Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

78 reviews

foggyoblio's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse

Minor: Confinement

abicaro17's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Ok amazing! Schwab does it again! This story of power dynamics and friendship is a powerhouse and i'm glad theres a second book. Victor and Eli are so similar in ways and yet fundamentally different morally. I usually hate multiple pov and third person writing but Schwab does it so well you dont even notice it. I think all the individual storylines were crafted so beautifully and connected so well. I think this just suffers from what every multiple pov book does: a lack of connection to the characters. You feel for them yes, but when the end approached I didn't really care what happened to them, or I knew it would all be ok (either or). Im so excited to read the second installment and I hope its just as good if not better than the first! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

bootrat's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I really enjoyed this book, V.E. Schwab's characters are always so well written and relatable, I love them all. The universe and the powers in this book were really interesting and I loved the way they were explored and developed. The time jumps back and forth were also done really well; it's not always a device that's utilised well in books, and often makes things more confusing, but Schwab used it well to develop the characters and the storyline. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Self harm, Police brutality, and Medical content

Minor: Animal death and Fire/Fire injury

sharkgirl45's review

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Gun violence, Self harm, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

ribbenkast's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

V.E. Schwab strongest writing is when she's writing villans. In vicious all characters are villains.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

There's a sexual relationship between two characters that isn't consensual/the concent is extremely dubious. This is because

one of the characters has mind controling powers which makes everyone do as she says

jeyjeyyy's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

Fun fun fun! Got kind of bored in the beginning of the second half, but I think it’s more on me and my disastrous attention span than the book’s fault. Vicious is action upon action mixed with dark characters and complicated relationships + a very nice found family that I don’t think enough people talk about. Liked it a lot. 
(I did think the ending was a bit rushed though, would’ve liked a longer scene between Eli and Victor since well… the entire book kind of builds up to it) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

lottie1803's review

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Violence, Police brutality, Medical content, and Murder

erebus53's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This is an origin story of supervillains. It tells the story of a couple of guys who were in premed when they started experiments to learn more about near death experiences. I got a vibe like the movie Flatliners(1990) with the level of obsession., and in with that, one of the main characters is called Victor, which is the name of another obsessed young student who fascinated himself with reanimation in a completely different classic novel... I doubt that is more than coincidence. The strangely gifted people are called EOs (extra-ordinaries) and much like Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, or X-Men, Spider-Man, and the NBC series Heroes the book explores what happens when people have impossible powers, and includes the argument about whether this is a physical or spiritual gift; whether it is deliberate and divine, or just a fluke.

The backdrop is clearly superheroic. You have a fictional city called Merit, which is an unremarkable, American town. The main characters have alliterative names, or names or descriptions that have significance to their powers, but from the get-go all the Vs made me feel like this is a lot more like Alan Moore than Stan Lee. For starters the "heros" are sociopathic before they even get started. There is nothing quite normal about these two college room-mates.

The story is tropey enough that it's fairly easy to get a handle on, even though it's told non-chronologically. Entire sections are flashbacks to 10 years ago. There are short memories that are repeated in different chapters.. one of which was long enough that I thought I might have accidentally lost my place and be reading the wrong bit. That was mildly irritating; a phrase can anchor something poetically without an entire callback.. that might work better if it was a movie (montage it, pitch it a little lower, put some echo on or something?) or maybe a graphic novel.. (make it yellowed like old paper.. or throw the colours out like a faded photo with no blue in it..)

The middle part of the story begins to lag a bit. But it picks up a little more as the things start to culminate. I do wish the ending felt a little more planned but it starts to become a little unclear what is going to happen. I do like that the story feels out the edges or limitations of the powers that people have, and explores a little of the synergy you can get when more than one person with a gift is working together. I think it would be marvelous if there were more people with normal strengths rather than uncanny things, but that is still included in the story.

This is a very different story to something like Hench (which is about jobbing for the supervillains), and has some similarity in YA stories like Songbirds and Snakes in which the mindset of the main character is toxic and dangerous. There is some bloody violence and necromancy in this story, so if you don't like dark then this isn't your book.

Clock this one up if you want to do a reading challenge where the hero is a bad guy, and it's set in a City starting with M (yes that's a challenge prompt for the 52 BookClub Chanllenge 2024).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Cursing, Drug use, Suicide, Stalking, and Suicide attempt

stardustvein's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Alcoholism and Medical content

heartsallure's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

you cannot give me a morally grey protagonist and expect me not to eat up every single word !!

genuinely was in a constant state of stress the entire time but i loooooooved this. will always enjoy a ragtag found family trope God Bless

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Moderate: Drug use and Gun violence