti-heroes because there aren't really any good guys here!

The story is told in two distinct narratives, you have flashbacks ten years into the past where we see Victor and Eli meeting a university, they are close friends and very competitive in their studies so when Eli comes up with the idea to study EOs (ExtraOrdianry people with superpowers) for his thesis Victor automatically wants to join in and take things one step further. The boys run dangerous experiments trying to turn themselves into EOs and the resulting tragedy sees Victor put in prison for murder. In the current timeline Victor has broken out of prison along with his cell mate Mitch and he's determined to track down Eli and make him pay for betraying him. It takes a while for us to uncover exactly what went down between them but it is clear from the beginning that they have both become very dangerous men who will stop at nothing to further their causes.

I already mentioned that this is a story of anti-heroes but I find it kind of hard to think of Victor as anything other than a slightly less evil villain. Victor and Eli are both extreme and they're both willing to torture and kill without batting an eye so it's hard to decide which side you should be rooting for. We get to see a more human side of Victor through the eyes of Mitch and Sydney, a young girl he rescues along the way, but from their point of view Victor can't be called a good man, he's just the lesser of two evils. I loved how ambiguous these characters are though, you can never quite be sure what Victor is capable of so it's hard to trust his motives long term and that is one of the things that makes him quite so fascinating.

This is a dark world, one where some people have amazing abilities but they rarely use them for good. I was completely hooked from the beginning and I loved the masterful way V.E. Schwab wove the two different time lines together in a way that kept you guessing right through to the end. There were a couple of incredibly well thought out twists and I was impressed that she managed to get me rooting for a psychopath. I would love to read more stories set in this world so I hope the author decides to revisit it at some point in the future.

Update October 2018:
I recently purchased the new Collectors Edition hardback of Vicious so I thought I'd post a couple of pictures so you can see just how gorgeous it is! This edition also includes the short story, Warm Up, that was only previously available on the Tor.com website.

I love the gold foiling on the naked hardback!

and just look at those endpapers!

Source: Received from Titan Books in exchange for an honest review

Other reviews of this book:
If you have reviewed this book on your blog please leave a link to your review in the comments & I'll add the link here.

Original UK Paperback

Hardback (Collectors Edition) / Paperback / Kindle:

Quick Review: Warm Up - V. E. Schwab

It’s been 297 days since David died–and came back.

He may have survived the avalanche, but the aftermath has been far worse. His wife moved out, taking his son with her, and a devastated David hasn’t left his house since, terrified of the mysterious new power that followed him home from the ill-fated expedition.

After months in seclusion, David’s ready for a fresh start, and ventures out, determined to keep his power in check. But David’s power isn’t the one he needs to worry about.

Villains Series:
Warm Up (free prequel short story can be read online here)
Vicious
Vengeful

Visit V.E. Schwab's website for more information

Quick Review:
It's been 297 days since David died and came back to life, 294 days since his wife left him and 293 days since he left his house thanks to the scary new ability his near death experience seems to have given him.

Warm Up is a short story set in the same world as V.E. Schwab's that can be read for free on the Tor website. It's a great little intro to a dark world where some people have superhero type powers and have to learn how to control them. One of the main characters from Vicious makes an appearance towards the end of the story and it definitely left me looking forward to reading the full length novel.

If you're undecided on whether you want to read Vicious or if you just want to try out V.E. Schwab's writing style then this is a great place to start. It's very well written and I was totally invested in David's story from the beginning, my only complaint was that I wanted the story to be longer!

Source: Read for free on the Tor website here.

Other reviews of this book:
If you have reviewed this book on your blog please leave a link to your review in the comments & I'll add the link here.