Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

82 reviews

katerina_l's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Murder, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

strawberrytheauthor's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This book was so good! Go into it knowing nothing! Just go read it! I’m literalLu screamed at the last line and at least 12 others in the book. It’s just so so so so so so good!!!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing

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

haveyouseencass's review

dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug use, Emotional abuse, and Alcohol

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

aetherisreading's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Drug use, Gun violence, and Alcohol

Minor: Animal death

cowardlyteaman's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This is without a doubt my favourite read of the year.
Fucking hell, this was a WILD RIDE.

I love every single one of the characters, and I love the way this book kept me hooked 100% of the while.

Even though Victor is «edgy» in a way, it just makes sense for him in such a good and logical way. I'm not annoyed or icked by it, I just like his character.
Loving the way Mitch's character is built up, too, and of course Sydney.

I especially loved Eli and Serena as villains, too. Nothing I love more than a sexy and crazed religious man and a fem-dom.

For a while, I was conflicted on what I thought about people being revived. However, I don't think it matters here? In all other media, it seriously bothers me, but in this book in particular, who lives and who dies isn't really what keeps you on edge, it's how the characters' relationships with each other develops. I absolutely love the dynamic between each and every character, I CANNOT stress any more how much I LOVED reading this.

Ditched Norwegian, maths, and economics class for this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Gaslighting

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Stalking, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

ahpets's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

vvayl's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

You all don’t understand how much I love books about morality especially were the characters could eased be villains or heroes if we see thinks white and black, but thinks are never like that.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed the book, but I’m not sure if I want to read the second one.
I’m happy with the way things ended.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Racism, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Car accident, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

ellynob25's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Suicide attempt, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail