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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, never-so-bored-in-my-life, read-bookshelf-en, lgbt, high-school-drama, mystery-my-love, 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

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Nov 26, 2021 Wendy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2021-reads

Loved it all - the characters, the mystery, the setting, the Shakespeare!!

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Nov 08, 2021 Bonnie rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery, 2017-books

If The Secret History is True Detective then If We Were Villains is Glee. It's pretentious and ridiculous and melodramatic but it's also compulsively readable.

The book opens with Oliver being released from prison after 10 years. Obviously, something bad has happened. You'll find out what exactly in Act 2. It then jumps back and follows the seven 4th-year students at the cultish Dellecher Classical Conservatory, the kind of place where school social events are things like a masked ball where the If The Secret History is True Detective then If We Were Villains is Glee. It's pretentious and ridiculous and melodramatic but it's also compulsively readable.

The book opens with Oliver being released from prison after 10 years. Obviously, something bad has happened. You'll find out what exactly in Act 2. It then jumps back and follows the seven 4th-year students at the cultish Dellecher Classical Conservatory, the kind of place where school social events are things like a masked ball where the students perform Shakespeare at each other. Despite paying four years of tuition, the students don't even graduate with degrees (even Julliard provides degrees). The seven fourth year theater students have been typecast by their instructors since their first year, and instead of working to provide them range, they cast them again and again in the same roles, which they have adopted in their personal lives: Richard, the despot, Meredith (Richard's girlfriend), the temptress, Wren (Richard's cousin), the ingenue, Alexander, typecast as the "villain" (but is never actually villainous), Fillipa, the tomboy, James, the good guy, and Oliver, the narrator and side kick. They are also all embodiments of the annoying theater kid trope, constantly quoting Shakespeare at each other in every day conversations. It feels like even a comment on the weather would lead to a response of "Hey ho, the wind and the rain."

One of the major flaws of this book is the development of the characters. I listened to the audio book, and constantly could not tell James and Alexander or Wren and Fillipa apart. The only three who seemed to have personalities are Richard, Meredith, and Oliver. Richard is the true villain of this novel and an enfant terrible. He is abusive to all his classmates, grabbing them hard enough to bruise in practice, randomly starting brawls, and hurling insults at everyone. This is supposedly a tight-knit group of friends, and it seems strange that he would be this violent for four years without any repercussions. If his behavior has escalated, there is no cause ever given for what has sparked it. He's just mean, and cruel, and awful for no reason.

And yet...and yet I enjoyed it, listened to the audiobook at every opportunity and finished it in two days. Even with its missteps, it is still superior to many a thriller I've read. Like Glee, it may be ridiculous, but it is an enjoyable sort of ridiculousness. ...more

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