if we were villains
by m.l. rio
★★★★☆
dates read: 12/12/22 - 12/13/22
"Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail - for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago.
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless."
in search of another book that resembled the secret history, i decided to read if we were villains.
while i ended up not liking if we were villains as much as the secret history, i think that rio does a great job incorporating facets of the dark academia genre.
but with that being said, there are a couple things about this book that i disliked.
the first is oliver’s inhumane and insensitive reaction to his sister’s eating disorder. perhaps it was to make him not as “nice” as everyone thought he was, but it felt extremely out of place. if rio wanted to construct an estranged relationship between brother and sister it didn’t have to be through him being a complete jerk about her eating disorder. it was unnecesary.
the second is more of a personal opinion, but i don't like reading shakespeare. i understand that this plot essentially mimicked a shakespearian tragedy, but the way it is so heavily integrated into the basic dialogue and text is excruciating to get through. i found myself skipping over the text every time i saw italics. while i understand that the characters reciting lines of shakespeare is meant to illustrate just how pretentious and elitist the cast of characters are, but it felt overdone. if going to college to study and perform shakespeare does not already scream pretentious then i don't know what else does. personally, i didn't think there needed to be a line of shakespeare recited during every piece of dialogue.
the third is that there were either too many characters in the book or the book is too short. i wanted to learn more about richard and if he’d always been that way and if not, what caused him to change. i also would have wanted to read more about wren, filippa, and alexander. unfortunately, there just wasn't enough time to explore all of the characters involved in what happened to the extent i would have preferred.
with that being said, there are things i definitely enjoyed. despite thinking they’re not all necessary, each character had their own unique personalities. i've often found that with a big cast of characters they can sometimes blend into each other and feel like replicas of the same person. luckily, rio didn't have that problem. in addition to the characters, their differing dynamics was also captivating. getting to see how their friend group functioned before and after such tragedy only made me more invested in how the book would end.
if we were villains was really entertaining. the mystery was intriguing and persistent enough to carry me all the way towards the end without dragging. just get ready to read a lot of shakespeare!