Review - Vicious

Vicious

4 1/5 out of 5 Twisted Stars

"ExtraOrdinary. The word that started—ruined, changed—everything."

Ohmygosh, V.E. Schwab has created a really vicious story here. See what I did there? Haha, okay moving on from my lame jokes. Vicious is an intense, disturbing, brutal story. It's like a comic book, but without the pictures. Schwab captures my attention right from the very first sentence of her novel, and keeps me hooked until the very last.

Vicious is novel about two brilliant and arrogant college students who decide to take academic research to the experimental, creating ExtraOrdinary abilities through near-death experiences. However, these experiments go horribly wrong, and results in Victor in prison and Eli carrying out some crusade to eliminate all EOs. This continues until Victor breaks out of prison, ready for revenge.

"All Eli had to do was smile. All Victor had to do was lie. Both proved frighteningly effective."

I need to start off by saying that the logic behind this science works, and it works well. For that, Ms. Schwab, I need to thank you. One thing I can't stand in stories is when things do not make sense logically, but Vicious is not one of those novels, and that is one of the many things I love about it.

Another thing I love about Vicious is the characters. Each one is so fully developed and flushed out, and the detail that Schwab gives them is amazing. Even characters that you may think aren't going to be important, and later become important, are given backstories. The explanation of how they get their powers is great. Third-person point of view is the best way to write this story as it allows the readers to really get to know why each character does what they do.

"The difference between Victor and Eli wasn't their opinion on EOs. It was their reaction to them. Eli seemed intent to slaughter them, but Victor didn't see why a useful skill should be destroyed, just because of its origin. EOs were weapons, yes, but weapons with minds and wills and bodies, things that could be bent and twisted and broken and used."

Speaking of characters and their actions, Eli is the perfect bad guy (even though no one in this story is good). He is completely insane, but wholly believes in what he is doing. He is using religion to justify his own actions and excuse his EO powers. It's scary how realistic this is, how these fanatical actions happen too often. Going through Eli's thought process and being in his head is so disturbing, but it's what helps make Vicious as awesome as it is. Also, I love Victor's quirk of blacking out sentences in books to create his own, and how his power gets developed.

The reason I'm taking away the half-star is because I was able to guess at ending. I was very nervous at parts, and didn't figure out the ending till later in the novel, but I wasn't surprised by final result. That doesn't mean I don't like it, though. Also, there are several unanswered questions that I am curious to solve, which is what the second novel will be for. I'm very excited for what V.E. Schwab has up her sleeve for Vicious #2 (currently not titled) in (hopefully) 2018. That's awhile to go, but I will preorder it the second I can.

"To never dying. To being remembered. Forever."