From the Bookshelf of Nothing But Reading Challenges…

If We Were Villains

M.L. Rio

Start date: December 1, 2022

Finish date: December 31, 2022

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What Members Thought

Dec 30, 2024 Andreea rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: all-the-drama, read-bookshelf-en, lgbt, high-school-drama, mystery-my-love, never-so-bored-in-my-life, dark-academia-my-love, winter-reads

Not great, not terrible. The thing is... the plot is pretty basic, but in order for the book to hook you, you need those damn characters and those damn characters is what made me dislike this book. They were barely there, I couldn't believe them. The entire plot is built on the idea that I will believe in a character's decision to do something yet I didn't. I couldn't. So everything fails due to that.

I felt like it was a tad bit too long, there were too many characters - or better said, the char ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Apr 21, 2021 Cora rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, illinois, mystery, available-at-library, murder, friendship, relationships, tragedy, secrets, first-person

This was a different and interesting story. As the tragedy of the story unfolds the question became not who was murdered or why, but more of how Oliver came to take the blame (or was he telling the truth all along). It was a dark story with a lot of quotes from Shakespeare (the students have their own style of talking that involved quoting the bard a lot). I did like Oliver and the other students. It was a story with a lot of layers and morally gray areas. I would recommend it to readers that ap ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jul 01, 2023 Rachel N. rated it really liked it

Shelves: shakespeare, acting, friendship, illinois, college, debut, lgbt, read-in-2023

Oliver Marks served a 10 year jail sentence. Upon his release he tells the former police officer in charge of the case the truth of what happened. Oliver was one of 7 students in their fourth year in the acting program at the Dellechester classical Conservatory. For the fall production of Julius Caesar the students are cast in their normal rolls, hero, villain etc. When Halloween comes around the students are given rolls out of the norm for Macbeth and trouble ensues. This story sucked me in. I ...more

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Nov 04, 2023 Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I've seen some reviews that complain about how pretentious the characters in this book were. Speaking as someone who went to a conservatory (though not for drama) I can tell you... we were exactly this pretentious. Being in a program where your goal is the study Art with a capital A... we absolutely partied too much, had petty feuds and rivalries (and romances) with each other, and most definitely used in-jokes from the art itself to pepper our conversations.

There was a lot less murder though.

T ...more

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