Book Review: Vicious by Victoria Schwab

Vicious by Victoria Schwab

Genre: Superheroes, Science Fiction

Publisher: Tor

Publication Date: September 2013

Author Info: www.victoriaschwab.com

Wendy's Rating: 4 of 5 stars

The way Schwab weaves the story and characters together is spellbinding, especially as she moves between the past and the present to paint a picture of Eli and Victor and their relationship.

Victor and Eli are young, brilliant college students on the edge of sociopathy, though Eli better hides his darker self behind a charming mask. In fact, it is the mask that attracted Victor to Eli in the first place, glimpsing the kindred spirit hiding behind the outward persona. The sneaking darkness is enough for Victor to overlook Eli’s irrational belief in God, especially when the two decide to play God in order to learn the mystery of E.O.s – Extraordinary human beings. E.O.s tend to keep to themselves, and the police and government do their best to keep their existence under wraps, but enough information has leaked out to spark Eli and Victor’s scientific interest.

Vicious references comic book super heroes and villains from time to time, while injecting some science and psychology that results in a pithy explanation of how superhumans are created. Once this is established and Eli and Victor succeed in turning themselves into E.O.s, the back and forth, past and present plot really takes off as the two former best friends go after each other with murderous intent.

It took me a while to warm up to the main character of Victor, from whose perspective the majority of the story is told. He is not meant to be a likable person, much less a likable character, and initially, I felt like Schwab was trying too hard to give us another empathy-free killer along the lines of Dexter Morgan. But as the story progresses, a lot of preconceptions slowly mutate into something else, particularly when Victor is joined by Mitch, his former cellmate in prison, and Sydney, a young E.O. they stumble across in their journey to find Eli.

The way Schwab weaves the story and characters together is spellbinding, especially as she moves between the past and the present to paint a picture of Eli and Victor and their relationship. We quickly come to understand the reason why they now hate each other so entirely, but their motivations are what Schwab teases through her thrilling back and forth storytelling process. The inevitable showdown between the two former friends is not at all predictable, as Schwab carefully introduces new elements all throughout the story that fit together like a perfectly crafted puzzle. Or rather, I should say that the final showdown is to be expected, but it becomes a race against chapters and time to find out exactly how it will all come together – and for whom it will all come together.

February's Book Club Read: Vicious by V.E. Schwabb

LeVar's Rainbow Book Club members perused the top 2013 reader's choice fantasy books on Goodreads and settled on this book for the month of February.

Vicious by V.E. Schwabb

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?

In Vicious, V. E. Schwab brings to life a gritty comic-book-style world in vivid prose: a world where gaining superpowers doesn’t automatically lead to heroism, and a time when allegiances are called into question.

Book Review: Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

 

Genre: Paranormal Fantasy  

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Tor

Date of Publication: September 24, 2013

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Mogsy's Rating: 4 of 5 stars - "Unique and addictive story, complete with complex character relationships and a dark spin on the superhero concept"

 

Superhero fiction seems to be full of fresh and fun ideas these days, and Vicious is no exception, taking a familiar idea and going to new places with it. There was a huge surge of interest in this book among my bookworm friends recently, which is admittedly how I decided to give this title another look after having shelved it as a "maybe". What a wonderful thing word-of-mouth is, or else I wouldn't have had the pleasure of reading this great novel, and I hope by adding my praises to the chorus that someone else will be inspired to pick this up too and experience the awesomeness for themselves.

At its heart, Vicious is a fascinating look into the dynamics of an unconventional friendship. Still, you can't throw a couple of intelligent, ambitious and overachieving college students into the same classroom without expecting some jealousy and a bit of friendly competition...that is, unless you're Victor and Eli, a pair of roommates who take this game to a whole other level.

It begins with a senior thesis. Eli, to the surprise of his professor and fellow classmates, chooses to research "EOs", or ExtraOrdinary humans with special abilities. Meanwhile, Victor decides to explore adrenaline responses. The two young men realize their interests mesh, however, when they discover a link between near-death experiences and the process of a person developing superpowers thus becoming an EO. And so, speculation leads to experimentation, experimentation leads to disaster, and ten years later we find Victor breaking out of prison on a mission of revenge to kill his one time roommate and friend.

What ever did happen between them, you ask? The book unravels that mystery slowly, alternating between the present and the past, slowly revealing the events that led to Victor and Eli's falling out and becoming archenemies. Time skips done in this way are notoriously hard to pull off, and at times the jumps between chapters feel somewhat distracting and sporadic, but ultimately the story comes together in a way that ramps up the suspense in the climax and ending. The plot's pacing will keep you constantly wondering, guessing, and chomping through the pages.

It's also been a while since I read a book with such interesting relationships between the characters. I think anyone who has ever known a "frenemy" can understand or relate somewhat; Schwab does an excellent job exploring those emotions and interactions when Victor and Eli are still roommates in college. Yet the relationship between them in ten years' time is something altogether different and even more complex. I've never encountered a story where the lines between "hero" and "villain" are more blurred. You know how they say the bad guy never believes they're bad? Ultimately you might not even decide to root for anyone, but that certainly doesn't make the characters any less compelling.

Finally, I adored Vicious' concept of EOs. What a dark spin on the superhero "origins" tradition. And here we thought radioactive spider bites, random chemical accidents and cosmic disasters were traumatic. What if in order to become a superhero, you had to experience a near-death experience, to actually die and somehow make it back? I would have loved to see more about EOs in the context of the book's greater world; after all, they have to be more than just a myth in the eyes of the populace if even small town police forces dedicate the resources and manpower to maintain EO experts on staff. 

Anyway, check this one out. I'm glad it was recommended to me, and I'd like to pay it forward and recommend it to others too. Vicious ranks high among the most unique and addictive books I've ever read.

4 of 5 stars