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A review by storytold
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
4.0
I began a SKEPTIC but this turned out to be my SHIT. I love TRAGEDIES. I love MESS. If you have read Donna Tartt's <em>The Secret History,</em> this book's first third-to-half is an experience of "oh, come on." This is not merely because there's a murder in a cultlike intellectual environment and a super enmeshed, codependent, and PRETENTIOUS friend group, but because these books are both tragedies structured as traditional western tragedies tend to be. Un/fortunately for me, I love books about murders in cultlike and pretentious intellectual environments where the friend group is super enmeshed and codependent, and I love that especially in tragedies. Anyone in this thread played Dragon Age 2? Never mind.
It's not a perfect book. I listened to it on audio and I think the rating would have dropped if I'd been trying to read it physically, not least because of ALL the Shakespeare. Entire acts of plays—I don't think that was necessary, but I'm not a Shakespeare head. I also think <em>The Secret History</em> was a necessary precondition of this book's existence, and that's okay. I did not think it was okay when I began the book, so I have grown as a result of reading it. Am I a "Dark Academia" believer now? No. But I can I appreciate a messy tragedy when I read one. Some of the prose hit some of my personal pet peeves; the structure drove me batshit; I think the word "unison" only applies to sound, not movement. But the character intensity and interaction in this book was so fucking good for me personally. I ate LUNCH; I ate DINNER; I ate DESSERT; I have LEFTOVERS for TOMORROW. This book hit my favourite character tropes, none of which I can share with you because that's-a-spoilers, but it was good, to me. This book did the good ones.
It's a rare emotional-only rating from me where I have no idea how good the prose craft wound up being. Making me forget to care about craft is on its own deserving of a B+. These days I don't like to cater my reviews to other reviews I have read, but I do want to address allegations that this book queerbaits—it doesn't. Thanks for your time. Play Dragon Age 2.
It's not a perfect book. I listened to it on audio and I think the rating would have dropped if I'd been trying to read it physically, not least because of ALL the Shakespeare. Entire acts of plays—I don't think that was necessary, but I'm not a Shakespeare head. I also think <em>The Secret History</em> was a necessary precondition of this book's existence, and that's okay. I did not think it was okay when I began the book, so I have grown as a result of reading it. Am I a "Dark Academia" believer now? No. But I can I appreciate a messy tragedy when I read one. Some of the prose hit some of my personal pet peeves; the structure drove me batshit; I think the word "unison" only applies to sound, not movement. But the character intensity and interaction in this book was so fucking good for me personally. I ate LUNCH; I ate DINNER; I ate DESSERT; I have LEFTOVERS for TOMORROW. This book hit my favourite character tropes, none of which I can share with you because that's-a-spoilers, but it was good, to me. This book did the good ones.
It's a rare emotional-only rating from me where I have no idea how good the prose craft wound up being. Making me forget to care about craft is on its own deserving of a B+. These days I don't like to cater my reviews to other reviews I have read, but I do want to address allegations that this book queerbaits—it doesn't. Thanks for your time. Play Dragon Age 2.