Review | Vicious

The Book: Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Date Published: September 24, 2013

Date Read: January 13, 2019

Current Goodreads Rating: 4.28/5

So I spent 12 hours traveling yesterday and, like any bookworm would do, I lugged around three books and a laptop around three different airports because I would be damned if I didn't have something to do that would also keep me from being forced to interact with others.

The book I picked up first as soon as I sat down in the first gate in my first airport to wait for an hour to board was this book, Vicious. Its written by V.E. Schwab (remember her? She wrote the Shades of Magic series which I also reviewed on this blog. You can find that post here) so I expected it to be amazing and I was not disappointed.

As someone who wanted to be an author when she was growing up and someone who still wants to do something with publishing books in some capacity I just have to say, I have no idea how Schwab's mind works. She has written several extremely successful book series for both young adults and old adults and all of these series are so different. You all remember my breakdown of Shades of Magic so you all remember how unique the storyline was. There were four Londons and each had its own unique magical powers. Each London was original and vibrant and so were Schwab's characters.

Vicious has a similar feel, but instead of magical places Schwab focuses on people with extraordinary abilities or, as she calls them, EOs. ExtraOrdinarys. The book itself is told in bits and pieces out of order, but focuses mainly on two people: Victor Vale and Eliot "Eli" Cardale. After both men survive NDEs (Near Death Experiences) they both find they have extraordinary abilities, but a tragedy tears the two boys apart and they become archenemies, each vowing to destroy the other.

In a time when we are saturated with superhero movies, TV shows, and comic books this superhero-esque novel is a breath of fresh air. In my opinion Vicious was Schwab's love story to those superhero origin stories, except told from a more down to earth lens. I mean really, think about it. Spiderman is bitten by a radioactive spider, gets crazy powers, and people call him a hero. They don't find it weird that this masked persona is swinging around the city, slinging webs wherever he feels like it, and he also wants to be called Spiderman? Vicious kind of takes that idea and runs with it. Ok, you survive a Near Death Experience and, when you wake up afterwards you find that you can heal yourself, turn your pain off and on like a switch, or even wake the dead. How do you react to that change? How do your friends? How does the public once the news has gotten out? It may not be that storybook finish that we have gotten used to thanks to The Avengers (though, granted, Infinity War was a gut punch).

Schwab also does a great job at painting the entire book in shades of gray. Eli and Victor were once friends, rooming together at their prestigious college. They studied medicine together and, using their smart brains they were able to figure out how to create an EO before taking the plunge together to become EOs themselves. But, as Uncle Ben once wisely stated:

"With great power comes great responsibility."

However, once you think you've figured out which one is the hero and which one is the villain, both characters do or think something that changes that perception. I think this book, packed with action and some crazy sci-fi, shares a great message that the world isn't purely split into good and bad people, but good people who do bad some times and bad people who do good sometimes. And Nazis, because no matter who you are, if you are a Nazi you are a bad person. Like seriously the worst.

Schwab comments on this idea as well in a passage in Vicious and its really thanks to this quote that Vicious has stuck in my head as much as it has. She writes,

"But these words people threw around -- humans, monsters, heroes, villains -- to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human"

I started this book at around one o'clock in the afternoon in the Phoenix airport and finished it at eleven o'clock in the evening flying over Kansas because I could not put this book down and, to make everything even better, the second book in the series was recently released in late 2018. Don't worry, I've already requested it at my local library.

Long Story Short:

• V.E. Schwab might be one of my favorite authors now.

• "The world isn't split up between good people and Death Eaters" -Sirius Black

• How is this book not a movie or a limited series on HBO or something?

My Rating: 5/5