Bookish Thoughts

VE Schwab is a master story-teller. Her books are always fun and twisty and unexpected. Everyone in this book was a monster in one way or another. I barely knew who to root for. But I loved reading about all of them and the havoc they wreaked. The sequel to Vicious once again has Victor and Eli locked in competition, but with a few new twists. Eli is trapped in a prison cell reminiscent of Magneto's in the X-Men movies. Victor is slowly dying from his power and looking for a cure. And there's a new EO on the scene: Marcella. She starts out seeking revenge on her husband for killing her, then decides to take over his position in the local crime syndicate before her insatiable ambition has her climbing ever higher. Everyone wants to stop her, but everyone has their own idea about how to do it. This book also introduces June, a shape shifter assassin who comes to care about Sydney and is trying to extract her from Victor's influence, which is a whole lot harder than it sounds....

Vicious is a classic superhero origin story. Victor and Eli were college roommates who discovered how to give themselves super powers. Then they had a falling out. And ten years later they're circling back towards each other for an epic confrontation. The only thing this super hero story is missing is a superhero. Because Victor and Eli are both very much villains. It's a fun twist that lets the story go to some dark and outlandish places. Since Victor and Eli both have such skewed moral compasses, they're both capable of some pretty outlandish things. And since both believes that the other one is much worse, they're determined to come out on top. The jumping timelines and complete cast of morally compromised characters made this a really fun read.