Vengeful

Book Title: Vengeful

Author: V.E. Schwab

Series: Villains #2

Date Started: February 19th 2019

Date Completed: March 1st 2019

Genres: Fantasy/Sci-Fi, Action, Thriller

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Stars

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

Vengeful was fun, but it was confused. I ended up enjoying it more from nostalgia than the actual story, which is disappointing honestly. I love Schwab's stories and writing but I haven't had the best of luck with them recently.

Yay girl power, I guess. But for all the emphasis on strong female characters, they don't really do anything in the end. The battle is still fought and won elsewhere (something I'll get to in a moment). There are definitely glimmers of pure strength from the women, moments where they each make an assertive, active choice that is a challenge for them. And while, yeah, Marcella is a badass, she's kind of a token centrepiece that is eventually pushed to the side - which is damn ironic considering her whole characterisation.

Where Vengeful lost me was when it decided not to be true to its own story. Is it Marcella's story? Because it feels like it's trying to be. You can feel the enthusiasm radiating off the words in her chapters, and she's a very interesting character. So then why is the climax not hers? Why is the arc and resolution of the whole novel separate? Because it isn't her story, really. It's still Victor's. Which is fine, but not when you steer away and confuse the narrative from it in the middle 300 pages because it's not moving yet - and especially not when you let us get attached to Marcella in those pages, only to leave her to dwindle in the actual conflict.

To me, it felt like it wanted to tell something new, but couldn't let go of old characters. I wonder if maybe not having Victor and Co. in until maybe halfway through when they actually become a part of Marcella's story would have been more compelling. (That seems to be how it's being marketed, I mean she's on the damn cover, she's the prologue of the novel, she described three times as many times as anyone else). You'd have the audience on their seats waiting for him to appear too. But that wouldn't work with the current story because it's not Marcella's story at all, it's Victor's. I think we're just misled somewhere in the middle about that.

What was nice was getting to learn about all the characters in more depth. People like Mitch, Dominic, people that we know from the first book but were only really sidekicks. Although, unfortunately, it didn't really need to be there. In fact, at the end of my edition of the book there's a short novella following Rios, and it could have been literally lifted from the first half of this book which consists almost exclusively of additional exposition. Like I said, interesting, but not a part of this story. And considering its nearly 600 pages, it really isn't necessary and convolutes the story even more.

I loved Vicious, so I'd definitely recommend everyone read it. Whether you continue on to Vengeful is your own choice, because I don't really know what to advise. I think I would've preferred to leave Vicious as a stand-alone story, but I can see other people liking the chance to see the universe expanded enough that they'll let go of its flaws.