Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

66 reviews

mellowreading's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Give me dark, tragic, gay academia and I’ll give anything 5 stars. The ending. I don’t know how to feel 😭 also making Fillipa date the Professor was so random and unnecessary. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Suicide, and Murder

Moderate: Infidelity, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Bullying, Drug use, and Alcohol

Minor: Homophobia

sydneylmeyer7's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful 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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug abuse, Infidelity, Murder, Drug use, Addiction, Death, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, and Violence

bootsmom3's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Addiction, Alcohol, Cursing, Drug use, Sexual content, Suicide, Death, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Violence, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Infidelity, Misogyny, Murder, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Vomit, Bullying, Outing, Blood, Eating disorder, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Biphobia

rinku's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

2.0

If We Were Villains makes me wonder once more if dark academia is maybe just not my genre. Just like with other books, the characters were so tiresome with their pretentiousness and overacting over small things. Additionally, the internalized misogyny annoyed me a lot, and I just don’t care for Shakespeare lol. 

I don’t have too much to say about the story since the book felt more character-driven to me, but I didn’t really like the little plot we had. The story follows Oliver, an acting student, who’s part of an acting class where new tensions between the students arise. The acting scenes were probably my favorite part of the novel. Richard was also a great antagonist since he was really creepy. 

But I had my problems with the writing itself. The cheap foreshadowing annoyed me just like the fact that some interesting things about the story are just told, like Oliver’s application. The pacing felt a bit off to since, for example, the premiere of the play happened a bit too fast. After the murder, it got more interesting, especially seeing how they tried to hide it. Sadly, it was quite predictable who the murderer was, just like it was predictable that

Spoiler

Oliver would sacrifice himself for James

. 

Another thing I noticed in every dark academia book yet is depicting an unhealthy relationship towards studying. Characters risk their (mental) health for their studies and teachers bullying students is justified to get them ahead. I don’t know, things like these always feels a bit neoliberal to me. 

One of the biggest problems I had with the story was with the characters. We’re introduced to a main cast of seven characters at the beginning and most of them are really flat or don’t even have any character trait, especially the women, making them feel interchangeable. For example, Alexander’s traits are that he’s gay and a drug addict. But there’s one trait they share: They’re really pretentious, I see where The Atlas Six got its inspiration from. Everyone’s overacting at the smallest things. I was furthermore annoyed how the characters drink and take drugs all the time just to show how edgy they are. 

Other reviewers said that before, but it’s unbelievable that this book is written by a woman since the female characters are written so badly. Meredith is always reduced to her looks, no matter the scene. Oliver is always staring at her, claiming that it’s some biological urge(??), that’s a really weird thing to say. Additionally, he says that “we all have called her a slut before”, which made me uncomfortable as well. I don’t know anything about her as a person, just like with the two other female characters of the group. In general, I noticed quite a lot of internalized misogyny, saying that women always gossip and stuff like his. Besides them, the other study fields are also depicted in such a cliché way that it feels like only the aesthetic and vibes matter. 

And how is this book tagged as “queer” and “lgbt”? The representation is atrocious with the only (canon?) queer character being promiscuous and threatening to rape his male friends as a joke, wtf. Without saying too much, the other reps felt just like queerbaiting to me if I’m honest because their “romance” (?) is going nowhere.  

If We Were Villains shows me again that Goodreads can’t be trusted lol. Neither the 4.2-star rating nor the queer tags are justified for this book. I guess I’ll have to read <i>The Secret History</i> one day to find out if at least the origins of dark academia are enjoyable. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Blood, Violence, Addiction, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Death, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Suicide, Homophobia, Infidelity, Murder, and Sexual content

Minor: Eating disorder and Vomit

jelliestars's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Violence, Death, Physical abuse, and Blood

Moderate: Bullying, Eating disorder, Alcohol, Addiction, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Drug abuse, Grief, Infidelity, and Drug use

Minor: Suicide, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual violence, Cursing, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Vomit, and Sexual harassment

wytherwytch's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I enjoyed this book but not quite as a compelling read as I thought it might be. Still though a good read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Grief, Suicide, Murder, Toxic relationship, Death, Domestic abuse, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Addiction, Drug use, and Drug abuse

Minor: Alcohol, Panic attacks/disorders, Vomit, Eating disorder, Gore, Sexual content, and Infidelity

peonydancer's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.75

I was a little disappointed by the book, in that I had rather big expectations of it. I did, however, love the intertextuality of Shakespeare's works and the book. But I reckon it's a little far-fetched to call this a 'gay romance' - more than that, it's 'toxic entanglement'. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Death, Addiction, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, and Blood

julee_melii's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, and Death

Moderate: Grief, Drug use, Infidelity, Drug abuse, and Eating disorder

Minor: Vomit and Suicide

teaofleaves's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Drug abuse, Drug use, Suicide, Infidelity, and Mental illness

Minor: Eating disorder

anoushka05's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative 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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, Toxic friendship, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Death

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Homophobia, Mental illness, Suicide, and Infidelity