Reviews with content warning for Stalking - Vicious

GREAT book! Kept me on my toes the whole time, and the predictable ending was made interesting by all the pieces that needed to fit before I got there. My only critique is that the different POVs all seemed to have the same voice. As I listened to the audiobook, I sometimes had to rewind to remember who was narrating that part of the story.

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aggrano's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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egg_apologist's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Fascinating concept, interesting characters to go along with it, but not particularly well executed in my opinion. The book is clearly trying very hard to be a character-driven novel, but I am unconvinced that it succeeded. The chapters are so incredibly short, which has the fun and interesting effect of making the plot feel like a countdown toward the inevitable showdown of the two main characters—Victor and Eli. This made the book very fast-paced and delightfully suspenseful, but it also had the added effect of forcing the narration to cut down severely on both the descriptions of characters/settings AND the amount of dialogue present in each chapter, which resulted in the novel doing a lot of “telling” about the characters, rather than “showing.”

In order to keep the chapters short so that the novel could move the plot along quickly, we (the audience) get very few scenes showcasing what any of the characters (main- or side-) were like before they became ExtraOrdinary individuals (EOs, for short). For example, instead of showing us how close Victor and Eli used to be before their inevitable falling-out (something that would’ve enriched their personalities pre-EO life and fleshed out their characters a lot more), we are given only the shortest glimpse into their lives together in college. We’re shown barely anything at all of their lives before they both decided to become EOs. The flashback scenes pretty much jump straight into showing how those two became EOs, and then their subsequent falling-out in the aftermath. Therefore, we don’t really see much of what they were like together before they fell out with each other; the audience is forced to simply trust that (at least on some level) those two used be friends. Since we don’t get to see much of how close they used to be, their falling out with each other (and therefore their “showdown” that the plot is pushing us towards) doesn’t end up having the same emotional impact that it would’ve had if we’d truly witnessed how close they had been in the past. Not including enough scenes showcasing their backstories also ended up making all of the characters feel just a little bit flat overall.

It is also hinted at (but never outright confirmed) that

transforming into an EO might, perhaps, lessen a character’s empathy towards other humans. This had so much potential to be a fascinating bit of lore, but once again, the audience is given so few glimpses into what Victor, Eli, or any of the other EOs were like before they became EOs, so there simply isn’t enough data for the audience to make a hypothesis one way or another about whether or not this is supposed to be true, or if it’s actually a falsehood that certain characters simply choose to believe. What’s worse, the few-and-far-between glimpses that we are given of their lives before they were all EOs don’t show the characters as necessarily being all that different in their pre-EO lives as they are shown to be in their lives as EOs. Occasionally, certain characters will insist to us that the EOs are behaving differently (i.e., the narrative “tells” us that they are now different), but we are never shown any corroborating evidence (that is, we aren’t shown very many (if any) scenes of what they were like before), so we just have to choose whether or not we want to take those particular characters’ word for it.

It could very well be the case that this lack of evidence to corroborate those claims was actually intentional—maybe it was a sort of way to entice the audience to read the next book in the series so that they can find out whether that particular bit of speculation is true. But regardless of what the intention was, the effect was that, since the narrative had already done so much telling rather than showing when it came to the characters’ personalities and backstories anyway, this lore-drop just ended up feeling like yet another thing that the narrative chose to tell rather than show.

To be honest, I feel bad giving this book such a low rating because I truly felt like it had so much potential. But I really do think that the choosing to prioritize creating suspense in the plot (i.e., choosing to keep all of the chapters incredibly short and fast-paced) over prioritizing fleshing out the characters’ backstories (i.e, writing longer chapters in order to “show” the audience more about the characters rather than just “telling”) is a HUGE mistake if the aim is to write a character-driven story. It would’ve been a genius move for a plot-driven narrative, but in a character-driven narrative, that decision only served to undermine the amount of time needed to write characters that are truly three-dimensional. This book was overall a little disappointing, but since it is the first in a series, I’m still willing to give the series as a whole the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully, this issue of writing a character driven story that doesn’t actually quite succeed in fleshing out characters enough gets improved upon as the series continues.

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chasinggrace's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I think my issue with this book is that it features men 😭 I just found that I could NOT get myself attached to Vic, Eli, or Mitch (until the end), and I only gave a shit about Serena and Sydney (barely). But Serena is literally 12 so I could only relate to her so much.

You’ve got a closeted bisexual narcissist who you’re supposed to like bc he doesn’t kill people, but he was shitty BEFORE he became an EO. Then you’ve got a Christian with a God complex who kills people out of “duty.” I don’t like Eli at all but I just couldn’t get attached to Victor either.

I liked the concept and I thought the writing was good, but this didn’t hit for me the way it hit for other people. I will say - it does read like a Marvel comic, which was fun.

I’ll read the next one, but I wasn’t obsessed with this.

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rtherese's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Amazing Perfect. 12/10. I’m naming my kids Victor, Eliot, and Sydney

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foggyoblio's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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se_wigget's review against another edition

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So... er... characters don't have to be likeable.

I appreciate the craft in the writing of this book. It must have been quite challenging. But the subject matter is seriously cringey.

After I began reading this book, its popularity puzzled me. I certainly enjoy other books by V. S. Schwab. Maybe this is my "I'm an empath and an asshole magnet" perspective... or my "I dumped a narcissistic sociopath a few months before another narcissistic sociopath began squatting In the White House and continued doing so for four years" perspective. Maybe it's a generational thing--I'm Generation X, not a millenial. But yeah, this book hit my aversion buttons. After reading a little bit, I set it aside for months.

I dislike Eli even more than Victor, probably because I didn't escape the Midwest because I enjoy the company of smug and self-righteous, Goddess-rejecting, monotheist hypocrites. Eli is a smug and self-righteous, Goddess-rejecting, monotheist hypocrite, psychopath, and murderer.

Well... Sydney and Mitch aren't psychopaths. I like them.

“Aren’t all those records classified?” asked Sydney. Mitch beamed and flicked open his laptop, settling in at the counter.

“Mitchell,” said Victor. “Tell Sydney what you were in prison for.”

“Hacking,” he said cheerfully (p. 163).

Page 186: This scene strikes me as potentially triggering: a psychopath following a female student around on campus... because he wants to kill her... and does. It reminded me of the recent incident in London, when a cop murdered a young woman. A more extreme version of everyday experience for women.

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