Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - Vengeful

The sheer breadth of this book is very impressive. There are so many moving parts and ve schwab manages to weave them together so intricately. That being said, because there are so many moving parts, there are still some loose threads that I desperately want to pull. I’m not sure if there will ever be another book, but I want one!!!! Part of the reason that these books are so compelling is because they have a very Batman-villainesque feeling to them and there’s not really a hero to hang your hopes on, so you have to decide which of your morals you will set aside as you choose who to root for.

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donatio's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-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? No

5.0

This was just as intriguing as Vicious.
The multiple POVs, the new characters, the writing, the plot... just brilliant.

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alexandrabelze's review against another edition

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mysterious tense 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? No

3.25

i have so many issues with this book idek where to start. i actually enjoyed the first one and got so excited for this one (especially after reading marcella’s intro chapters), but this was just disappointing. victoria tried to fit WAY too many storylines and new characters into this book. and it doesn’t help her case that her storytelling was, at times, extremely messy. on top of that, the structure of these books did not help that issue at all. i also could not vibe with june’s character. which is disappointing bc her power is cool. anyways i’m about to go off in the spoiler <3

first of all, i expected that when sydney found out that victor was the one who killed serena it would be more dramatic? maybe a little tense? but instead i was let down and we moved on almost immediately. like hello??? next, and i hate to say this, i think dol should have stayed dead this time. i’m glad victoria kept him for a majority of the story, but it would’ve felt more complete to add him to the final deaths. and it would’ve built up sydney’s character. speaking of building her character, WHY did we go through ALL of that with the dead birds just for sydney to decide in ONE PARAGRAPH that she did not want to revive serena?? i honestly would’ve preferred she tried it and failed. finally, eli’s death was boring. i was expecting an insane emotional battle between him and victor that ended in something so dramatic and lowkey sensual, but instead he just…died. like that was next level disappointing.

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lauraeerika's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

there was no reason for this book to be so fucking long & messy at the same time!?
where was the editor?
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everything else in this book chef’s kiss, i just couldn’t care less about the constant pov change’s, im still thinking why did stell have a pov?
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the thing is i love v.e.schwab’s writing but to me there was so much going on that everything that we were supposed care about kind of were swept under the rug of the action and by the end of it, i was just so confused
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don’t know if i’ll read the third book (i kind of consider vicious now a standalone in my mind)

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