A review by zhakoreading
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

Did not finish book. Stopped at 40%.

as if she were a statue, a sculpture, something shaped a thousand years ago in the likeness of a pagan deity.

The grounds were soaked in sunlight, the lake rippling gently at the touch of a breeze.

A blatant rip-off of “The secret history”, but less classy and way more blunt. 

Flat, boring characters, childish dialogues, endless sexualization of the female characters, boring overall, obvious and childish, childish, childish.

I genuinely think the author wasn’t mature enough to understand how to write engaging character dynamics and flash them out in dialogues properly. 

Richard was mad. He was bruising the actors on set. Okay.
But the characters reacted as if he was murdering someone.

Richard didn’t get the role he wanted.
That’s why he is fighting James in the water.

The stakes weren’t high enough for such melodramatic scenes. Especially in that kind of setting.

They quote Shakespeare, but think of fights, sex and booze. I felt like I was reading teenager’s fantasy of college life after choosing acting major.

Overall- lacks depth and actual meaning.

I, however, enjoyed the writing and the setting. The idea is not my favorite, but it was clearly stolen from “TSH” so it doesn’t really matter.

!SPOILERS!

Read the spoilers and laughed out loud.

You can clearly tell James is gonna be the dead one by the end of the story. How so? He’s nice. He’s just nice. That’s it.

BORING.

———

They left Richard to die, saying he deserved it. What??? Is that even tiny bit logical???

To be fair, I did not enjoy TSH that much either. However, what was happening in the book did have logic. And the actions of the characters fit their personalities, unlike here.

—-
Oliver giving up freedom for James? Boring.

James being alive? Fucking hilarious.