Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - If We Were Villains

Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

246 reviews

jwells's review

dark emotional mysterious tense

Very similar book to The Secret History. I'm starting to wonder if this is a subgenre now, but my usual rule is that I need to find at least three books before I call something a subgenre. LOL

It's not the thriller aspects that I enjoy (the suspense, the murder, etc.), as much as the academic fantasy world. This one is, if anything, even better than the fantasy world of The Secret History, because it's slightly more convincing. It stretched credibility a little too far to have the 20-somethings fluently chatting in ancient Greek, but... we could have memorized all of Shakespeare by 22, couldn't we? And we could have had a college clique that also did, and constantly threw out perfectly apropos quotes from his plays, instead of a the actual friend group we had, who constantly threw out the same few quotes from The Princess Bride and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Okay, no, it's just as far-fetched. It's funny how many books are like this. A lot of people who went to college still have a fantasy about how college should have been. See also Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. There's something kind of sad about it. An author builds this fantasy world about incredibly smart people who are unreasonably dedicated to the liberal arts at an unreasonably young age, and who form a sweet little found family to support each other's fascination. And then said author feels compelled to demonstrate the unhealthiness of the clique, by having them freaking murder someone. Because, no one who loves [Greek, Shakespeare, whatever] that much, at the age of 20, could possibly be a psychologically healthy person? I guess?

It's like a brief fantasy of what it would be like to love something as much as you wanted, and still have friends, a place to fit in , people who understand you. And then it's followed by: "Don't worry! I know That's Not Normal!! I'm not really one of those Obsessive Nerds!! See, I get that they are weirdos, I'll write them an awful, tragic ending, because Those Pretentious People come to bad ends!"

sigh

Content Warnings

graceyshell's review

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

The “twist” at the end was neither suspenseful or moving. It really tainted my experience of the book with the emotionless ending.

Content Warnings

nicoleanthony's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

5.0

Content Warnings

graceclawson's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.75

Okay. So we have the Secret History but instead of the Classics, we have a bunch of theater kids who can quote Shakespeare better than any twenty-one year old would ever be able to. I thought the plot and the writing were good, but if you took out all of the quoted Shakespeare half the book would be missing.

Content Warnings