Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: V.E. Schwab
Genres: Science Fiction
Pub date: Sep. 2018 (read Nov. 2018)
Series: Villains #2

I didn’t think it was possible, but Vengeful is like 5 times nastier than Vicious! Our favourite characters are back, along with some new ones, and they are out for vengeance. This book had an interesting dynamic in that I would say the new characters were actually more interesting than the existing characters. Vicious explores that line between good and evil and whether your intent impacts the morality of your actions. It became very clear in Vicious that both Victor and Eli were bad people. They make really bad decisions, resulting in horrific consequences, and they don’t even feel bad for it. Eli is driven by his belief that EO’s are inherently wrong and that it is his duty to remove them to protect innocents. In contrast, Victor is motivated to get rid of Eli to protect EO’s, but also for his own personal form of revenge. Both are dangerous men who commit evil deeds, but somehow Schwab still gets you to care about them.

Vengeful introduces two new main characters, Marcella and June. June is really interesting because she is a but of a mystery and we don’t even really know what her motivations are, yet we still cheer for her despite all the bad things she does. Marcella is more straightforward and makes for a deliciously evil character. She is straight up driven by selfish motivations, yet they are born out of a lifetime of being a woman and being constantly pushed to the side. Power has always belonged to men and they don’t want to give it up, but when Marcella gains some truly horrifying abilities, she is finally poised to take power for herself. Her intent and her actions are evil and you know she really does need to be taken out, yet a part of you still really wants to see her succeed in her bid for power. To finally take what has been denied to her gender for so long.

So I was really into the new characters and how Schwab constantly makes you evaluate your feelings for these characters. Victor kills so many people in this book to protect his anonymity that it became hard to see the good in him, whereas Eli’s experience in EON is so horrible that I really wanted him to escape, despite how dangerous I know him to be. I also liked Sydney’s development in this book. She struggles with the realities of her sister’s death and clings to a hope that she might one day be able to bring her back. She’s a growing girl stuck living with two grown men, and she’s stuck in a body that no longer reflects how she feels on the inside. I love Sidney’s relationship with Mitch and I loved him just as much in this book as I did in Vicious, but I felt he could have been developed a little bit more.

Overall though, I don’t think this was quite as strong as Vicious and I do have some criticisms. I thought the disjointed structure worked well in the last book, but this book was so long (too long), that I don’t think it worked as well in this one. Vicious really only switched between the present and 10 years ago, whereas Vengeful had a running 5 years of plot that it was constantly moving between. it got a bit confusing and it took pretty much the entire book for the plot to finally reach present day, which I found frustrating. Overall I didn’t think the plotting was as strong. Honestly, Victor’s story was extremely repetitive and I didn’t feel invested in it at all, plus it never really had a conclusion. Eli’s storyline was stronger, but overall I don’t think Victor and Eli carried this book. It was really carried by the other characters.

Mostly I just wasn’t sure what the plot was. We never really know what Marcella is plotting and it took a long time to finally figure out where the story was going. Victor’s entire story felt like the beginning of a story arc. Like I kept waiting for him to figure shit out so that the story could move on, but it just never happened and I felt like he didn’t really have a story arc at all. So overall, I thought the characterization and themes were really strong, but something about the plotting just seemed lacking. I still really liked it and the conclusion was pretty open-ended, so you never know, we might be getting a third book out of this.